Marketing Happy Hour - Email Marketing 101: How to Increase CTR | Rondene Grinam of Microsoft

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

In this episode of Marketing Happy Hour, we demystify all things email with Rondene Grinam, Global Email Marketing Manager for tech giant Microsoft.  Rondene shares incredible insights, including: The power in networking to advance your career, especially in the early days Simple email subject line tips that will increase open rates How to utilize A/B testing to optimize an email strategy How to determine if an audience is high or low value Her experience and lessons learned in transitioning into a tech marketing role + MORE! Grab a drink and listen in to this Marketing Happy Hour conversation! ----- Other episodes you'll enjoy if you enjoyed Rondene's episode: Copywriting 101 | Ethical Copywriter + Email Strategist Karsen Murray Need to Optimize Your Website? Listen for SEO and UX Tips | Macey Miller of Be Bold Design Studio Productivity 101: How to Hustle Sanely | Jess Massey of Hustle Sanely ____ Say hi! DM us on Instagram and share your favorite moments from this episode - we can't wait to hear from you!  Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. NEW: Check out our website! NEW: Join our email list! Follow Rondene on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronnitheriveter/ Follow Rondene on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RonniTheRiveter Connect with Rondene on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rondenegrinam/ Follow MHH on Instagram: https://instagram.com/marketinghappyhr Follow MHH on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketing-happy-hour/ Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter, Marketing Happy Hour Weekly: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/marketing-happy-hour-weekly-6950530577867427840/ Join our Marketing Happy Hour Insiders LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9238088/

Hey there, welcome to the Marketing Happy Hour podcast, where each week we're learning career-defining advice, powerful social media strategies, unique creative tips, groundbreaking influencer marketing tactics, and more from marketing experts that represent some of the world's leading brands. Let's dive in. Grab a drink and join your hosts, Cassieie and Erica, for this week's episode. Hey everyone, it's Erica. As we near the end of season three, I wanted to share how you can apply to be a guest on a future season of Marketing Happy Hour. Head over to Instagram and follow

us at Marketing Happy Hour. That's at Instagram and follow us at Marketing Happy Hour. That's at Marketing Happy HR and click the link in our bio to find the application. We can't wait to hear and share your story. Hey there, it's Cassie. And this week, I am so excited for you to listen into Erica's interview with Rondine Grinham, Global Email Marketing Manager at Microsoft. Within Microsoft, Rondine oversees the global customer database and CRM tools and maintains a monthly editorial calendar which guides content for the company's key audiences via email. This is a topic I am so excited about as it's our first dive into all things email on Marketing

Happy Hour. Email is also a strategy I'm looking to focus on this year in my business. So I was excited to learn all of the insights that Rondine had to share on the podcast. In this interview, Rondine tells us why every brand should focus on email, as well as her top tips for writing effective subject lines that drive positive performance for a variety of campaigns. She also gives her secrets for increasing the amount of clicks within your emails, something I'm sure we can all benefit from hearing about. Are you ready to begin building effective email strategies for your business or even just learn a tip or two to enhance your

current strategy? Grab a drink and let's dive into email 101 with Rondine of Microsoft. Hey, Rondine, how are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm so excited to be speaking with you today. But before we jump in, I have an important question for you that we ask all of our guests, and that is what is in your glass tonight I love it so I I have a white wine and I I got a wine subscription um which I guess is what you do when you're in your your late 20s uh so I got it recently and I'm learning about wines and such but the one I'm drinking is called easy peasy lemon squeezy name, super cute label, which definitely got me. I'm a sucker

for the aesthetics. So yeah, that's what I got. That's awesome. What wine subscription do you have? It's Wink. Okay, awesome. I know it's funny. I actually, we're working on the back end right now. I'm trying to get, you know, sponsorships and partnerships going with marketing, especially with this amazing question we ask every time it seems a perfect fit for an alcohol brand or, or a wine subscription. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, I was wondering if I could say, yeah, yeah, absolutely. We don't currently have a sponsor for this question. So totally fine. But I was going to say we reached out to them and I don't think they're doing any like partnerships at this time, but they do have a like affiliate program.

So they invited me to be a part of that. And I just got four bottles of wine in from them as well. Oh, that's so cool. But they do have like really awesome wines on their site. They have really cute labels. Everything that always gets me. They's so cool. But they do have like really awesome wines on their site. They have really cute labels. Everything that always gets me. They're so cute. I can pick off of the cute label alone, honestly.

I know. I know. I think you can't go wrong there, really. Yes. I agree. I actually am drinking. It's really funny. I went to Target yesterday and I was looking for a bottle. I was going to make I got an espresso machine

recently. I'm dabbling in the world of trying to make my own coffee syrups to like go in my lattes and everything. And I was looking for the perfect bottle to put my homemade coffee. Oh my gosh. And I couldn't find anything. And I was just down the wine aisle and I found these cute little bottles. They're Raffino wine spritzes. So I have to drink them in order to yes, the bottle container. Oh my gosh, I love that. Yeah, so they're actually pretty good. They're like blood orange flavor. I'm a fan. Oh, cool. That sounds fun.

Yeah. Okay, well, I'm so excited that you're speaking with us today. I just want to hear a little bit about your background prior to starting with Microsoft and the process of landing the position that you're currently in. Sure, yeah. So I got my bachelor's degree in communication and PR with minors in journalism and global affairs. And then right after that, I got my master's in international commerce, both of these from George Mason University. So I wanted to, I knew I wanted

to do something in international marketing and communication. So I figured those complement each other very well. So in college, I sort of interned a lot. I think I had around five or six internships to sort of like figure out what direction I wanted my career to go in. Because there are so many different things that you can do in the marketing and comms world. So I wanted to, you know, figure out what direction I wanted to go in. So now I have a little over five years full-time experience in integrated marketing, which is the route that I, that I ended up going in. So right out of college, I started out working for George Mason. Actually, I worked in education marketing for the admissions office for about three

years. And then after that, I spent two years in corporate marketing at Gartner, the consulting company where I mainly did email and social for their legal and compliance products. And then just recently, this past October, I started at Microsoft. So I'm still sort of a newbie, but what I love about my current role as the email marketing manager for Microsoft Education

is that it really marries my passions for both education and marketing so well. And I get to work with a channel that I really enjoy. So that's another huge plus. So a little bit about how I got my role. So I first learned about careers in Microsoft through one of my former grad school classmates, actually, who works in comms there.

So she posted about a cool Microsoft event that she would, she'd been working on, on Facebook, and it sort of piqued my interest. So I reached out, just say hey, and ask if we could, you know, connect so I can learn more about what she does. And she also happens to be a career coach, which is amazing. So in addition, I know. So in addition to sharing her experience at the company, she was able to provide some awesome job application tips. She also connected me with a marketing director at the company who I was able to set up an informational interview with. And then after that, that director was able to provide a quick resume review, you

know, share more about marketing opportunities that he was aware of. And then he also offered to share my resume with his colleagues who were hiring, which was amazing. And then he also, you know, assured me that I was 100% ready for a marketing role in big tech, because that was, you know, one of the things I wasn't really super sure about. And he just, you know, really helped me position my skills accordingly. And so it took a lot of, you know, courage, believing in myself, and lots of help from some some cool people to get me through the interview process. But it was a really great experience overall. And I'm just like, super thankful to have landed this role on the team I'm on. Yeah, absolutely. Well,

congratulations. Yeah. Well, I remember I reached out to you, I think from a Twitter post that you talking about how you landed this dream job. So I'm super excited that you're able to share your story here. It just really speaks to the power of networking to like this girl that you knew from your college program, just hold email out to her to see what she's doing, what's going on. That's awesome. Exactly. Like you never know, you know, if you make the point to reach out to people who, you know, you're interested in their company or in their role, you never know what could happen. Yeah, exactly. And so cool that she turned out to be a career coach as well.

That's just such good synergy there. Do you actually remember any of the job application tips that she shared with you? Could you share anything that you remember? Sure. So what she definitely told me to do was make sure I mean, this is sort of, I don't think it's, you know, super unique, but to make sure to tailor your resume to the job that you want. And I feel like I didn't always do that that much before. So her letting me know that, and that that would specifically at Microsoft, help me get interviews was really, really helpful.

She also told me in terms of like interview tips, one of the things to do is make sure to do a lot of research and have have really, really specific questions that show that you're, first off, interested in the role and in the team and that, you know, you've done your research and you're looking into how you can improve what's already going on there. Yeah, those are great tips. Did she say anything about cover letters? I know there's a big debate out there whether or not cover letters are dead or not. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. So there's no requirement for, I didn't have to submit one. I always, I always wrote them, you know, just in case, because some, some, for some jobs, they're, they're required. But yeah,

I definitely heard mixed, mixed information on that, too. And I think it might be like an industry thing. So in, in big tech, I, I feel like the cover letter might not be as much of a thing, because they have such, I guess, rigorous interview processes. So they might just need to look at your resume. But yeah, I've definitely had to for my prior two roles, I did a cover letter as well. Awesome. And then I wanted to touch a little bit, you mentioned about your master's degree. How did you decide that you wanted to take that next step versus just starting out your career? Yeah, so that's a really good question. And since I was working at a university, most universities, hopefully all have a benefit for employees where you can take a couple classes per year for free. They'll pay

for it. A lot of corporations have that too. My past two jobs had something like that, but my benefit at the university was, I think it was, oh gosh, what was it like 12 credits, 12 credits a year, something like that, but it was a lot. So I figured, you know, if I was there, I might as well take that next step. I had already been looking at master's programs. So I, you know, ended up applying and going through that. And it was a really, really great experience. So yeah, I definitely, definitely recommend if where you're working has a tuition credit benefit. If you are looking, I would definitely recommend taking advantage of it. If you can handle it with, you know, whatever else you have going on in your life. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great tip. I wish I have worked at a company that

had that benefit. I would have definitely taken advantage of it. I struggle every day on whether or not I'm going to go back for my MBA, but we'll see what's to come. Well, I want to touch a little bit on you. You had these integrated marketing roles even before this job with primarily focusing on email. Were you able to kind of weed out that maybe you didn't want to focus on social media? Maybe you didn't want to focus on web content and really just pour yourself into email? Or did that kind of just come because that's the role that was available? So I guess it's a little bit of both. So since I was able to try out so many different types of marketing in my prior role, so at George Mason, I did a lot of direct mail, creative and email. And then at Gartner, I did a lot of email, but also organic social, paid social, paid search, and sales enablement too. So through that, getting some, you know, experience in all of those areas of marketing, I was able to determine both what I enjoyed and what I was good at. So email has always been a channel that I

found. I really enjoyed all of the capabilities in terms of getting to know your audience, learning their engagement habits, being able to segment your audience and personalize. And email is also a really, really top converting marketing channel as well. So in terms of, you know, when you're thinking in terms of ROI, especially in a corporate environment, email is a really good channel to be working with. Yeah, absolutely. We've yet to have an email marketing expert on the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. So I'm glad you're here and can kind of speak to that. Can you share why can learn so much about your audience through email analytics. I feel like it gets sometimes a weird reputation of not being, you know, one of the shiny or new types of marketing, but it's so reliable and consistently a top converting channel. So it has a lot, a lot of value, regardless of what industry you're in.

So one of the things I love about it is being able to tailor your message to your audience and really create personalized customer journeys, which is one of the things I'm really passionate about as a marketer in general. You know, you're able to grow your audience, learn who they are and how your resources can benefit them and then deliver that info directly to them. Everyone has an email account. So in terms of, you know, meeting your audience where they are, which is what you always want to teachers, school administrators, IT professionals, other leaders in education. And the education industry, I mean, much like the whole stretched super thin, is really crucial in helping them serve their students better through all the turmoil. I'm sure. Yeah, absolutely. That has to be super impactful. So you mentioned Microsoft Education, and I think some of us aren't familiar with that division of Microsoft. Can you just give a little background

on what services are offered? Of course. Yeah. So the Microsoft Education products and solutions, it's like things like Microsoft Office that a school district might buy for all of their schools or a principal might buy for all of their teachers. It's things like we market teams for education, you know, as a lot of schools are in a hybrid environment, some totally virtual, some like 50-50. We help market, you know, different ways to use Teams to make sure students are engaged and, you know, reach students where they are and provide like personalized support for all of their students, regardless of where they are. So yeah, it's essentially marketing, you know, existing Microsoft products and services, some built for, you know, a commercial audience, a consumer audience, some built directly for education. It's marketing those products to these school leaders. Absolutely. That's really, really cool. And what would you say that the goals of your email marketing are? Is it to get more signups and more sales in? Or is it kind of just to educate around these programs? we're talking to teachers and IT admins who already have access. They already have licenses

for the Microsoft programs. And so what we're often doing is sharing more about what they can do with it. You know, we're sharing different, you know, new features and Teams updates that promote, you know, making sure that you're getting insights on what each student's working on, how to streamline, I guess, sending out and grading assignments. There are a lot of cool things that Microsoft products can do. And so it's just a matter of sharing those with people who already have access to make sure that they're maximizing it. Okay, awesome. Yeah, that's great. How do you come up with things like subject lines and copy for every email? I'm sure you're sending a ton of them. And what are some of your best tips for those top performing email techniques? Yeah, so that is a really interesting question. I think I mean, obviously, subject lines

are so important, but they're also so tricky. You know, you're you're working with a couple words. If you're optimizing for mobile, so it's you really don't have that much to work with. But having a good subject line is so key to reaching your audience. And so we try to always include as concisely as possible, the main like what's in it for me message so that the audience has a reason to open it. And so I found that personalization often works very, very well, along with describing exactly what readers can expect if they open. So, like, for example, clickbaity subject lines are definitely something you want to avoid since they hinder customer loyalty and trust in some big ways. So you have to really find the sweet spot between persuading them to open and then offering exactly what we say we're offering if they do. So some examples of my go-tos, I would say things that I've tried in a couple different ways in all of my roles

are, I would say two main things, using numbers and then using personal pronouns. So with personal pronouns, I've noticed in both B2B and B2C, people are more likely to open emails if they have like a version of the word you or your in the subject line, which sounds simple, but it's just, yeah. So we've tested it a couple of times and it just, if it's just yeah so we've tested it a couple times and it just if it's like your guide to blank um something like that uh that gets more clicks than if we said you know a guide to blank or the guide to blank um so it's simple but yeah it's it's a good tip um and so in marketing for well in b2b, if I was emailing about an ebook or something, I'd use your guide to blank. emails about, you know, cool things going on in the major that we had on file for a particular person, we would use a subject line like your future in psychology at Mason. And that always

did really well. And it's also that one is kind of a double whammy, because it used both like your pronoun that we use all the time, and then their actual chosen major um so it had that one had really that campaign in particular had really high open rates um I think like higher than 50 which is rare so that's it it's a it's a simple tip yeah it's a simple tip but it worked like it almost always works um the other thing I will mention is using numbers. So I always look for an opportunity to say something like five tips for blank or like top five ways to blank. If I have a piece of content in an email or a newsletter that is organized in a list format like that, I always, always try and use that number in there because it sort of sets a clear expectation

of what they'll get if they open your email, especially for an audience that's super busy and needs bite-sized, like short and sweet information. Yeah, definitely. Would you say that something along those lines, like your guide to blank or five tips for blank would also make a good blog headline or newsletter headline, something like that. Yeah, yeah. And I think in terms of things that I've seen around content marketing, those things absolutely get eyes on a piece of content. I mean, it's it's sort of like, I think I've heard of people talk about it in terms of like buzzfeed like those buzzfeed lists yes that got like super popular I don't even know what what year but the buzz buzzfeed stuff um I've heard people call it

a listicle format but like lists of things bullet points points, super easy to consume. And so I think just as human beings, we're more, we're more likely to consume something that says top five tips versus here's how to blank. Exactly. And it keeps attention to because you know, just how many things you'll be looking for. Exactly. You know what you're getting yourself into, which is super important, particularly in email marketing. Yeah, definitely. So we talked a little bit about the importance of a click-through rate. Do you have any insight on how to increase your clicks outside of the subject line and the personal pronouns and using numbers? Yeah, that's also a really good question because this one, this one is like more tricky than a subject line. But I think it all sort of comes down to knowing your audience, which is so crucial in marketing in general, but especially

an email and something I always try and carry with me throughout all of my, my roles and projects. So to increase clicks, I would say something, some, some simple things like visual things are using CTA buttons rather than hyperlinks. I've always done that. People are always way more drawn to clicking on a button rather than a hyperlink. Although we often include a variety of both in our emails. And then also in the same way that we need to deliver, you know, what we say we're going to deliver in subject lines, we need to deliver what we say we'll deliver in the CTA links in the email. So I'm a big fan of using like descriptive CTA buttons so that someone like skimming the email on their phone, they know what they're getting very quickly when they're reading

and clicking. So rather than something like, like learn more, I would say something like read the full article or register for your training or get your free ebook kind of so they know, they know exactly where they're landing if they click. Yeah, that's a great tip. That's really awesome. How have you utilized A-B testing with different audiences? We touched a little bit on how you've tested those personal pronouns, but how have you used A-B testing in your email strategy? Yeah. So I think A-B testing is so fun and absolutely so crucial to increasing engagement and understanding who you're talking to. So I love it because you can get some really, really strong, actionable insights with like often pretty simple changes, different variations and things.

Um, so one thing that we have tested in both my current role and my last role, um have, I would say, like two distinct audience buckets that I would consider high value audiences. They engage very well. We know who they are and they have different priorities, you know, and they're looking for different information from Microsoft Education. So this is an example of a test that we performed on one of our audiences. So we tested the click-through rates of two versions of the same email, exact same thing, all the copies the same, except one of them had pictures throughout, one of them did not, to see which version got more clicks. And for this particular audience, the one without images saw more engagement, which is something I don't, you know, you don't normally expect in marketing and email marketing. And so I did a similar test with email at Gartner,

and I had to do it a couple times before I got significant results, which is something you often have to do in A-B testing and should do in A-B testing. But these results were the opposite. So it really helps you understand, you know, sometimes there are email best practices that are universal across the board, but you really have to understand your audience because they might engage completely differently than you would expect. So I would say it's definitely, definitely a must for email marketing. You know, it helps you optimize your email program and get to learn more about how to serve your audience, which is should always be the goal. Yes, absolutely. And you talked a little bit about your two high value audiences. Could you share how you know if you have a high or low value audience? Is there a certain engagement metric you should be looking for? Or, you know, how do you just determine if something is high or low value? Yeah, that is a good question. I would say for us, it's a combination of engagement. So if this audience has a particularly high click through rate. So if they're opening our stuff

and clicking through, we know they're engaged and we know that we're serving them information that they need. So we can feel confident that we know that audience pretty well. And then the other thing too is, you know, in more corporate terms, it's who has the decision making power, who has buying power, that also is a pretty high value audience. Because as much as email is about, you know, brand awareness and loyalty, it also is like a conversion machine. So it's equally as important to, you know, look at who's actually able to take the actions that we want them to take. That is such good advice. So let's say somebody's out there who has a brand focused on email marketing, have a sign up on the website to subscribe to their newsletter, and they, you know, just want to get started. All of these emails into just one list, and they don't really know how

to gauge whether or not these people in the list are high value or not. Is it a matter of just test and learn? Or are there any key indicators that somebody is a high value audience member? I would say it's kind of hard to tell unless you know what they're engaging with. So one of the things honestly that I think is, is super helpful to utilize an email if you're trying to get to know your audience, you know, from scratch, is like sending out a survey. Well, it doesn't even need to be like a survey. But we've done things like, let us know what you're most interested in hearing about. And then have a couple of CTA buttons. So anything from tips and tricks, trainings, upcoming events, community opportunities. I think just like you can just ask what they're looking for. Sure. Which I think is always a good idea and is is useful, particularly if you don't really know that much about who they are yet. Awesome. And then from there, you can go and segment them and hit them with the targeted emails that are likely to drive them where they want to go. That's great advice.

So I wanted to shift a little bit. You talk about working in tech, and it's probably a whole different world at Microsoft than it was at your last position because they're such a tech giant and, you know, they've got offices all over the world. So what is your experience been? And do you have any tips for somebody adjusting to a role in tech? So working in tech, I would say there isn't as much of a requirement to know a lot of techie things or has studied computer science, stuff like that, you know, having an interest in insights and data, particularly in marketing, I think will send you will, you know, take you a long way. So that's one thing I would say, if you work in marketing and want to go into a tech space, just have show, be able to show that you have both experience working with data, making data driven decisions, and an interest in growing and learning more. So I, in the past, like four or five months that I've been at Microsoft,

I have just been a sponge, soaking everything up, learning so much about the product, and the value propositions and, and what we're, you know, what we're really doing here. And so there are so many ways to be valuable in a tech environment, regardless of, you know, what hard or soft skills you bring to the table. Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for that insight. I know people are always curious on how to break into that tech world and how to really succeed there. I want to just ask you, what do you think is next for you in your career? Oh, good question. So I've been in my role at Microsoft for, I think, just a little over five months. And so what I do love about my career trajectory so far is that I've been able to, you know, try out so many different types of marketing and, and see what, what sticks for me. And so I've gotten experience, like in so many different

channels. And so I'm thrilled to sort of be in a point in my career about five years in where I have a pretty strong command of the email channel that I'm working with and, you know, being able to own and grow and develop my own email program at like such a fantastic company. So I'm blessed to say I'm really happy with where I am. And I would just love to continue growing at this company and in the global corporate marketing space as a whole. It's just a really exciting place to be. I think for me, I've always really enjoyed corporate environments. I think there's

so much impact that you can have, you know, again, regardless of what you bring to the table. So I'm happy to be here and just hoping to continue on. Yeah, that's a great attitude to have. It's awesome. Are you guys currently in office? Or are you still working from home? Yeah, good question. So I think there it's, it's, it's organization by organization within Microsoft. Okay. But I am my team is we it's optional if you want to go into the office a couple days a week. Or if you want to be fully remote. So my team mostly is in the Seattle area, and I live in the DC area. So I am fully remote for now. If I went back into the office, there's an office close to me here. So I might, you know, go to that office. But yeah, it's sort of really up to what everyone's

comfortable with, whatever you and your manager think works for you. So yeah. Yeah, that's really nice to have that flexibility. Yeah. So you mentioned your team. Is that team members alongside of you or do you actually directly manage anyone at this point? Oh, yes. So it's team members alongside of me. So the way that my team is structured is we are an education marketing team and we all sort of own our own channels. So we're channel managers rather than, well, some people are people managers, but we're mainly channel managers and individual contributors, which I enjoy. But yeah, so it's just me owning the email channel for now. Awesome. I am on your LinkedIn here because I was doing some research

right before this recording. And the one thing I forgot to ask you about is maintaining the monthly editorial calendar. I wanted to hear about your process and how you do that. Sure. So this, yeah, I like this question. This goes into how I develop content. And it's a lot of collaboration. Because there are people who work all across the company who, you know, might have things going on that would be relevant and interesting for an education audience. So we have two main monthly newsletters that we send out. So essentially what I'll do is I'll look through what's on our blog, what's on our website, any new updates or features coming out, and I'll come up with an idea of what I think we should feature each month. And then I'll go out

and work with different stakeholders to make sure that my content plan works and that, you know, we're covering all of the main things that we want to share out. And then that way I get an idea of what's coming up, what different teams are working on. And so it's pretty cool. It's a really collaborative effort to pull together the content for our newsletters. So it's cool to work with people who are a little bit closer to different products and a little bit closer to different audiences and can share with me their insights on what they know our audience might be interested in. Yeah, that's awesome. Do you use a Microsoft product to kind of keep that organized at all? Or is it just, you know, a notes app somewhere? Yeah, so I,

well, I guess I use both Excel and PowerPoint. I typically use an Excel document just to keep track of any things that I see, you know, I might be in a meeting and hear about something else. So I'll just jot it down. organization might be working on promoting during a certain month or during a certain quarter. So I try to compile different examples for content there. And then I also have PowerPoint slides that I'll use sort of as a more public facing document, ongoing document. So if I'm ever in a meeting with with a team, and I want to share what I have planned for March, or what I have planned for April, I can just pull it up, they can see what you know what themes I have. And that way, they can suggest if they have something coming up that would fit really well, along with the other features that I have. They can they can suggest it there. So yeah, it's it's a little bit of both PowerPoint and Excel. But yeah, I love how collaborative that is. And I feel like you have an endless like bank of content ideas. But

just the last like meat of the interview question. I want to ask you, how do you if you're stuck in a rut or you're experiencing like writer's block or you're trying to figure out what content you really want to share? What really sparks inspiration for you? Oh, that is a good question. I think what is really useful is I work with some really, really talented, smart people who are all in the education industry. They know their stuff. They're super connected. And so they'll often

share out resources to read through just so that, you know, the team can learn more about what's top of mind for educators and for schools and institutions. And so if I, you know, if for whatever reason we have a month where I'm like, you know, I just don't really know what else I want to focus on. We don't have as much content that, you know, matches the theme that I'm going for. I'll go and look for what people in the industry are talking about. And then that way I can try and find some content somewhere, you know, on one of our websites that speaks directly to that. So that's a sort of another way of listening to what the customer is talking about so that we're able to deliver on that in our email channel. Yeah, absolutely. You definitely have to be in tune with what's going on in the world, what's going on in the lives of the people you're trying to speak to and market towards. So

definitely agree there. And finally, we love to ask this question on Marketing Happy Hour. Is there anything you know now that you wish you knew when you first started out in your career? Yes, I love this question. I would say I would, I would focus on, I guess I have a three-part answer to this one. The first one is networking, which we talked a little bit about earlier. And then communicating your value, which I think is super important. And then taking care of yourself, which has also been always super important, but especially now. So with networking, I am a huge introvert. So networking often, you know, doesn't come easily for me.

But most of the internships and every single job I've held, I got there due to really leveraging my network and having people I knew submit referrals for me. And so the thing about networking is it doesn't have to be, you know, too aggressive or flashy. But getting comfortable, getting some practice, getting comfortable sharing your goals with your mentors and your managers, you know, even your friends, and reaching out to your network and asking for informational interviews is key. They're pretty low stakes. You know, if you're just wanting to learn about a particular area of marketing, if you want to learn about a particular company, just ask people if they'd be willing to share, you know, spare like 20 minutes, 15 minutes and share a little bit about their job.

You know, I'm always happy to help other early career marketers out and help pull them up the way that others helped me. So secondly, I would say might be a hot take or like a warm, might be a warm take. But very often, knowing how to market yourself into your own horn will get you further than just being good at what you do. So knowing how to communicate your value as a marketer and really practicing that skill early on in your career, even if it's uncomfortable, it normally is super uncomfortable. It always is for me. But it'll pay off so much in your future. And, you know, it gets easier.

It's unfortunately, you know, not enough to just be good at what you do. You have to be good and comfortable with advocating for yourself. And, of course, people will advocate for you no matter where you are, no matter what industry you're in. But having that skill of advocating for yourself and knowing and communicating your value to a company is so, so important. And then finally, taking care of yourself and prioritizing your well-being. That's a huge one. If there's anything that I learned during the pandemic and honestly during my career in general is that life is so much bigger than your career. Yeah.

Of course, always work hard and work to get better at what you do and try to achieve and improve, but also prioritize setting and maintaining boundaries, maintaining your work-life balance, practicing good habits, finding daily routines that work for you, you know, especially as a lot of us are working remote or partly remote, that's so important. And finally, just being kind to others and to yourself. It honestly will take you a long way. Yes, those are incredible answers. I would agree. Checkmark next to all of those things.

I also wish I knew that when I was starting out my career. Just a follow up around networking. So it's definitely, you know, crucial in your early years. But if someone doesn't know how to go about networking, what do you recommend networking within the company that you're at? Do you cold reach out to people that you kind of have a connection with? You know, um, I think something that's another thing that I wish I had known, and I wish I had done more networking at the company that you're at might be a little bit more comfortable for you. And that's a really great way to not only, you know, get to know

people at your company, but you know, you never know who your colleagues might know. And, you know, it might be able to help grow your network outside of your company and in some pretty significant ways. And so that might be a way if, you know, cold emailing, that's, it's uncomfortable. So if you're not comfortable with that, talking to your manager and saying, you know, this is what I'm interested in. Do you know anyone else at the company who I can, you know, grab a coffee with at some point, or I guess have a Zoom or Teams call with at some point? I know my managers have always been really helpful with that. So I think, you know, trying to grow your network at your company as part of your, you know, overall career development plan at work is really helpful.

And it might be a little bit more easy to do than reaching out to people on LinkedIn, which is, you know, I've done that. I've done that a ton. Me too. Also, yeah, it works. It works really well. You know, you get to meet a lot of people, grow your network. But yeah, there, there are steps, you know, baby steps that you can take. Yeah, definitely. That's a great tip. Thank you so much for that. So we're nearing the

end here. And I just wanted to ask where everybody can find you on LinkedIn, on Instagram, if you want to give that. Where can people find, follow and connect with you if they'd like to? Sure. So you can find me on LinkedIn at Rondine Grinham. That's R-O-N-D-E-N-E-G-R-I-N-A-M. And then on Twitter and Instagram, I am at Ronnie the Riveter and that's R O N N I T H E Riveter like Rosie the Riveter. I love that. That's so awesome. How'd you come up with that handle? You know, I think I was just really into Rosie the, I I've had it since, oh gosh, I think since I was like 17, 18. And so I was just really into Rosie the Riveter, I guess. And I was like, oh, my name is sort of, you know,

I can do something cute with that. And it's, yeah, it's, I've never changed it. I thought about it, but I just. No, you can't change it now. It's iconic. That's amazing. Well, thank you so much, Rondine, for joining us today. I learned so much even just around, you know, takeaways I'm going to take into my day to day job around marketing and email marketing. So thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much, Erica. This was so great. So much fun. Rondine is such a marketing powerhouse and we are so thankful that she took the time to share her strategies with us. If you got a lot out of this episode, don't forget to rate Marketing Happy Hour across your favorite podcast platforms. It helps us out a lot. And we'd love for you to join our community across social media.

You can find us everywhere under the name Marketing Happy Hour. Until next time, thanks for being a part of our listener family. We can't wait to see you next week.