We were really pleased to chat with Philip Storey who is a seasoned marketing professional working with many leading global brands. Philip shares some really interesting advice on how brands should navigate themselves around the crisis facing all industries due to COVID-19 amongst some great book recommendations! Find out why Philip thinks being authentic and an understanding of psychology are really crucial for all marketers to grasp.

1.) Please introduce yourself

Hey Pure 360! I’m Philip Storey – I’m an email marketing strategist and coach from London, UK. I’ve been working in the industry for 20 years in retail, travel, automotive, finance and a lot of football clubs (but never my beloved Tottenham Hotspur!).

2.) Please tell us about your business.

I am the Principal Strategist at Enchant. Enchant is an email marketing agency formed in London in 2015. We are very strategic, often working with our clients to develop their business and marketing strategy and then developing out email campaigns, automations, creative templates and so on, with the business plan at its core. We also run the agency quite differently from most others – we only ever work with a maximum of 10 clients at any one time and our work is delivered from a culture of transformational coaching.

3.) What have been the main challenges facing marketers in 2019?

Being authentic in personal communications. There has been a massive surge in new and growing email technology solutions. This has presented opportunities and the whole ecosystem changed. It has enabled brands to automate and AI a lot of different campaigns but made it increasingly difficult to appear to be authentic. Relationships are built on trust and authenticity, and the inbox is no different to any other environment in this regard.

4.) What in marketing or business inspired you this year?

I think given that we are right in a pandemic, I’ll pick an example from what’s happening right now. Brew Dog switching their attention from brewing their famous Punk IPA to instead, making hand sanitiser from the same ingredients. It’s this kind of agility that blows my mind. Listening to what’s going on contextually, that most marketers could easily dismiss as being a macro factor that they have no influence or control over, and instead turning that into a fuel for positivity and change.

5.) What should marketers be focused on in 2020?

A. Find your own fuel in the face of adversity that almost all of us find ourselves in. Read Business Poison by Jonathan Macdonald to shift any limiting beliefs you might be (even unknowingly) caught up in.
B. Put the needs of subscribers first, before your own business or campaign goals. This always gets the best results.
C. Go help a local business who are doing something that helps people. Share your skills with those that don’t have them, but would most benefit…

6.) Who are your marketing heroes?

There are so many but Natalie Nahai, Rory Sutherland, Jonathan Macdonald, Seth Godin (I did his altMBA a couple years go), Neil Patel, Rand Fishkin, Robert Cialdini, Neil Perkin and Paul Boag.

7.) If you could give a tip to marketers at this time during coronavirus what would that be?

We met with a retailer last week to talk about their coronavirus strategy. They had a strategy of changing up the products they feature in email campaigns this next few weeks. This isn’t a strategy – it’s lazy and it won’t work because it would fall way short of meeting their client’s needs right now.

Instead of thinking about how to trade your way out of this pandemic, consider “what do my subscribers need right now?”. This an opportunity for you to build relationships of extreme value. And yes, this can be achieved through marketing, but you will need to stretch and reach further than perhaps you have in your career before. Call in your army – share your ideas with other brands and even your competitors. Unite and work it out together. This is not the time to be a hero of one – we can all do it together in coopetition. And don’t do it to leave a legacy – do it because it’s the right thing to do.

8.) What piece of advice would you give to aspiring marketers?

Marketing is an industry where you can very easily be lured into things that don’t represent what you care or stand for. The single best piece of advice I can give you is to define your values before you think about how you want to explore your marketing career.

I would also say that learning about psychology as much as you can, will be of great support. I’ve obsessed over what makes people think and feel differently throughout my career and it’s helped me no end. A couple of years ago I trained as a life coach and business and executive transformation coach and got a masters level qualification in that. I’m now about to embark on a masters in social anthropology. Being curious about people and why they do things and feel things in different ways, will set you apart. And it’s for me, the most fun you can have, learning about people…

9.) You are sent to a desert island for 12 months – You can take 3 business books, 3 records and 1 luxury item – what would you take?

I would leave all the business books at home, take Re:member by Olafur Arnalds, The Colour and The Shape by Foo Fighters and Harvest Moon by Neil Young. My luxury item would be my meditation cushion.

If you would like to follow Philip – you can do so here:-