The latest in our series previewing the highlights of IRX 2014 focuses on the Digital Sales and Marketing Conference.
Selling online requires new digital disciplines and approaches, whether it’s the art of engaging the online consumer or the science of understanding and using data to best effect. Tools at the online marketer’s disposal now include social media, email campaigns, searchandising and many more.
The Digital Sales and Marketing Conference brings speakers from leading retailers to share their insights and experiences of grappling with these issues. Audiences will learn what works best, how practice is evolving, and what latest innovations are now emerging.
Keynote speaker Jon Rudoe, director of online, digital and cross-channel at Sainsbury’s. His presentation, Building a successful multichannel sales and marketing strategy, will be at 10.35am, followed at 11.10am by an interview focusing multichannel affiliate marketing strategies.
Glyn Williams, digital marketing director at Asda, will be focusing how to ensure email marketing campaigns are relevant in his 11.35am case study presentation, From spam to ham: ensuring your email strategy drives sales. His session brings an end to the morning’s schedule, and is followed by a lunch break.
Then Julia Monroe, social media manager at Marks & Spencer, will be making the case for social media in her 12.30am presentation, Where’s the ROI in social media? She’ll look at how retailers are using social media to build relationships, gain new customers without invading their privacy, while also advising on delivering a return on investment using these channels.
Ben Staveley, head of ecommerce, and Rebecca Doherty, marketing executive, both of stream sponsor dotMailer, will consider the highs and lows of email marketing in their afternoon keynote presentation. The best and worst of email for ecommerce; how do your campaigns measure up? draws on dotMailer’s Email Marketing Intelligence Report 2013/14 to deliver inspiration for better campaigns. They’ll take a look at campaigns run by some of the world’s leading retailers, with a look at some “great, bad and novel examples”.
Boden’s ecommerce manager Paul Knutton then takes to the stage for a case study presentation: Creating a consistent and engaging omnichannel user experience across multiple global sites, at 1.40pm. He’ll be considering how companies can create international online experiences that work to boost and establish brand image and reputation. He’ll also focus on practical points such as how to work within different cultures and languages, how to profit from regional trends and behaviours, and different ways of using search.
The conference closes with a panel discussion, taking questions from the audience. Paul Kendrick, marketing director at JD Williams Group, Jennifer Roebuck, multichannel marketing director at French Connection, Peter Burns, ecommerce, online and digital marketing manager at Waitrose and Rakesh Aggarwal, founder of Escentual.com will be the panelists for the 2.10pm event, Which new innovations in digital marketing will offer retailers the best ROI by 2016? The event closes at 3pm with closing comments from the chair.
The Digital Sales and Marketing Conference takes place on Thursday March 27, from 10.30am to 3pm. It is one of six conferences that form part of IRX 2014, which runs at the NEC in Birmingham on March 26 and 27. Find out about the other conferences and other highlights of the event at internetretailingexpo.com.
In coming weeks we’ll be focusing in more depth on different aspects of IRX 2014, and interviewing key speakers from the conference for a taste of what they will be sharing with our visitors.
