Samantha Voshall: Responding To Pandemic Changes And Re-strategizing For Growth In Business
Samantha Voshall: Responding To Pandemic Changes And Re-strategizing For Growth In Business
One cannot ignore how much the pandemic has changed marketing the way we used to know it. While some changes were already in progress, like the introduction of digital marketing, the outbreak of COVID-19 speeded up the process.
However, several companies have been struggling post-pandemic. Hence, the reason why we birthed the Rediscover Marketing initiative at PinchForth to bring quality information to marketing and growth leaders on how to respond to pandemic changes and position their organization for growth.
Meet our guest: Samantha Voshall
As is our culture since the start of this blog series to interview successful marketing leaders, we had with us this time Samantha Voshall, a marketing leader in the educational sector. Samantha is the director of marketing and strategic communications at Julie Billiart Schools, a position she has held for over a year.
Marketing is a relatively underrepresented concept in the educational sector as most people do not think schools would do more than teach and pass knowledge to students. However, like every organization selling a product or service, there is the need to create awareness about services rendered, and this is what Samantha does at Julie Billiart Schools.
Samantha's early years and learning curve at Julie Billiart Schools
Julie Billiart Schools are a network of schools for K-8 children with special learning abilities. The need for a marketing team didn't become evident until the school opened a second branch. They needed to create better awareness to improve patronage. Thus, they hired Samantha to manage brand and community awareness as well as lead generation.
She was able to reorient and expand the school’s marketing focus from simply social marketing efforts to an intentional and conscious effort to bring in more students to the school. She also ensured that each school under the school network sees itself as a part of a community; hence, promoting harmony among all individual schools.
Recommendation for marketing leaders in responding to the pandemic
In responding to the changes the pandemic presented, Samantha gave recommendations that leaders of marketing might incorporate in designing their content marketing strategies:
- Transparency
Considering that everyone is now conscious of their safety, Samantha believes that every organization owes it to their employees and customers a detailed plan of how they intend to continue operations without sacrificing their community's safety.
- Diversify
Samantha stated that one of the survival strategies now would be that organizations employ a variety of approaches. When they can afford it, they should introduce a variety of products and services to their customers. This is one way to ensure there is something for everybody.
- Feedback
The importance of feedback cannot be overemphasized in an organization. There is a need to listen to people and customers to ensure delivery satisfaction.
We rounded off this interview with Samantha emphasizing the need for marketing leaders to view their whole marketing plan from a new perspective rather than trying to make variations to existing methods. She also mentioned that leaders must be prudent and creative enough to make the most out of limited budgets, to see the organization through these difficult times.
Let us know what you think about Samantha's thoughts, and feel free to add your opinion in the comment section.