“I have this passion for e-commerce. It’s an area that always reminds you, there’s never a truly right answer. And just when you think you’ve solved it and figured it out, something else has changed and evolved.”

 

In the same way that the pen is mightier than the sword, the omnichannel approach is superior than throwing all your eggs in either the digital or in-person baskets. At BIC, Jennifer Elmashni, Vice President, Global eCommerce and Digital Marketing, breaks down how the global brand is building community, engaging in B2B and D2C strategies, and experimenting anywhere and everywhere in order to stay on top, including exploring how other countries are using digital influencers and scaling last-mile delivery.

Key Insights

 

How do you create a flawless digital shelf?

Being flawless here is all about anticipation and analysis. You have to know your deliverables, your timetables, what consumer demand looks like, where the trends are pointing and how you can create a level of flexibility to be able to bend and change based on the needs of the time.

“Our ability here at BIC is on the downstream end of how do we show up and meet those needs, keeping up with the evolving platforms, partnering really closely with our customers, but then also, exploring and testing.”

What does it take to build an engaged community?

You might think that folks who are passionate about something would naturally want to band together and form a community around said thing. That’s not the case. Incentives are key, and they are the way to not only bring people into a community, but to make them stay and engage with you long term. 

“You have to have some sort of reward system to draw people in. That’s what we’ve found has been the number one acquisition lever, whether it’s through points or even special surprise and delight, big swag bags, these are things that [are] that little extra kicker [to] get folks to not just look but also fully opt in and engage in the community.”

What factors to consider when doing branded content sponsorships.

“Really the relevancy and authenticity are the two things that have to come together brilliantly with any partner that any brand connects with. The thing that I love about it from a content perspective, it’s being very thoughtful, but deliberate about how you introduce the brand… I’ve had to learn the journey of how do you do it in a way that builds the brand and makes it clear that the big brand is the contributor to whatever story that we’re trying to tell, and at the same time, make the hero about the story so that it’s truly engaged.”

About the Guest:

Jennifer Elmashni is the Vice President, Global eCommerce and Digital Marketing at BIC International. Elmashni previously worked for Walmart as a Manager, Global eCommerce, and she also spent more than seven years with Johnson & Johnson, and her last title was Head of US eCommerce and Digital Sales.

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