Data-Driven Decisions is a new limited-series marketing podcast presented by Convince & Convert and shared with our Social Pros listeners.

How did this non-marketing but data-driven leader become a Chief Marketing Officer? Shafqat Islam, the CMO of Optimizely, joins this episode of Data-Driven Decisions to share how he’s leading Optimizely’s marketing team into building a culture of data and experimentation.

Let the Data Do the Talking

In this episode of Data-Driven Decisions, we dive deep into the world of marketing data, measurable targets, personalization and customer-centric marketing.

Shafqat shares invaluable insights on how to approach personalization strategically, emphasizing the value of starting simple and scaling up gradually. He discusses the challenges of content creation for personalized experiences and offers practical advice on leveraging AI to find patterns in customer feedback from support tickets and sales calls.

We also explore the critical role of experimentation and testing when it comes to new marketing ideas, and why Optimizely considers experimentation part of its culture. Shafqat explains why it’s so important for marketers to have a rock-solid understanding of the typical customer journey and why this should be documented and measurable.

In This Episode:

• 0:37 - How Shafqat ended up in his role
• 2:36 - Why Shafqat wanted to build a more data-driven culture
• 4:58 - How this approach affects the marketing team
• 7:07 - The importance of experimenting with new ideas
• 8:28 - Optimizely’s approach to experimentation
• 12:33 - Why personalization is still a huge topic for marketers
• 15:22 - Finding a balanced and realistic idea of personalization
• 18:20 - How Optimizely helps its clients use their own data to make decisions
• 20:54 - Why all marketers need to map out the typical customer journey and document it
• 24:25 - How to ensure customers get the right resources
• 27:09 - How Shafqat researches and understands his customers
• 30:14 - The most important marketing metrics
• 31:56 - How Optimizely uses AI to find patterns in customer interactions

Quotes:

“Marketing is as much about the customer as it is about the prospect. In fact, in the business of our scale, it may be more customer than even prospect.”

“It's really, really important to document the customer journey and understand all the touchpoints and then come up collectively as a marketing organization, with what we want that ideal journey to be."

“Experimentation is much more than tools. To me, the idea is how do we create a culture of experimentation?”

Resources:

• Connect with Shafqat on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shafqat/
• Optimizely: https://www.optimizely.com/

Purchase the book at koganpage.com/datadrivenpersonalization (use code CCData20 for 20% off and free shipping in the UK and US) and sign up for more content at convinceandconvert.com.

What do social pros today need to know about the top platforms to get ahead? We look back at one of our favorite discussions from 2023 that marked 600 episodes of Social Pros! We asked none other than former Social Pros hosts, Jay Baer and Adam Brown, plus previous guest Allison Day, Senior Manager of Social Media at Reddit, to share their insights into what’s working in social today.

Full Episode Details

To celebrate the 600th episode milestone, we brought back previous hosts and guests to share their thoughts on social platforms today, the biggest changes, and predictions for the future.

Jay, Adam, and Allison share their ‘love it or over it’ verdicts on Threads, X, TikTok, and LinkedIn, and what they would do if they had to start over today. Jay, aka Tequila Jay Baer, talks about his strategy for starting his tequila influencer journey recently and why he focused on TikTok content to begin with.

There are some brilliant insights into how social has and is changing all the time in this episode, plus some great advice for upcoming social pros tackling the space in 2024 and beyond.

In This Episode:

• 5:56 - Love it or over it? Threads and X/Twitter
• 11:10 - LinkedIn’s evolution and our guests’ thoughts on the platform
• 15:58 - Thoughts on TikTok and Instagram Reels
• 24:26 - The biggest changes in social over the past ten years
• 27:31 - Gaining trust from leaders
• 32:21 - Why social media was about social, now it’s about media
• 36:07 - What our social pros would do if they were starting out today
• 38:28 - Why Jay Baer would start making YouTube content
• 43:15 - Jay, Adam, and Allison answer the final two
  

Resources

• Connect with Jay on LinkedIn
• Connect with Adam on LinkedIn
• Connect with Allison on LinkedIn

Visit SocialPros.com for more insights from your favorite social media marketers.