With International Women’s Day almost upon us, it’s a great time to reflect and celebrate some of the awesome UK women in email. I spoke with 8 of our favourite who are making great waves in the UK email marketing scene. These fabulous women offer tips and advice for other women in marketing and give their views on how all genders can help support improving diversity in the workplace. Find out what tips and advice they have for you.

Catherine Loftus

Catherine Loftus is an award-winning marketer currently heading up the marketing team at INSHUR, an insurtech start up in Brighton. Before that, she was at TrustedHousesitters – another Brighton-based start up – originally joining as a Marketing Executive and working her way up to eventually become Head of Marketing there. Catherine is a regular speaker on the international stage and was featured in Econsultancy’s Email Best Practice Guide. 

What one piece of advice would you give your 18 year self?

Work hard and I promise your dreams will come true – even if it’s not in the ways you imagined. Set goals for yourself and always keep them at the front of your mind. They’ll help you navigate the many crossroads you will face. To help you get there, surround yourself with people who inspire you and whose values align with your own. You will be lucky enough to work with some incredible people – listen, and don’t miss the chance to learn from them.

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Rachel Aldighieri

As the managing director of the DMA, the UK trade body for the data and marketing industry led by customer-first principles and a Code of Ethics, Rachel works closely with many of the UK’s most forward thinking agencies, brands and tech companies to promote a truly customer-centric approach to marketing. With a passion for authenticity and diversity, Rachel is responsible for leading the DMA’s key industry initiatives – including the Value of Data, Customer Engagement, the DMA Awards, Customer Engagement and the Campaign for great British creativity and Responsible marketing campaign.

Rachel is a member of the CAP Board and the Advertising Association’s Trust working party and the ICO consumer education advisory group.

What’s your top tip for how everyone can support female colleagues succeed in the workplace?

Make flexible working something for everyone. Flexible work schemes are too often just targeted at women and should be embraced across an organisation. By making it easier – and the norm – for men to combine childcare with work presents women with a greater opportunity to continue to work and progress their careers after having children.

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Victoria Peppiatt

Victoria is a co-founder and the COO of Phrasee, which empowers brands with the most advanced AI-Powered Copywriting technology. She leads global operations and is responsible for the success of Phrasee’s global customers, which include eBay, Domino’s, Groupon, Nectar and Virgin Atlantic. With a career spanning more than 20 years, Victoria brings an impressive track record in marketing, technology, and business management to Phrasee. Under her stewardship, Phrasee grew 75% year-on-year in 2019 and in four years has become a $ multi-million technology company.

What one piece of advice would you give your 18 year self?

Victoria has three pieces of advice for females embarking on a business: 

  1. Get a mentor who has been there and done it, so you know what to expect at every step in your business journey.
  2. Find your tribe – a sense of community is empowering and Victoria recommends joining 2-3 networking groups; one that reflects your own industry and one or two that support you as an entrepreneur.
  3. Bring positive energy – you don’t need to be a bitch to get on in business and it’s widely acknowledged that women who support women are more successful. Bring positive energy to everything you say and do.  

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Lili Boev

Lili lives and breathes email and is a self-professed email geek. She leads the Client Success Department at Vuture an ESP, part of the Campaign Monitor Group. She’s worked in email for over a decade. Previously, working at dotDigital where she leads the Key Accounts team. She chairs the DMA Email Council and runs a successful podcast all about email called My Dog Ate My Email. She also is a guest lecturer on Marketing Analytics at Goldsmiths and also captains a women’s basketball team in London.

What’s your top tip for how everyone can support female colleagues succeed in the workplace?

Encourage your leadership to ensure all working groups or teams are diverse and all minority groups are represented. Ask questions like “is there any reason why this group is only represented by men?” “Is it not important to have women involved in this discussion?”

If you are in a meeting and someone interrupts one of your female colleagues say something. I like to say “I would like to hear from x I believe you were interrupted”. If you hear an idea from another woman that gets shut down, bring back to the table. Say “I really liked your idea, I don’t agree with x. I’d like to bring this back to the table” Or “I’d like to explore your idea further I don’t believe we should discount it immediately.”

If you are a manager, you have so much power to help women in your team and in your company. Coach them, mentor them, give them advice on how to navigate tricky situations. Give them responsibilities that will push them beyond what they think they are capable of. Reassure and encourage women to take risks. Dedicate extra time with them.

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Neelam Mistry

Neelam specialises in Customer Relationship and Loyalty Marketing with nine year’s experience within the field. She has worked in a variety of industries from investment banking, automotive, retail and insurance.  Her love of working in her field allows her to get the best of both worlds – using data to drive strategies which are customer centric and creating exciting campaigns. She is a firm believer in customer advocacy and a great customer experience which sets brands apart. Building a relationship with the customer is key to customer retention! She regularly speak at conferences e.g. Email Insider Summit, Customer Experience Day (CXPA) and hosts her own events. She is also part of the Learning and Communication Hub at the Email Council at The DMA.

What one piece of advice would you give your 18 year self?

Don’t be afraid to fail, instead keep challenging yourself! The greatest skill is learning from all the failed attempts.. Each of us are individuals, remember to build your own career story.

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Natalie Rockall

Natalie Rockall is the founder of Eleven11 Digital Ltd and is a freelance email marketing specialist. She has over 16 years email marketing and CRM experience in both small and large organisations. Natalie now works independently with a wide range of brands and businesses helping them boost their email marketing results through audits, email marketing strategies, training and coaching, implementation support and more.

What one piece of advice would you give your 18 year self?

To feel the fear and do it anyway. It’s taken me a long time and a lot of self-development to get to the point where I’m aware of the risks involved in trying something new, but brave enough to jump in and try it anyway.

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Kate Barrett

Kate Barrett is the founder of eFocus Marketing, providing specialist email marketing consultancy, management and training services to companies around the world. With a proven track record and over 13 years’ experience (increasing results from opens and clicks, to sales), Kate’s expertise and passion has helped a large range of companies develop comprehensive strategies, implement, manage and optimise campaigns, as well as solving complex email marketing issues. 

Some of the companies she has worked with/trained include Nissan, Marks & Spencer, Argos, Nissan, Vision Direct, BT, TUI, Soletrader, Maybourne Hotel Group, Photobox, MyVoucherCodes, M&M Direct and Adidas among many others.

Kate is a member of the DMA Email Council, regularly speaks at events around the world, and the main email marketing lecturer for the IDM. Kate is also the author of the published book ‘E-telligence. Email Marketing isn’t dead, the way you’re using it is’

What one piece of advice would you give your 18 year self?

Keep learning and don’t be afraid to fail! We are all human and will all make mistakes or try things that don’t work – that’s life, and that’s marketing life! Test, test, test again and keep increasing your knowledge so that you have new ideas to keep your strategy and career moving forward.

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Kath Pay

Kath lives and breathes email marketing and is recognised as an international email marketing thought leader. She devotes her time to developlng customer-centric ecommerce journeys using a holistic, multi-channel approach. A thought leader and industry veteran of over 20 years, Kath is a regular author, expert contributor, international Keynote speaker, and trainer. She has helped hundreds of brands with their strategy and email programmes, including: Barclays, Hiscox, Facebook, Ebay, Net-a Porter – just to name a few.

What one piece of advice would you give your 18 year self?

This piece of advice was given to me when I was 32 years old and has impacted both my personal and professional life. I wished I’d received it when I was 18. It’s some of the best advice I can think of – especially as we working/business woman are coming up against battles on a daily basis. The advice is simply “Pick your battles”. Pick the battle/s that you really want to win. Pick the ones that you can win. You can’t win every battle, so let some of them go.

In my 20 plus years in this male-oriented email industry, as a woman, I’ve come across many battles that I’ve wanted to fight, but to fight all of them would have left me feeling perpetually angsty and exhausted, so these wise words given to me by a man I very much respected – a mentor to me – has helped me throughout my career.

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To conclude

I would like to thank everyone for getting involved, I have personally worked with all the amazing women we’ve showcased here, but I know there are many more doing great work, I would love to hear from you! If you would like to be included and have some great advice for other women in marketing please connect with me on Linkedin

Always remember “An Equal World is an Enabled World” #eachforequal – Let’s ALL take action for equality.

Komal

VP Marketing @Pure360