Given her love for travel, it’s no surprise that Mary Novak-Beatty heads marketing at touring company Maryflower Tours. Making trips to her favorite city—Vienna, Austria—is among the eclectic range of hobbies that give her perspective into how best to advance Mayflower’s marketing. Other key points of perspective for Novak-Beatty are customer feedback, data science, and gut instinct.
Marketing strategy: I’m a fundamentals and facts marketer. I always begin with defining what the business objectives are. I still remain loyal to the four P’s in marketing. Depending on the channel, research and analytics always play a big part in the front end and the back end. Also, I speak directly with customers.
Winning ways: I’ve been with Mayflower Tours for almost six years. I’ve been able to rejuvenate its marketing strategy by working with the owners and getting them to understand how important profiling our customer database is, then showing them how important a penetration analysis is. This has allowed me to fine-tune all of our marketing activities. We’re now seeing response rates that have increased by more than 40%, and we’re seeing more than a 55% increase in sales conversions.
Defining moment: Relocating to Kansas City. I became really involved with the Kansas City Direct Marketing Association and that opened the door for me to meet a lot of incredible, talented people. That’s where I got the opportunity to start working in the travel industry.
Trend watching: I believe that content marketing is the most important trend right now. Content remains king. It doesn’t matter if it’s digital or print, if the content isn’t making sense it’s not going to make a difference. With more than 27 million impressions out there a day you need to be able to grab someone’s attention very quickly.
Words to live by: Every positive thought leads you in the right direction. That’s how I live my life everyday and how I lead my team. My favorite quote is from author James A. Morrison: “Knowledge comes by picking things apart. Wisdom comes from putting things together.”
Good read: Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less by Joe Pulizzi. It explains how to draw in prospects and customers with content they actually want to engage in.
Good advice: Stay grounded in the fundamentals. Never stop learning. Ask questions so that you’re always understanding and clear. Try new ideas and always remain humble and grateful for each day and opportunity.
Meet the rest of the 2014 Marketing Hall of Femme honorees and read their inspirational stories.
