Transcription ****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.**** [intro music] Shark 0:16 Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective. I am Kenneth "Shark" Kinney, your host and chief shark officer. Growing customers is always tough, especially when performance marketing is driven by the right tools, team channels, strategies, regulations, agency partners, and more. It's a lot even in the best of times. So I wanted to take an episode where we hear from someone not unlike you, who's dealing with this everyday as well. It's a story of miracles, if you will. So hope you're listening. Natalie huff is the Vice President of Marketing for miracle air for amplifon Americas. And on this episode, we'll discuss performance marketing, technology, accessibility and content, hiring the right kind of marketer, measuring intent brand side versus agency myths and challenges, from bad advice heard in the marketing space, HIPAA, targeting the right kind of audience in the right kind of social 3.2 miles of giant malls, Russian sharks, and a lot lot more. And you're also going to hear about a new sponsor of the show, who I'm really excited to work with have worked with for years, and we're going to get my world domination tour for sharks, at least this one swimming just a little bit faster. So let's tune in to a VP with some miracle ears with a shark whose ears are always listening on this episode of A Shark's Perspective. [music] Shark 1:32 Nataly, thank you so much for joining us on A Shark's Perspective. Tell us a little bit about your career path your journey today. Nataly Huff 1:39 Oh, absolutely. I'm kind of Thank you for having me here. It is fantastic. When I, when I get to spend an hour or two just talking about marketing and all the different things that marketing can do. It's usually what I do with my friends over a bottle of wine. So it's time to do it. Even virtually like this. Right, right. My name is enough. I am the VP of Marketing for America layer, which is the most well known brand for amplifon Americas. I've been in marketing for what feels like my entire life. I'm not sure that's necessarily accurate. But I originally started my marketing world in advertising. And moving from there to start up, where as you probably most of you have experienced in startups, you have to be a jack of all trades and trades and wear all the hats, which is always a wonderful learning and growth opportunity. From there moving into digital specifically. And kind of taking miracle we're through a digital transformation and bringing it to where we are with Digital Marketing. Today, I am helping stand up the MAR tech stack that we have now including CRM automation, and finally took on the VP role. Trying to make sure that we have a holistic integrated approach as well as a strong focus on differentiation and bringing value to them. Shark 3:02 Well, and I also felt the same way that I've been doing marketing my whole life. Although I don't think my parents wanted to read me Seth Godin early books, but you got a kid now you can read Seth Godin stories, go into bed and get them started early. But I'm really curious, what are the challenges facing you today in performance marketing a space that's near and dear to me that I've worked in for most of my career, but this is sort of pre pandemic. And current, it's always a little bit of a challenge. But talk a little bit about the challenges you're seeing today and how you're getting over? Nataly Huff 3:32 Oh, absolutely. I think there's been quite a shift in how consumers both consume media as well as think about their purchases or not think about their purchases. In a pandemic world, we know that if you're in a high interest category, there's a lot more opportunity, there's a lot more content digestion, both digitally and on TV. So there's a lot of opportunities to be present in front of an audience. And if you are selling something that is either very high interest, or can be an impulse buy, there's a lot of opportunities there. I know I myself have purchased an immense amount of products, snacks and clothing, just based on the ads that have been served to me that otherwise I wouldn't have seen otherwise. That being said, if you're in a low interest category, the world has become a whole lot more challenging, or consumers that are maybe postponing something that wasn't very pleasant anyway, or something that actually requires them to visit a location. It's becoming a lot more challenging to drive response through the advertising that you have. This is where the focus really starts to shift from creating that immediate reaction to creating that need, right? If you think about mirror clear mirror clears focus is to bring better hearing, better hearing and better lives to their consumers. So talking about the cool technology is going to be one element But it's still like hearing aid. And people still don't see hearing aids, this wearable technology, which, you know, someday we'll get to. But if you talk about the need to communicate, especially in a pandemic world, they need to be able to understand and communicate and connect via telecommunication and on zoom calls and FaceTime calls, all of those elements are the ones that will help you drive that response. response rates are still not where they were before, they're still not there. But if you are able to drive that response, that's a much more quality response. And it tends to convert better down the purchase journey after they engage, Shark 5:39 then how are you doing that? How are you showing them the need, for example, I think that was the point, especially with just being able to hear on a zoom call, for example, not every service has got an automatic transcription service either. So not everybody's gonna jump on a zoom call and figure out that it doesn't work. Well. Now I need to go get miracle here. So how do you sort of show that you're a solution for that in that noisy world. Nataly Huff 6:03 Some of that is about just representation, right? showcasing the the fact that these are the challenges that people are having some of these things happen naturally, with hearing loss, there's a lot of people that end up adapting their lifestyle and adapting their communication style to read lips, for example, in order to understand the communication, well, we'll put on masks now. And that whole coping mechanism has disappeared. So for us to bring that as a topic and bring that as potentially contents that kind of reflect the experience of the customer or potential customer might be having, we wouldn't be able to connect with them from that standpoint. Additionally, in some case, you got to pull in those heartstrings as well you've got you've got to show them what they're missing, especially now that they're missing it more specifically, the concept of those family dinners, those family connections, the heartwarming smiles, all of those things really make people feel, and you'd have to drive that connection to why that might be missing in the world, not necessarily just because there's a little pandemic, which is kind of a big deal. But also because there's a whole sense that they're not able to rely on to help drive that connection. And last but not least, it's just about being there. There's many brands out there that are still very much focusing on conversion, they're still very much focusing on the sale, but we're all tired. We're all emotionally drained. So creating a supportive message, message of recognition of where people are and to hear for your message is also helping kind of drive some of those connections, Shark 7:50 where you mentioned this when you stepped into the role and moved into the VP role. But how are you looking at integrating all the channels together now to really drive that because integrated marketing plans, I'm still amazed how many people don't integrate this from A to Z within their brand, but it happens all the time. And it can be a challenge to implement. Nataly Huff 8:10 And it also depends on how marketing team evolves within an organization. So think of it from the standpoint, if you have a organization that has now focused on evolving, specifically digital marketing, or systematically evolving direct response marketing, specifically focusing on brand awareness, we're specifically focusing on CRM, the focus that is pulled into that particular area oftentimes creates an unintentional silo. So as you're building these functions up, it automatically creates little pockets of efforts and initiatives that don't quite talk to each other. So to answer your question, Shark 8:48 and by the way, let me add to that your your customer does not care what silos you create. Absolutely not everybody gets very narrowly channel focused. Nataly Huff 8:59 Absolutely, absolutely. You are some people kind of look at social and email, it's completely two separate channels that don't exactly involve new customer acquisition and CRM marketing. In either case, the point is that it takes a lot of work. And different channels require different tactics and different approaches and different messaging. And it needs to be more than the logo and colors that title together. Something as simple as a promotional calendar can help weave that thread all the way across and making sure that we're all on the same page, something a little bit more sophisticated than that is kind of a campaign playbook that attaches itself to every single one of the promotional calendars. But in all honesty, we're still working on it. This is something that is the goal and the dream and I don't know of any brand that has gotten that 100% right yet. And this is where I think there's a lot of technology that helps enable these processes. There's digital asset managers that help trying to kind of put all the together. But there's not a simple solution. There's not a simple answer. If there's not a simple path, it takes work. It takes content, strategy, creative strategy, and planning and communication and integration. And when you add all of those layers in there, oftentimes you can take out agility. So of course, it becomes easy. If you're a smaller startup, where you have a total of three people, it's very easy for you to sit at desks together, put it all together. But if you're looking at one to one personalization in your CRM, and you're looking at over 300 versions of messages that are going out to your different segments every single day, connecting that whole network to the TV campaign, and the direct mail audiences and the social audiences and the search intense is it takes a lot of work. Shark 11:00 So now, let me tell you about a new sponsor for the show making a big splash if you will. Your favorite shark would only work with the best. And I've worked with a great team at Invoca for several years now. From marketing to sales and commerce to CX, Invoca’s active conversation intelligence platform enables revenue teams to create better buying experiences, drive more leads, and increase revenue. Trusted by top brands like Dish Network, Mayo Clinic, Mutual of Omaha, Pods, and SunTrust, Gregg and the Invoca team are doing some amazing work in turning conversional data into automated action to enhance digital touchpoints and human interaction. Thank you Invoca. So now back to the show. Shark. 11:35 How do you look at hiring the right types of performance marketers that fit into that mix to really again, stitch all the pieces together? Nataly Huff 11:51 This is an ongoing challenge, especially where in the market betters big, competitive, there's a lot of competition for marketing talent with where we are. So Shark 12:01 finally, yay, Nataly Huff 12:03 seriously. So for for us. It's it's a focus on the type of mindset, we're looking for people who are happy to dream, but aren't looking to perfect at step one. So we want to come back to how I structure my team, right. And my goal is to one make all the accountabilities incredibly clear. When I ask a question of how this is doing, you are going to be the one that's going to answer and you're going to answer that's when I'm going to answer to this one. But step two is making sure that the overlaps between those accountabilities are very intentional, and also very clear, as and when we talk about these two segments, let's look at it that way. These two segments, they overlap right here, and you're going to be the owner, and you're going to be the stakeholder and you need to make sure that you're talking about this non stop, those overlaps can't happen. So you need to be very intentional. And the last one is you need to align people, people's roles with their strengths. And an organizations that are evolving as fast as Medicare's evolving as well. As fast as marketing is evolving. The role that you ended up taking evolves very quickly. So over the course of the year, the role that you're doing is going to be different from the role that you started with. And from there, you want to make sure that you're paying attention to that and seeing where people's passions align, as well as people's strengths. So you can adjust those responsibilities and kind of kind of remain flexible. From there, it's giving people some breadth, giving people a chance to say, I know this is not necessarily my job, but I see this opportunity. And I think we should take it and aligning people on what the end goal is. So they can always have that start to check in and say it's a great idea. But it's a little bit off the side of Where are we going? So how do we pay attention to the north star? Shark 14:04 Yeah, that would imagine that it's probably a little bit of a challenge too, because there's nothing wrong with amplifon and miracle arameans fantastic product. It's it's serving an audience and I mean, truly serving with a big benefit as opposed to a lot of products and services that are vanity, for example, is it harder to find the kind of people that help believe in that because almost think of it not the same way but almost like a nonprofit where you're where you're serving an audience as opposed to just non stop selling to them that you have the bigger shiny or faster car. Nataly Huff 14:38 I think we are in a very good spot in terms of being in the middle. Yes, we're never going to be Apple, we're never going to be coke. So no, nobody's going to dream about creating a brand from your clear. That being said we're a well known brand where the best known brand for hearing health and how many people are actually impacted by hearing loss is incredibly significant. Everybody, everybody has a friend, or parent or grandparents that either has had hearing aids or should get hearing aids. So the number of conversations that I have on somebody asked me, where do I work, the number of conversations I have, oh, my God, my dad needs to talk to you is incredible. So COVID is another thing that has been helpful with this as well, because people have started realizing it's not COVID specific, but 2020, we've had some opportunities to reflect on what we believe and what we stand for. So there's very many people who are looking to join organizations that have a purpose, and a purpose that makes them feel good. This is where having a recognized brand, and having a purpose is very helpful. We're still never going to be apple. And I think that's okay, I think we are looking for people who can be passionate about more than the dollar signs, who can be passionate about the number of people that have been helped and the number of lives that have been improved? Shark 16:09 Well, it really does give you a benefit, though, without having to go find a purpose already got a great built in purpose. So when you look at you've got people focus on the channels, you got people focused, I'm sure on search and social and all those good things. How are you looking at, at attributing success to each of those channels, across your various campaigns and holistically as a brand. Nataly Huff 16:31 I think this is where intent comes to play very, very closely. And again, being in the market where we are, we're kind of lucky in how the conversion process goes. There's not really foot traffic that comes into America, where locations, again, not a very high interest category, and I'm just going to stroll on a stroll into check out some hearing aids, although maybe someday we'll get there. It's about the fact that somebody needs to make an appointment. So that action of making an appointment allows for really incredibly granular trackability, whether it's online booking, which, of course comes with all of the blessings of digital data, or a phone call, that phone call also gives us a lot of clarity and visibility into the sources and the conversions and connections down funnel, we use a vendor called invoca, which has been an absolute godsend about a from the ability to understand who the people are, that are calling where they're coming from, and actually capture the data that and the marketing data that we want to attribute and connecting it to where it needs to go. We have incredibly robust, convert a conversational analytics, tools that are kind of algorithmic in their nature, that allow for real time understanding of the context of the conversation, not just the fact that a call has been made, because as we all know, the number of spam and robo calls that are out there in the us right now is a little bit insane. So this allows us to actually filter for quality as well as Shark 18:07 when you think about content marketing. In particular. I've had this conversation many times, especially with friends of mine who are deaf and how they consume. But this applies to people, whether they're blind, deaf, or, or hard of hearing or anything like that. Do you approach your content and the delivery any differently? You think, because you're in a sort of a natural Hard of Hearing environment? Nataly Huff 18:31 Yes, there and I'll give you two answers. One is specific to kind of content creation, we talk about needing to be very intentional and very thoughtful as to how the content is delivered. How easy is to enable closed captioning how easy it is for an E reader to read our pages, etc, which may sound like basic stuff, but a big chunk of marketers forget to do this every day. And they forget to do it because that's not their core demographic. This is our core demographic. So we have to be very intentional about it. But we also need to be very careful as how as to how intentional we are. We serve its senior demographics, specifically boomers and some of the silent generation. And we need to make sure that obviously, according to APA standards, everything is readable. But potentially we will need to increase our content just a little bit more for the target demographic that we have. But we can't do it to the extent where it almost becomes comical or patronizing. And there's a very fine line there accessible without necessarily making it painful. On the other side of the not just the hell but the what the content that we need to deliver for the audience's should help again, highlight the elements that they are missing, and maybe aren't never realizing that they're missing. Let me give you an example. We, when we showcase our subject, whether it's video or images, the subject is never alone. Because one of the biggest side effects for lack of a better term of hearing loss is isolation. So, people tend to withdraw, because conversations are challenging because it is exhausting to try and pay attention and to listen really, really closely and understand the conversation. And we don't want that for the world, we want people to have those connections to have those communications. So when we showcase our subjects, or subjects are always in a situation where they're close to somebody that they care about, and they have a personal connection, if we're showcasing them in a situation, we want it to be a sound rich environment, the type of hearing loss that miracle or treats is not a sudden onset hearing loss, it is a mild hearing loss that happens gradually over time. So most of the most of our customers remember what the rustling of the leaves sounds like, remember what the sound of the rain sounds like. And or, for us to kind of remind them those moments, those experiences that were well rounded, can help them remember that maybe something is missing from their moment today that they need that we can help fulfill. Shark 21:24 That's fantastic. So, you know, when we first got connected and talked, we talked about similar backgrounds. And I also have worked a lot with franchises talking about the challenges that you run into, because you're not just driving everything to a call center in Minnesota where you are, and everybody comes to one store, if you will, they're going to do franchises all over the world. Nataly Huff 21:47 There's many challenges that come with franchising when there's opportunities, right? One of the biggest benefits of franchising is that every single person that we work with is incredibly, incredibly invested in the success of the business. And we might have different decisions of how we want to do it, we might have disagree on what the parts that are actually important. But the goal of the The goal of the campaign or the initiative put in place were completely aligned on and for us to make sure that we are supporting those franchisees as as well as possible, we need to make sure that we're kind of delivering on our part of the promise. That being said, Those franchisees are all individual businesses. And for somebody that has, you know, 100% corporate retail locations, or only an online presence, you can have the benefit of a lot more aggregate data when your target completely nationally, or when you target in terms of large geographic areas rather than specific business territories. So what's probably one of the biggest challenges is some of the efficiencies that you can get from true national advertising are not as available in areas where you have to target very narrowly in terms of geography. When you layer on top of that the specific demographic that we have to target, it becomes a little bit more challenging in terms of gaining those efficiencies, which is where there's a benefit to the franchise organization. There's some areas that you're able to aggregate into national programs, but there's specific ones where you just cannot I need to make sure that you stay very narrow and very targeted. Shark 23:35 So you mentioned invoca great tool that I've used multiple times. What are the other tools that you consider most important as a performance marketer? Nataly Huff 23:45 Well, invoca, and you've probably heard me say this in other conversations as invoca is kind of the linchpin that ties all of those other tools together, right? It's the connector for all of us in terms of our online and offline data. So let's look at the online aspects. absolutely need to have some sort of DMP absolutely need to have a way to manage your audiences understand your audiences and target your audiences. And you need to make sure that you're driving them to a digital experience that is both clean and easy, as well as trackable. So for us, we're an Adobe tech stack. So we use Adobe Experience manager, Adobe audience manager, Adobe target and Adobe analytics on Adobe launch. Now, on the other side of it is where do you send that data to where Power BI house so for us, goes into a data warehouse which kind of represents translates itself into a Power BI reporting. For if I were to say to marketer, kind of the tools that are most important is you can find the right tool for For your budget and for your scope, there's many out there and there's many that are strong, what's most important is how they all come together and how they all speak to each other. There's not a single tool out there, that's a silver bullet, that's a one size fits all that's going to solve all of your problems. It's going to be a jigsaw puzzle. And how you plan to build that jigsaw puzzle together defines how successful you're going to be. Shark 25:25 So when you think about the tactics, whether it's search, or social, and everything that helps leverage that intent, what are the tactics you most enjoy as a marketer that you see performing well today, versus the ones that we hear a lot from people that are so called experts, but there's a lot of folks out there that are giving advice that I find questionable all the time. So what are the things that you you're hearing generally, that help you perform better, versus the things that you think maybe are more of a myth or misconception that's that you hear a lot, Nataly Huff 26:01 I'm going to go back to the concept of intent, because you need to be very clear in terms of the audience that you're reaching, and what the audience wants from you. Let's talk about the most simple and easy one search, right, the beautiful, beautiful platform where the customer is already taking an action. So they're already getting ready for something that is beneficial for them and is ready to convert if you just give them the right experience. And they're telling you, in their own words, exactly what it is they're searching for. That using that intelligently is already a very big step. And there are many brands that are not doing that quite to the level that they maybe should. But when you start looking at other platforms, Instagram, we talk about Tick Tock you're talking about next door or even something as basic as Twitter and Facebook, there's very different experience on different consumers go there for different reasons, you need to really understand what your customers doing there, or what that particular customer is doing there and bringing them from that platform, if you can't engage with them within that platform, bring them from that platform into another one needs to create as holistic of an experience as possible. Again, and this is probably my most repeated phrase, if there's no silver bullet, there's nothing that is a one size fits all. And to your point and Instagram follower for your career versus an Instagram follower for coke are going to do very different things. So what are you trying to get them to do? And does that fit with what they're already doing? The platform is probably the biggest area that I'd like to guess, in terms of wisdom that I can impart if there's any. In terms of the challenges that I see with the recommendations from the conferences. We focus a lot on tools. And we focus a lot on the dream of one to one personalization. Does your Karim have an omni channel experience this dream of a true 360 view of the customer. And the tools are very cool. I think we forget that you have to do something with it. Right? You can create a million personas, you can integrate a million platforms. And then what you're still need to be very thoughtful and intelligent as to when how and with what content, you reach that customer. And somebody still has to create. Somebody still has to manage that content, somebody still needs to update that content, somebody still needs to catalog that content. that aspect of it is so rarely talked about. I think at some point in time that there'll be conference, there was a content velocity track. And even at that point, it was still so focused on platforms and not so much on processes and resources and strategy that I I still don't have an answer. And I don't know that anybody else has. Shark 29:00 Well, is it fair to say then that your market in particular is, you know, you mentioned you said coke and Instagram? I don't even think of most of the people on Instagram, being coke drinkers anymore. It's more kombucha or something like that something something younger, that tastes much worse with less sugar. But is it fair to say that cuz I think about this a lot with Facebook, Facebook's their highest growing demographic is 55 and older. From everything I've read, is it fair to say that it gives you a good narrow focus when you're doing socials if to focus mostly on Facebook? I mean, you're not doing a lot of Tick Tock stuff. Nataly Huff 29:38 No, no, we're not. Facebook has been a very great channel for us both with the partnership with Facebook specifically, as well as the audiences they have I mean, they have very long standing data source form very many of very users. So it's a very rich environment in which to play as well as the target demographic is their they've created. They've created many different ad types and engagement platforms that really allow you to both engage the audience, specifically our target demographic, as well as get them to convert. So yes, Facebook has been very, very strong for us. But there's also again, depending on the intent, there's also something like Pinterest. If you think our audience, right, they love the Home and Garden, they love the DIY, these types of pieces of content that are great for Pinterest, and the longevity of that content is much longer and much, much stronger. It's not going to be that conversion content, it's not going to drive people to book that appointment right away. But it's content that helps create that relationship helps drive that consideration helps build that pool of first party data that you can then go after to target for conversion. Shark 30:54 So I know that the mindset that I've carried when I've worked at a brand versus an ad, an agency is the same mindset focused on the customer. However, that often gets lost, depending on which side most people sit in, because a lot of people have only worked on the brand side, or they've only worked on the agency side. How do you look at performance marketing, and the customer a little bit differently than how agencies or third parties is support you look at your customer. Nataly Huff 31:23 I think part of it depends on your partnership with your agency. So having done the agency side for just a little bit early in my career, I found that it was infuriating to see clients not follow your reactions, your recommendations and your clear suggestions that are obviously great ones, especially when you're fresh out of college, all your ideas are brilliant. an hour Exactly. And then that, that fact is you don't actually get to say the final Yes, you don't actually make the final decision, in some cases, almost separates the agency from the true business impact that the initiatives able to drive. On the other side, again, from the client side, you sometimes find challenges with agency that is so focused on engagement or impressions or you know, content, high level conversions that are not actually impacting the business or not the ones that actually pay the bills. And that's where you can have some differences about how you think about it, the challenge really comes up from building the right relationship with the right agency. So if your goal is to find a content agency that is able to create, that content velocity that we talked about, that is specific to the right audience, and your task of them is to connect with them with to connect with the customers, personally and emotionally at the right time. You need to bring that agency in, you need to get them to believe you need to get them to feel the values and the passions that you have in house, if your goal is to find reach, and you really are trying to grow that brand awareness and not trying to convert it connected to the final ROI on the back end. That's a different relationship with agency. So depending on what you're trying to get out, it's a different level of connection, because additionally challenging for miracle air or any other medical devices, because then you have HIPAA restrictions, which means that you if you need that kind of relationship, you need to find an agency that is able to be HIPAA compliant. And that's not a small feat. No. Bringing that bringing that visibility, bringing that connection and bringing the depth of data that comes back in a feedback loop is going to change how those relationships work. But again, think about strategically and planful in terms of what are you trying to get out of that agency relationship and make sure that you're giving them everything they need to see the full picture the way that you see it. Shark 34:06 Yeah, and I'm fascinated by that. I thought about this before, I could have done two or three shows with you, we could have done a whole show just on HIPAA compliance, and then throw a little bit of GDPR type stuff just to add that on top of it, maybe add two or three more layers, but it's the kind of stuff that the brand folks go through on a day to day basis. All right, another question I'm going to ask No, since you were originally born in Russia, and the Russian word for shark is a cooler, what is your favorite kind of cooler and why? Nataly Huff 34:37 That's a really good question. Um, Shark 34:41 they've got him in the Mall of America now you can get Nataly Huff 34:46 my cool experiences are between the Mall of America entrepreneur on SeaWorld and the Minnesota zoo. And I'd have to say it's probably the tiger shark. So very specifically because it is almost honestly, doing incredibly beautiful, but still has all the same potential impact if we're going to use marketing terms as Shark 35:17 any other shark. So Nataly, it's a special time my show where we get to know you a little bit better. You ready for the five most interesting and important questions you're going to be asked today. Nataly Huff 35:25 Okay, yes, I'm ready. Shark 35:27 All right. Number one. winners in Minnesota are winners in Russia. Nataly Huff 35:32 Oh, Minnesota. Shark 35:35 Why? Nataly Huff 35:36 Minnesota set up for winters. Okay. You can go from your heated garage to another heated garage to a heated building across the Skyway without ever having to go outside. Even the pressure for the public transportation, which is not huge. is set up with heaters in the in the bus stop. So it's, it's designed for the cold. Shark 36:00 Yeah, I'd rather have winter in Florida. So Alright, number two, Mall of America or a normal mall. That's not the size of Rhode Island. I mean, the Mall of America is just ridiculously big. Now you can find everything in there. But it's almost a little overwhelming. When it's at five floors. Nataly Huff 36:23 Just floors, you can walk something like 3.2 miles, Shark 36:27 we got a roller coaster in there. Nataly Huff 36:28 And every roller coaster so my answer is online shopping. Shark 36:32 Good answer. Very good answer. All right. Number three, because you mentioned a couple times Coke or Pepsi? Water really okay. Nataly Huff 36:43 If I have to it would be a coke because if we're looking at a rum and coke or jack and coke, it would be a cook. Very good. I like water. Shark 36:52 Alright, number four. You talked about a little theater. So cats are West Side Story. Ah, Nataly Huff 37:03 don't love cats. It's it's a great production in terms of production value. So it was a great story. Shark 37:09 Okay, well, I would say the answer is neither because I'm not a musical theater guy. So Either one works for me. Number five and the most important question you're gonna be asked today is biscuits or cornbread? Nataly Huff 37:21 cornbread. Shark 37:23 This is the tough questions we asked so madly. Where do people find out more about you keep up with what you're doing in the world. Your thought leadership and more. Nataly Huff 37:31 Oh, LinkedIn is the best place LinkedIn on athlete. You can find it there. Shark 37:35 Perfect. Nataly, thank you so much for joining us today on A Shark's Perspective. Nataly Huff 37:40 Thank you. Thank you very much. This was very fun. [music] Shark 37:45 So there's my conversation with Nataly Huff the Vice President for miracle ear for amplified America's let's take a look at three key takeaways from our conversation with her first, hiring, especially getting the right kind of people in performance marketing is critical. Natalie talked a lot about overlapping roles. And while that may sound clear to your own ears, aligning people in the end goal your Northstar is critically important not only for Acquisition purposes, but also the ability to truly serve those customers, you really got over communicate that in something to think about in that a lot of people want to work for Apple or Google or one of those sexier brands. And then they can get buy in some corporate purpose or maybe donate some salary to a charity with some of your dollars. But sometimes I'll simply add, you can work for some brands, like a non sexy hearing aid company, and really make the world a much better place serving a lot of people, rather than just thinking about a cool phone company are a search engine company. If you're truly looking for it, then you can find jobs of service in companies you wouldn't normally expect to think about, but still do a lot of good. Second, really look at your tech stack and how those pieces connect your puzzle. So many brands buy technologies that end up more or less stacking on top of each other. And then you get this big jumbled mess of tech that frightens most brands. But truly understanding how to take any technology and knowing how to stitch it together will really benefit you and your customer. I see it too many times where people buy a new and cool technology. And then they think about some shiny new feature, or procurement sees a great price. But then you don't spend enough time thinking about how to avoid creating a whole new Rube Goldberg Machine internally. As Natalie said, it's how they all come together and speak to each other. Luckily, you get to create your own puzzle just don't make it too many pieces that just don't fit. Third, fascinating portion where she talked about reminding their customers about moments and a lot of their advertising. She spoke about rustling of the leaves and how they remember, in a way it's nostalgic. I'm sure you can make something out of that for yourself. But definitely take another listen. But also in quite simply, marketers need to think more about accessibility, not to just the physical ramp at the door kind but digital accessibility as well. For them. It's obvious because it's their core demographic, and they have to think through all of those but also how their costs murrs access content. Again, we should all be thinking about this as the customers we serve. Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective calm. Thank you again for the privilege of your time. I'm so thankful for everyone who listens. So now's the time to go figure out whatever aid you need to listen to your customers. Hope I can help you. You may find some miracles in there once you do. Until then I'm looking forward to when you join me on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective. [music]