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Episode 04

Giving Your Consumer a Seat at The Table

In this episode, Ted Chi, Digital Marketing Executive at Fortune 500 and startups alike, discusses major trends impacting the media industry and how he centers the customer in decision-making.

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Guest speaker: Ted Chi

Ted is a digital marketing leader with a passion for media, sports and technology. From physical video games to mobile apps and digital movies, he has a passion for breathing new life into products, brands, and companies. Ted is a data-driven, creatively inspired, entrepreneurial marketer with a successful track record at Fortune 500 companies (NBCUniversal, Disney, Yahoo) and early-stage start-ups. 

Episode summary

This episode features an interview with Ted Chi, a Digital Marketing Executive with over 2 decades of experience at Fortune 500 companies and early-stage startups focusing on team leadership, brand management, and consumer insights.

In this episode, Ted discusses how data helps build relationships with consumers, why CDPs are essential, and the Holy Grail of data: personalization.

Key takeaways

  • Good data is anything that helps marketers build a relationship with the people they’re trying to reach. If you’re able to precisely target a customer through data, you’ll be able to drive conversions.

  • When having a meeting with leaders in the boardroom, always have a seat for your customer. At the end of the day, your efforts need to resonate with them or none of the work matters.

  • Because customers want more privacy and personalization, marketers will have to get creative in the ways they collect and use data. In order for customers to trust marketers, marketers need to provide value back to consumers.

Speaker quotes

“I had a mentor share this with me early in my career and I've always taken it with me. And he said, picture a big board room and you have your CMO, your CEO, and your CFO, and your Ops person, and all these important people around the room. But there’s always got to be one empty seat every single meeting in the room. And that is the seat for the consumer. In fact, that seat should really be at the head of the table.” – Ted Chi, Digital Marketing Executive

Episode timestamps

‍*(02:26) - Rapid fire questions with Ted

*(12:34) - Top trends that Ted is seeing in the industry

*(18:28) - Emerging customer behaviors

*(25:01) - How Ted defines good data

*(32:07) - Most important piece of data that drives customer engagement

*(35:19) - Ted’s favorite data-driven marketing campaign

*(36:33) - An example of another company doing it right with customer engagement (hint: it’s Amazon)

*(38:37): Ending advice: it’s all about the consumer

Connect with Ted on LinkedIn

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