Digital Marketing

My Podcast With Skava: What Can We Learn From Canadian Commerce?

December 7, 2018 by Johnny Russo Leave a Comment

Back in August of 2018, at the Etail East conference in Boston, I met some of the team at Skava Commerce, a modular platform designed to keep up with evolving Ecommerce business needs.

I was chatting with Ryan Valdez at the end of Day 2 of the conference, and he mentioned that Skava had a podcast, and he asked if I’d like to come on the show. So a couple of months later, I met with his team, and we did just that.

The podcast discussed Canadian Ecommerce, trends in the industry, and Digital Transformation.

Here it is in its entirety:

What Can We Learn From Canadian Commerce (Podcast)

The Digital Enterprise Interview: Champions of Change

October 14, 2018 by Johnny Russo Leave a Comment

The Digital Enterprise is an online news publication that aims to address an organization’s journey to transforming digitally and embracing digital. Maintaining a sharp focus on the multiple facets of digital transformation, The Digital Enterprise provides in-depth features, updates on technology innovations, and best practices from industry leaders.

One of their contributors, Damin Babu, reached out to me and asked if I would like to be part of a Champions of Change series to talk about Digital Transformation. Below is the interview, or you can visit The Digital Enterprise for the originally published interview: Interview with Johnny Russo, AVP, Digital Marketing and Ecommerce at Mark’s.

Thanks to Damin and The Digital Enterprise for asking to take part in this series.

*This post was originally published on www.thedigitalenterprise.com on October 10, 2018.* Link to original post:

Interview with Johnny Russo, AVP, Digital Marketing and Ecommerce at Mark’s.

Q: Thank you so much for taking our questions! Tell us a little about your business and your specific role?

Johnny Russo: Thanks for asking me to be a part of this series. Mark’s is a leading apparel retailer in Canada. Known as L’equipeur in Quebec, Mark’s is part of the Canadian Tire Corporation. Mark’s has 385 stores in Canada, making it one of the largest retailers in Canada. I am the Associate Vice President of Ecommerce and Digital. So if you break it down, my team gets traffic to the site, tries to convert it online or send traffic into our stores, and we help ensure the post purchase journey meets and exceeds the demands of the customer.

Q: When did you first realize that you had an issue that needed a digital solution? What was the nature of the problem you set out to solve?

JR: I don’t know if there was just one moment. A few years ago, Mark’s was a very traditional retailer. So media was very much print, TV, and newspapers. Social Media and Digital Media budgets were very small. The Digital team was not developed. Our site was lacking functionality. And not a lot of emphasis was placed on Ecommerce. Fast forward 3 years, and Mark’s budgets have significantly increased in Digital, and Digital now has a seat at the table. We’re close to becoming a digital-first retailer. And along the journey, we’ve won several awards for Email, best-in class Omni-Channel retailer, customer experience, etc. So it’s been a nice pat on the back for the team that we’re headed in the right direction.

So I don’t think it was necessarily a problem we set out to solve. It was more a realization that the time was now for our Digital Transformation to commence.

Q: What were the challenges you faced at the time as you began the process of evaluating solutions?

JR: For our Digital Transformation to succeed, there were a few pillars we needed to build, some mid-course, others that we still may add. But for us the main pillars are: People, Partners, Culture, Education, and Data/Change Management. So the challenge was understanding each of their impacts, and how to build those pillars, while not forgetting that you still need to drive sales and traffic. So embarking on a Digital Transformation, and still having the team focusing on driving revenue, can be a challenge, but you all become stronger for it. Agile and scrum have also been helpful. We have a lean team, so getting stuff done quickly is paramount, and cross functional communication is vital.

[Read more…]

WBR Whitepaper: The New Rules of Holiday Readiness

October 14, 2018 by Johnny Russo Leave a Comment

If you work in Retail, Holiday Readiness is not just any event, it’s the event. It’s the retail version of the Indy 500, a marquee event that overshadows the rest of the year (or all the other races). It usually makes or breaks a year for a retailer, and without knowing it, it’s also the most exciting, yet stressful time for even consumers and shoppers alike. All the research, discounts, searches, add to carts, and waiting to pull the trigger on the best deals you’ve waited months – or the whole year – for.

Amplify that by 100 when you work in retail. You have at least 6+ months of planning and strategy, while analyzing previous years and current trends, watching your competition like a hawk, and then the daily, precise execution that takes place through November and December. All in the hopes and prayers your customers will love your deals and offers, and buy, buy, buy!

I was asked to take part in a Worldwide Business Research feature on Holiday Readiness, in conjunction with Etail East and ShipStation. This go-to Whitepaper, The New Rules of Holiday Readiness, can help retailers gather insights, strategies, and expectations for the upcoming holiday season. In total, 167 retailers took part in the Whitepaper, which also includes a valuable 2018 Holiday Readiness Checklist.

Click below to see the entire Whitepaper.

The New Rules of Holiday Readiness

AdAge Feature: The Promise and Power of Local Marketing

October 8, 2018 by Johnny Russo Leave a Comment

Location-based Marketing has never been this important. That statement would have been true in 2010, 2015, and today in 2018. The power of your mobile device, the constant improvement in GPS location services (especially as it relates to retail locations), geo-targeted Digital Marketing campaigns that are gaining more prominence and are getting more efficient, and the fact that consumers seem to be more open than ever to receive notifications via mobile or email if they are near one of their favourtie stores, and the offer is tempting enough. Add in the proliferation of social networks that know your location, and voice search, and this is a fun time to be a marketer trying to drive traffic to physical locations.

However, Marketers are also entering a new age in the integration of enterprise strategies with local tactics and channels, making local marketing and personalization even more complex.

For those that don’t read AdAge, you should start. It is one of the best news sources for anything Digital, and the ever evolving advertising, branding, and marketing industry definitely needs a reliable go-to. So I was thrilled when AdAge and the DAC Group asked me to give my thoughts in their 2nd Annual study on The Promise and Power of Local Marketing: rapidly evolving technology and an experience-driven economy are making local more vital than ever.

It’s always exciting when you read and love a news publication, and then one day, they ask you to be quoted for an an article, blog post or study.

Click below to see the entire feature.

The Promise and Power of Local Marketing

The 5 Pillars of Digital Transformation Strategy at Mark’s

July 11, 2018 by Johnny Russo 1 Comment

Digital transformation is not the path of least resistance. It takes real grit to make change happen when stakeholders are accustomed to more traditional marketing. But digital champions are entering the workforce with more conventional brands and driving change at all levels of business.

Empowered by data, motivated by technological change, these early adopters know that digital transformation is inevitable. But the challenge of creating momentum in siloed organizations with deeply entrenched processes can be slow.

*This post was originally published on www.widerfunnel.com on May 1, 2018.* Link to original post:

The 5 pillars of digital transformation strategy at Mark’s: An interview with changemaker, Johnny Russo

A big thank you to Lindsay Kwan for interviewing me and making this piece come alive. And thank you to our partners, the incredible WiderFunnel team.

How do you bring a traditional brand up to speed in the digital era?

Johnny Russo is always up for a challenge. As the Associate Vice President of E-commerce and Digital Marketing at Canadian retail giant, Mark’s (formerly Mark’s Work Wearhouse), he set out to transform the business in any way possible when he joined the team in January 2016.

Mark’s, under the umbrella of powerhouse, Canadian Tire, is a retailer that has been traditionally focused on selling workwear apparel. And the brand has become a mainstay in the Canadian economy that is historically based in the resources industry.

But with a background in digital marketing and e-commerce, Johnny had early experience in how digital technology can drive smarter, more data-driven decisions.

He knew that digital transformation — and particularly, the experimentation mindset — can drive the customer experience across multiple channels by creating business agility and driving lifetime customer loyalty to the Mark’s brand.

In this interview with changemaker, Johnny Russo, you’ll learn:

His own 5 pillars of digital transformation strategy, including People, Partners, Culture, Education, and Change Management.
Why your digital transformation strategy should focus on a strong foundation of data, while adapting your strategy to new insights and information.
The 4 core attributes of an agile marketing team, including continuous learning, positivity, adaptability and data literacy — necessities of an iterative, test-and-learn digital strategy.

Mark’s is undergoing a digital transformation, empowering every level of business to make data-driven decisions.

Question from Wider Funnel: When you were hired on with Mark’s, when you first got accustomed to the brand, did you have ideas of what you wanted to achieve?

Johnny Russo: I was hired to lead digital marketing and e-commerce, and when you are coming in new, you want to put your stamp on things, but you first have to understand the culture you’re entering.

What I liked about the Mark’s opportunity was one, they are part of Canadian Tire. They’re one of the largest retailers in Canada, which was one of the check marks for me. If you want to be the best, you might as well be with the biggest. So, Mark’s afforded me that opportunity.

The other thing is that Mark’s is a very traditional retailer. I remember picking up the flyer of Canadian Tire and other Canadian Tire-owned brands like Sport Chek or L’Equipeur and even hearing some of the radio ads and it struck me that they were very traditional in the ways they went about their advertising and marketing.

Mark’s is owned and operated by Canadian Tire, along with other notable brands like Sport Chek, Atmosphere, Sports Experts, Atmosphere, and more.

So I thought, what a great challenge to come to a traditional retailer and get them to think of digital. And maybe it wasn’t digital-first at that moment when I was hired on January 2016, but it really has become digital first in so many ways.

We’ve had to fight our way through, don’t get me wrong; it wasn’t just an open door.

It was really testing and learning and trying new things. Getting some quick wins, early. We’ve done a lot of experimentation and a lot of educating along the way.

But that’s what got me excited to come to Mark’s — it was an immense challenge.