Marketing Happy Hour - How to Build Insights-Driven Marketing Campaigns | Nataly Kelly of Zappi

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

What makes a great campaign truly effective? And how do you scale brand success globally without losing authenticity? In this episode, I sit down with Nataly Kelly, Chief Marketing Officer at Zappi, to unpack the new rules of marketing in a world powered by connected insights, AI, and always-on consumer data. Nataly shares highlights from Zappi’s State of Creative Effectiveness report, the inside story behind her upcoming book Brand Global, Adapt Local, and how marketers can thrive by leaning into curiosity, clarity, and continuous feedback. We also touch on the emotional side of career pivots and why finding the right next step is more about mission than job titles. Key Takeaways:// Connected insights aren’t just a buzzword — they’re a system for improving creative, product, and brand performance with real-time consumer input.// AI is not replacing marketers—it’s enhancing our ability to make smarter, faster, insight-driven decisions.// If you’re out of work, you’re not alone — Nataly shares a powerful framework for finding clarity in the in-between.The State of Creative Effectiveness Report: HERELearn more about Zappi: Website | NewsletterConnect with Nataly: LinkedIn | Brand Global, Adapt Local (Book) | Find Meaningful Work (Guide)____Say hi! DM me on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - I 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. ⁠Join our FREE Open Jobs group on LinkedIn: ⁠Join now⁠Get the latest from MHH, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow MHH on Social: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

A lot of marketers are afraid of the data because they're like, we don't want that to dampen our creativity. We know our customer. But then you see all these failed campaigns and you see things that don't land. And it's like, what did we miss? The problem has always been by the time you get the consumer research back, the campaign's on the way, like it's in flight. So I think that's where consumer research wasn't able to connect at the right point in time into the marketer's workflows. So now that we can infuse it more iteratively, we're able to bring that consumer voice to light so that the marketers are in lockstep with the consumer views. Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. I'm Cassie, consultant, podcaster, and your host. Every Thursday you'll hear episodes packed with insights from

brand leaders on an array of topics, from crafting effective marketing strategies and hitting career goals, to building leadership skills and launching your own business. Inspired by those unfiltered happy hour combos with peers, this show is all about practical, empowering chats to support your professional journey. So grab your favorite drink and let's get to the episode. Today I am joined by Natalie Kelly, Chief Marketing Officer at Zappi. We're gonna talk all things data-driven marketing, creative effectiveness,

and Natalie's newest book that recently came out, which I'm so excited for you to hear more about. And then of course, in true marketing happy hour fashion, I will dive a little bit into career as well. Natalie, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Kelsey. It's great to be here. Absolutely.

Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. Of course, though we do have to kick off before we dive into all the amazing insights today with an important question. Natalie, what's been in your glass lately? Well, I will have to say Rose because I'm preparing for can lions in the South of France. So Rose is on the menu. There's just going to be so many amazing activations and learnings from that. So I can't wait to follow along there, but stoked for you and the team to be a part of that.

So super exciting. Wonderful, can't wait to see you there. So Natalie, tell us please, if you don't mind, just a little bit about your journey. How did you land and end up at Zappi? So Zappi is a consumer insights platform and is in the Martech space. And my background is actually in MarTech as well.

Zappi also interestingly has a lot of customers that are highly global enterprise brands, consumer brands. So brands like PepsiCo, McDonald's, Wreck-It, lots of consumer tech, consumer products, consumer services. And I was really drawn to Zappi because my background is precisely in international marketing and, you know, working across cultures.

I started out my career as an interpreter for Spanish. So since then moved into translation, worked on the agency side, worked at tech companies, and eventually became a VP of Marketing and then a VP of Marketing at HubSpot where I worked for eight years in different roles, helping lead international expansion, opening up offices in Paris, Bogota, Berlin, Tokyo. And, uh, that kind of led me eventually to Zappi where I am today. Oh my gosh. Amazing. And you know, as you mentioned too, um, just being such a insights driven brand and company. And, and I would just kind of love to know a little bit more about what you

all do at Zappi, uh, what is that platform like, what are you all providing to marketers and how do you feel it's, it's really impacting the way that they're developing creative and just marketing in general? Yes. So our platform is used by lots of these large global brands. And what's interesting is they're all using Zappi to get consumer insights and consumer data in different areas. So marketing teams often own or collaborate with the innovation side, developing new products and bringing them to

market. So we have an innovation pillar within our platform, and we also have an advertising pillar within our platform. And our most have an advertising pillar within our platform. And our most recent pillar is a brand tracking, brand health, KPIs type offering. So within that, we have AI agents that can look at the different data, look at the inputs that our customers are putting in, like their style guide, their compliance, guidelines, all that stuff, and understand, okay, how do we action the consumer insights on all of the things that we're testing, all the studies that we're doing,

and how do we connect those? Because it used to be about testing things with consumers. Now it's about learning from consumers and understanding where they're headed. So we really believe if you just look backward on what they said, well, the consumer's already moved on. So what you need to do is understand the trends and what that data is telling you in a connected way and in a continuous way so that you can understand where the consumer is going next.

Yeah. Okay. So you mentioned connected. So tell us a little bit more about what connected insights means in practice and why do you feel it's so powerful and important for modern marketers today? Yes. So I think the old way of doing consumer research was outsource it to an agency, get a PDF back, but that, and then they would just use that one study to do.

You know, something for the next campaign or something for the next product launch. And then it was basically throw away wasted data that never enriched the process. So the modern way of doing this is to learn from the consumer in a more agile fashion and a more continuous way. I liken it to how you used to use a DVD or a VHS instead of Netflix. It's basically, instead of just having that and putting it back and returning it or just not using it again or ever watching it again, you have real-time access. If you want to go back to that, you can at any point in time. You can pause it.

You can come back to it. Same thing marketers need with consumer research. They might need to figure out, oh, didn't we ask millennials about this exact question when we did that ad research? Why aren't we using that information and those verbatims and those insights for the next social media campaign that we're launching? That is where Connected Insights can really be powerful to help marketers advance and leverage all the data that they're collecting in all these different places.

Because as we know, we have a lot of places to look already as marketers, at least we can have our consumer insights all in one place. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It sounds like just a tool for major efficiency for teams. And the other thing that is just standing out to me is just taking away this assumption piece in marketing. I feel like traditionally we've just kind of assumed what we feel is going to work and

engage with our audiences, but using a platform like this, it sounds like we don't have to assume anymore. We know because we have the data at our fingertips and we have this historical data as well that we can look back at and really make great decisions when it comes to building campaigns or creative in the future. So I love that. Yes and you hit on a really important point Cassie because a lot of marketers are afraid of the data because they're like we don't want that to dampen our creativity. We don't want somebody to rub or stamp our creative work. We know our customer. We know where things are headed but then you see all these failed

campaigns and you see things that don't land and it's like, what did we miss? Sometimes it's just a very small thing and it's a very small part of the execution that was off and just tweaking that one little thing could have made it really land very well and get so much more ROI. So what I'm trying to help more marketers understand is this type of data is your friend. It's not that you have to be super prescriptive and do exactly what the consumer says because you have to make space for that creativity, but at least have that as an input to enhance. The problem has always been by the time you get the consumer

research back, the campaign's on the way. It's's in flight. You know, we can't stop the train here. So I think that's where consumer research wasn't able to connect at the right point in time into the marketer's workflows. So now that we can infuse it more iteratively, we're able to bring that consumer voice to light so that the marketers are in lockstep with the consumer views. So I think that's really powerful and we're just, we're not there yet as like an industry and as a profession as marketers, but I think that's where things are headed. Yeah, absolutely. And it's also just a great tool for proposing new campaigns and creative. I think a lot of times we as marketers marketers, we have these fun, creative ideas. And, um, I always tell, uh, younger professionals, especially I'm like, you,

if you want to propose that to your leader, to a manager or a VP of marketing or whoever, um, not only proposing the, the creative and what can it look like and how can it feel and how can it speak to the audience, but having that data to back up that idea and share exactly why it can work. And so again, I think those insights are so powerful for backing up your creative ideas and having both to bring to the table and discussion. And it just makes your point and your idea or your pitch a lot more effective that way.

So, yes, I think that's a great point. And especially for people who are younger in their careers, because my style of leadership and just what I've learned over the course of my career is the trends usually start with the younger generations. And so when I hear an idea from somebody who's new on my team or younger, I tend to take it very seriously because even if they might lack experience on certain areas, they are usually very in tune with the trends and that is hard to capture sometimes when you're serving broadly. Unless you're serving that specific niche, you might not know that that is what's next,

that that is what's hot, that is what's up and coming. So often I give a lot more cred to the ideas that come from those younger generations. I also remember what it was like when I was that age and people didn't take me as seriously and so I want to make sure that there's space allowed for those types of trends and I think your point is great that if you're if you come with an idea and you're armed with that data it makes it even more powerful and gives other people that do that, oh, they've already tested this. They've already looked at, is there a high likelihood of success?

Because the consumer insights teams are often risk averse and want to protect the brand from damage, long-term brand damage. And so they're more likely to say, ah, maybe we shouldn't do this. And the marketers are the ones who are more forward-looking more likely to say, maybe we shouldn't do this. And the marketers are the ones who are like more forward looking and thinking, no, but we have to lead the charge here. That tension is important to recognize within these conversations. Yeah, absolutely. So let's bring AI into the conversation a little bit here. So just overall to kind of tie this discussion together about consumer data, how are you seeing the combination

of AI and consumer data fundamentally changing how marketing teams are creating and optimizing campaigns today? I know we discussed it a little bit already, but just curious how else you would kind of touch on that too. Oh, absolutely. So I think what's really exciting about AI agents is that we're starting to learn.

I think as marketers, what the roles of different AI tools are in our workflows and our processes and our campaigns. And while that all sounds really boring, I think in the early days of like gen AI hype, everybody was talking about how, oh, this is going to replace entirely this person or this job. Now people are realizing, oh, it doesn't exactly happen that way because there is an element of human judgment that's required and there's taste involved and AI tools are trained on what we feed them.

And so, you know, there's not going to be the ability to really curate an experience for your customers and your brand, unless you arm the AI tools and train them with specifics, like here are the words we use, you know, here are the words we don't use, here's our style guide, here's our color palette. And by the way, here's how we use this color versus that color. Here's how we use this image and what context, et cetera. And by the way, here's how we use this color versus that color. Here's how we use this image and what context, et cetera. So we have to get better at documenting those things to enable AI to work for us.

But at Zappi, we see our customers using AI agents all the time to develop new concepts. We have an AI concept development agent that is really powerful. And it will take an idea all the way to a packaged product in a display case with you know the envisioning of what it should look like and who it's going to appeal to and it's pretty pretty cool but what we've noticed is our customers are using that not to design the finished product but to accentuate and enhance ideas that they already have and to multiply the number of ideas

to find the really successful ones. So we at Zappi just sponsored the Ad Age Young Creative Award and the winners actually were just announced yesterday and they're from Brazil and they came up with this really cool idea. So the concept I put into our AI concept creation tool was a sparkling water that people could carry around at Cannes, at Cannes Lions, and I named it

Cannes-O on the go, like water on the go. And, you know, the AI tool did not come up with that. That was me. But I asked it to generate different images and it came up with a really cool concept of mirroring tattoo body art etched on a can. And then the creatives actually came up with this really cool idea to include a digital element

so that you could have the side of the can be tracked digitally and all these really cool elements to it. So anyway, that's the type of thing that I think AI can help us with is like enhancing our creativity. It's not going to replace us as creative humans, but it can give us more ideas and give us more things to play with that make us more likely to find the winning ideas. Yeah. I see it as an extension of our brains. I

think it's just helping and emphasizing some of those different ideas. And as you mentioned already, giving us just different ways to think about an idea, right? Like I think team collaboration is obviously important, but even enhancing team collaboration further of giving this consumer data driven ideas and how do we fill this idea out or, or, you know, further push it. So I think, um, just marrying the two of those with our own brains is, uh, is just so important. And we're going to see more of that, uh, down the road too, which is great. Totally agree.

In fact, I think AI may be what up levels the consumer voice and allows it to shine. You know, I really do think that all that data, just because it's in so many silos, it's hard for marketers to access when they need it, when they want it at the moment and with the specifics that they need at that particular point in time. If I could test a specific element of a video that I'm creating for like a social campaign and find out, ooh, how does this versus that, you know, resonate better and with which groups and what would consumers like more?

You know, it just gives me so much more ammunition, but I can't do that because I can't stop the flow today. But AI is going to make that more and more possible. So I totally agree with you. It's like an extension of what we already do and an enhancement. You know, I've often said AI isn't here to replace and it's not just merely additive or subtractive.

It's a multiplier. So I really believe that's the power of AI in all of these workflows that we use as marketers. Yeah, it's huge. And I don't say this to scare any marketers, but I think as marketers, we do have to either decide to get on board or unfortunately be left behind. Right. So I think using tools like a Zappi, for example, and, and getting used to, um, how can we use this to the best of our ability to enhance what we're doing? It's important.

It's going to be again, more and more prevalent as we move forward. Um, but to your point, as you mentioned earlier, still having that human touch and just those human eyes on it and a, a human extension of a campaign and project and creative is still, it's going to be important forever, but we have to be able to adopt and learn these platforms too. Absolutely. I totally agree. Flexing and evolving is how, how we will thrive.

So the marketers who do that the best are the ones who will continue to shine and be able to leverage this technology to the max. Absolutely. So Natalie, I want to pivot into talking about one of the latest reports that your team put out this, uh, state of creative effectiveness report is fantastic. So I want to hear a little bit more about that. I'm just curious, you know, in conducting this report, um, what were some of the biggest surprises or trends that came out of doing that research?

Yes. So, I mean, there are tons of interesting findings in that report. I was just looking at it again this morning because I was looking at the differences between salty snacks and sweet snacks and the advertising within each. And some are more memorable and have better brand recall and the others do not. And it was just interesting because how we're even marketing in the same category, but a different variant within the same category and the advertising and creative effectiveness is interesting that the scores are so different for salty versus sweet. You know, I think a lot of the category specific findings are very interesting in the report. So any marketers working

on those types of consumer products or financial services or telco, lots of great findings in there for those. But one of the big takeaways for me was a lot of the advertising and the creative effectiveness, you know The the scores are very similar for men and women and slightly better for how they you know, how they reach men Slightly better and I was thinking about this and talking with my team about it because I'm like, you know If 80% of these household products are being purchased by women, but we're still skewing as marketers toward men, we're really missing an opportunity to affect share of wallet and brands are missing out by not

skewing more toward women who are the primary purchasers of most of these household products. So whether it's like the shampoo for the family or the probiotic soda, women are making the majority of these purchases. So why are advertisers still skewing toward men in almost every product category that we tested? Because we're looking at 4,000 different ads in the United States. We can glean a lot from that data and that really struck me as a missed opportunity for most brands. You know we talk about like equality and we want you know inclusion but it's actually you should be targeting the market segment that is the most likely

to buy your product. It's like how are we missing that as a profession as marketers at large. So that was one key finding. Another one Cassie was the heart of great marketing and the heart of great advertising are still the same. You need to make people feel something and you need to be remembered as a brand. And so we look at all these different elements of scores to try to figure out how well will they succeed at this. But at the end of the day, it really still boils down to those two things. Absolutely. Thank you for recapping that. I'll have access to that report, uh, in the show notes too. So please check that out. Um, I want to ask too, just on this extension of powerful creative, how important still today do you feel just good quality creative is just whether it's in your findings from this reporter, just in general. Um, I think, you know,

we we've kind of gotten to the point as marketers sometimes where we lose that or we, we forget that and we try to amplify creative, that's a little bit subpar or put things out there just because we want to throw it out there. But how important do you feel that powerful, good quality creative still is today for marketers? Oh, it's everything. good quality creative still is today for marketers. Oh, it's everything.

I mean, high quality creative is the heart of marketing. You know, that's how you reach people. That is how you express an idea, convey an emotion, convey a sentiment, convey what you wanna communicate. So I believe high quality creative is the heart of all of marketing. And that's why we're going to Cannes and that's why we're celebrating creativity because that is how we reach people and win their hearts and minds, you know, and especially their

hearts. You know, logic will help us win their minds, but and maybe the price and a lot of those details but and the quality of the product too, but ultimately to win their hearts. It is about creative and the quality of the creative., but ultimately to win their hearts. It is about creative and the quality of the creative. Absolutely. Thank you for emphasizing that. I think that's something we just have to be reminded of every once in a while. So, um, always great to hear, uh, just having intention behind that work too. Um, Natalie,

I want to shift gears again here and talk about your new book. So in addition to your role, you are an author and your latest book here is Brand Global Adapt Local. So why was now the time to write this book? What inspired just the content inside? So this book is actually a very special book for me because it's primarily written by the lead author Catherine Melchior-Ray, who is an incredible marketer. She is a multi-time CMO in many different industries. She was the global CMO of Shiseido, lived in Japan with her family, speaks fluent Japanese, also was a CMO and marketing leader at companies like

Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hyatt, Grand Hyatt, Hannah Anderson, Nike. She was general manager of a division at Nike. Like she has worked in so many different companies, fluent in French, fluent in Japanese. The way I got involved in this book was Katherine actually reached out to me because she also teaches at UC Berkeley Haas and the MBA program, um, and teaches a course on global marketing. And she reached out and said, Natalie, I use one of your Harvard business review articles in my course.

And I just wanted to say hello and would you like to meet up sometime via zoom? And I was, Oh, great. This is awesome. I love that my work is helping future marketers and future generations and you know the next generation of leaders and so I took the call and then when I was on the call with her I kept thinking she looks really familiar I feel like I know her somehow and then I realized many years ago in my first job as a marketing leader at a tech company, I had

seen an article in the Wall Street Journal and it was about Catherine. It was something like, I can't remember the exact title, it was like this executive carries a ball gown and her carry-on or something like that. That was the title of the article, it was a pretty well read article and I sent it back then to my PR team and said this is how we've got to get the company I was at on the radar because we were all about global business and I was like, this is a perfect example and wow,

I also thought, what an impressive woman. I'd love to meet her someday. But then it faded from my memory and then all these years later, she reached out to me and what a small world. And so when we got to talking and she realized I was also an adjunct professor in a, you know, in a master's program, we started to think maybe we should collaborate on this.

And so she asked me to write the chapters on tech and B2B. And so I infused the book with that, you know, the B2B perspective, which is my background and the tech side, you know, digital marketing, which is definitely my sweet spot. And so, um, we collaborated and so it's coming out actually this month in June and the first orders were placed from Japan and Germany of all places and it's launching in the U S uh, on the 24th. So very excited. Oh my gosh.

Amazing. Well, first congrats on that. Uh, such a, such an awesome, um achievement, of course, to put out another book. So that's amazing and I can't wait to dig into it even more. With that too, just as a little bit of a teaser here, where do you see brands getting it wrong when trying to scale globally? I know that's kind of a loaded question, but just in some of your findings in writing this book or even just your years of experience in consumer insights, I'm just curious what

you'd say to that. Well, you know, I was in charge of international operations and strategy for many years at HubSpot, which is a large, many of you and listeners will know HubSpot, a large public tech company based in Boston. And when I was there, I realized that it's very hard to lift up the voices of local employees who are in market. And one of the ways that I tried to help accelerate that process was to connect people. And it sounds so simple, but connecting people and getting them to talk to each other so they can learn from the people in market on the ground

and what Catherine and I talk a lot about in this book is that lived experience that you can't replace from being in market with the customer and your employees are the ones every day who are connecting with those customers listening to them hearing their pain points, understanding them, the closer you can get to the customer, the better. And I know it sounds very simple, but I think in a world where we do look at a lot of data and we bury our heads in screens and spreadsheets,

we lose sight of the customer all too often. And when you go global, it becomes exponentially harder because suddenly you have to track differences by culture in different markets with different laws, different realities, different time zones, and it becomes overwhelmingly complex sometimes. I think to answer your question, Cassie, the number one mistake companies make is they think they know more about that local reality than they do.

And they're not talking to local customers and local employees who are the next best thing to your local customers sufficiently and frequently. And so where that ties into consumer insights is I believe if you connect the consumer insights across geographies, you can understand what these customers have in common in all of the parts of the world where your business operates,

but you can also understand the differences because there are always differences and sometimes they're really subtle and they aren't intuitive, especially if you're not familiar with that local culture and that local market. It's amazing the proximity bias we have in our own culture, even in our own city where we live in one place and we go somewhere else and we're like, oh, that's how they do that there. Oh, that can even be in the same country. Can even be in the same state, you know, in the United States. So when you go to different countries, you really start to realize this.

And so what I love about this book is it tells that story vividly from various different perspectives and Catherine is a great writer. She writes almost like fiction. It's so enjoyable to read because she described, you know, she's a B2C marketer. So she describes the experience in vivid language. I'm B2B tech so I'm a little less flowery with my language. But I think it's exciting because I think we've brought in the best of those perspectives into one book and hopefully it will help a lot of marketers out there. I think it's also kind of fun and inspiring to see the bigger picture of what's out there in terms of all these marketing jobs that you might be able to have someday and see the world.

That's so exciting and a fun experience that I wish everybody could have. Yeah, absolutely. So rounding out the conversation about the book, if you were to pass along one last teaser or snippet of information that maybe was one of your favorite parts to write about, um, whether it's a strategy or whatever it may be. Uh, what would you leave us with today? Just to get us excited about the book as it comes out. Well, if you read the chapter that I wrote on HubSpot going into Japan, you'll read about my most embarrassing professional moment of my career. And I will leave it at that because everybody should have a laugh at my expense.

Oh my goodness. Well, I love the vulnerability, right? It's, it's such a powerful reminder. Um, that's awesome. I am, I'm excited to just read the whole book again. We'll have information about that below. So please check that out and congrats again on that, Natalie. So amazing.

Thank you, Cassie. So we're going to pivot one last time and chat about a career here as we round out this amazing episode. So I want to hear you wrote a LinkedIn post that really resonated with me that I want to, I want to dive into this a little bit, but it was really about, um, this concept of how a lot of really talented people are out of work. Unfortunately, we are, um, in a time where we're seeing a lot of layoffs happen, uh, and things there. And the biggest thing around that is how finding clarity in the next step or the

decision-making process of how do you manage that, um, as being the hardest part. So, um, can you share a little bit about that perspective and how you've helped others navigate, uh, through this process that some are going through? Yes, absolutely. So this is a topic very near and dear to my heart. I am posting a lot about how to not lose sight of click, you know, how to gain clarity in the job search because so many people are struggling and I feel. You know, we're all kind of keyboard warriors sometimes looking at like

jobs on LinkedIn jobs are being advertised and it feels overwhelming like which ones to apply for. You know the number one piece of advice I give to anyone who's looking right now is tap into your network. 80% of jobs are found through your network so don't be fooled into thinking that just because you saw something on LinkedIn or you know a job on whatever job search site that that actually is going to lead you to your next job. Because most of those get filled through referrals, and the second that they're opened, thousands of applicants.

I see this when I'm hiring at Zappi. We often are hiring from the people who not only applied, but also were referred. So if you don't have a contact, I almost feel like it's a waste of time to reply. I feel like you should only really apply when you know somebody who can refer you. In terms of the question that you asked about, like finding your compass and figuring out what is authentically you actually wrote a guide when a bunch of my

friends and colleagues were laid off. I wrote a guide for them because I wanted to help give people a simple process to follow to help them feel in control because when you are suddenly laid off, you feel like you have no control and you are not in charge of your own destiny. So what's nice about this is it forces you to think about your own personal brand, like a marketer, defining your values, figuring out what you're actually uniquely good at and what you're passionate about. Because I believe that if you're searching for a job, your passion for that will shine through if you're authentic. And also what's nice about this is if you can

identify, okay it's not a title that I'm looking for, it's maybe not even a specific area because many of us are skilled in many areas. It's about what do I really value and what core purpose do I have and how do I find a job that's going to lead me in that direction? You know people are always surprised that I don't have, you know, I went from a Spanish interpreter to a CMO. I've been a C-level leader, I've been an executive in various different types of companies. They're always like, what was your plan? I didn't have a plan. I had a purpose.

I continue to advise people have a purpose, have a passion that will lead you in the right direction. It's not about, I know I've met some people are like every two to three years I have to change and I want a promotion, I want the next level. I've gone back down. I've gone back up. It's all about learning and up. It's all about learning and growing. It's not about the title. It's not about just singularly stepwise, stepwise,

stepwise upward and you know, climbing a ladder. For me, life is way more complex than that. What you want at a given point in your life is going to be different. You might want more flex. You might want more travel. You might want different experiences, you know, ability to have a side hustle, you know, whatever. You know, all of these things are encapsulated in that process that I laid out for people because I want to give them something tangible that they can use to figure out like what do I care about. We often don't just give ourselves the time and space to think about that As I wanted to encourage people to take a step back Invest the time really get that clarity. It's just like when we were working on brand

You know, we have to define that and it takes time. It takes thought it takes energy and it takes intentionality But once you know that Everything else gets easier. It's just the exact same thing that we do as marketers, but we need to do it for ourselves. And often, we're not good at doing it for ourselves. The best marketers I know are not good at building a personal brand. They put so much energy into building it for their companies that they forget about themselves. My executive coach has been telling me for years, years, like I've been working with her for eight years, she says, don't forget about the business of Natalie. Don't forget about that. Cause

you care so much about your brands and your companies that you're working for that you neglect. And I think as women, we often do that. Yep. We like to give, we like to help, but we have to remember that we are only capable of giving to the degree that we are also putting on our own oxygen mask and all the metaphors that we know. But it's very hard as marketers to do that. I think also we're just exhausted from doing it as our day job. Shoemaker's son going barefoot as they say.

Yes. Oh my gosh. Such a good reminder. And I love this reminder too that you shared of just this purpose alignment and passion alignment too in our work. Uh, I feel like there was this notion for so long and we're, we're getting out of this, which I'm very grateful for, but this notion that who we are as human beings has to be separate from who we are at work.

And I think showing up in a space where there's value alignment with the company and the work that you're doing, um, but you're passionate about what you're doing. You know, you're not showing up and feeling regretful for going to work that day. And I think that just helps us, um, use our skills to the best of our ability, be motivated in our work and keep going. Uh, but we have to find that into your point. It takes some work of, of digging deep and really understanding what am I passionate about?

Like, what are my skills? What are the things that really make me thrive and making sure you find a spot in position that truly align with that? So, yeah, a lot of it goes into your background and figuring out your story. Like, you know, in coaching some people who were looking for work in my network, I asked them like, when was the last time you felt really excited to get up and go to work? What were the things you were doing then and why did it make you excited?

Because it takes a few questions deep to get to that answer and often it's something in their background that's quite deep. Like oh, when I was a child this thing happened or I was really gravitating toward this since I was a kid. And it often is really rooted in who they are. And that's where you find that authenticity, you know, for myself. Like, you know, I had experiences when I was a child of not being able to communicate that made me want to go into international communications.

And I had people around me, you know, a piano teacher as a child who struggled with English. And it made me very empathetic toward her life and I felt like if I can help bridge that gap there are people out there like her who can't tell their story because they lack the language skills or because they lack the access or they're in some small town or in some country where they don't even have a way to get that message across and so that's defined a lot of my passion for my work, but it's related to who I am as a person. And so I think each of us has some unique aspect to our story like that, that's you know maybe related to their family or their life or their childhood or early career experiences that really

guide them toward what their purpose is. And I do believe everybody has a purpose. It's just a question of figuring it out and finding it and giving yourself the space to ask the questions to reveal it even to ourselves. Yeah, absolutely. I, one thing I love doing, I try to do this once a year if I can, is I'll take myself on a retreat. It's just me, I'll lock myself in a hotel room, sit by the pool and just do a lot of that questioning with myself and reassessing that once a year, I think is important too, because I believe as we collect more experience, we start to get closer to that. You know, what do we, what do I like? What do I not like? Um, what are some of the things that light me up and don't light me up? And so just, if you have to like book that in

your calendar and make yourself go somewhere outside of your own home and environment and just do some of that thinking. And then the road ahead, you know, from there on should be hopefully aligned with some of those findings. So that's always a recommendation I like to provide too. That is golden advice, Cassie. And I wish that I had started that when I was much younger. I do, but I do something similar now at the end of the year, um, preparing for the new year.

It's not about resolutions for me. It's about having like targets to hit because I like to set targets and goals and that are measurable. And I do that at the beginning of every year. And I do a quarterly check-in because I'm on a quarterly cadence because I've worked in B2B SaaS for so long. So you know, I love that end of quarter review and check-in because I find I'll set my targets and then they adjust throughout the year because things change.

You know, and so I try to hit that cadence, but you're giving some golden advice here is create the space, you know, book the hotel, give yourself that gift because it's actually an investment in yourself. And if you don't start it when you're, you know, early in your career, it gets harder to do it later. And I think having that time is really the secret. Yeah, absolutely. The quarterly check-ins are a good reminder too.

I need to back that up as well with my my yearly retreat, but such a great reminder. And Natalie, this has just been so amazing. I loved all of the different topics that we touched on and would love everyone to have the opportunity to stay in touch with you personally, as well as all things Zappie. So if you don't mind, let us know where we can stay connected with you and the business as well. Sure. The best place to connect with me is LinkedIn. That's where I'm most active and I do respond to almost every message I receive. I always try to reply. I'm a little bit behind right now, but and also my website is born to be global.com and

people can go on there, access my blog, access other resources and connect with me through my website too. I'm also on Instagram, so anybody wants to connect with me there or follow me there. That's the blending of my real life, both work and personal. All of it's integrated and intertwined. Amazing. Natalie, thank you again. We'll have all those links below just of everything that we talked about today.

So please go check those out in the show notes. But thank you again for sharing your insights and thanks for all the amazing work that you and your team at Zappi do too. Thank you, Cassie. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love your feedback. And if you're ready to take things to the next level, sign up for my weekly newsletter and the show notes.

You'll get weekly career and marketing insights straight to your inbox. And if you have an idea for a future marketing happy hour episode, shoot me an email, hello at marketinghappyhr.com. Thank you again and I'll see you next Thursday.