Julie Barile is the Digital Commerce Practice Director at Sophelle, a Boston-based retail consultancy that over the past 20 years has expanded its presence and capabilities covering multiple areas of retail management, including a complete range of technology, systems, personnel, and retail applications.
Julie graduated from New York University receiving her Masters in Integrated Marketing. While there, she received the Integrated Marketing Award for Excellence and graduated first in her class.
Julie has led digital marketing at several top global companies which include Avon, Lancôme, and Toys”R”Us. Her experience spans over several product categories, business models, and corporate functions. Throughout her career, Julie has directed and managed implementations of new technology capabilities in partnership with both internal and offshore technology teams.
Julie Barile currently directs and is responsible for leading management, strategy, and consulting projects at Sophelle. She works with current and future clients to provide insightful leadership and best practice techniques.
We talked to Julie Barile and asked her some questions about content and digital marketing. Here is what she had to say:
| Q: What are some of the worst mistakes a business could make when it comes to content marketing? |
JB (Julie Barile): First, not do it at all. Second, not have a plan to test different types of content targeted to different audiences and their needs. Third, not make an adequate investment in developing quality and relevant content to support the testing plans. |
| Q: What do you think is next for content marketing? How will it evolve in the coming years? |
JB: I am not that involved in content marketing. |
| Q: Social media marketing is free, right? |
JB: No. There are costs associated with resources and technology to support it, and if it’s paid social media marketing there’s a media cost as well. |
| Q: A small business owner has to wear many hats and time is always tight. What are some social media time management tips you have to help them stick with their social media campaign without losing a lot of time? |
JB: Use a platform to plan, manage, and execute your social media outreach. There are cost effective solutions on the market that will give a basic level of analytics and insights. Also ensure that you look at the analytics to determine what is resonating with your audience – don’t spend time on the things and channels that don’t. If you have flexibility to allocate budget to a boutique social media management company, then you can take many of those tasks off your hands however you should still manage the agency and never let them go on auto-pilot. |
| Q: Share your favorite digital marketing case study. What did you like most it? |
JB: I don’t have one. |
| Q: According to you, what are the top three mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging digital marketing? |
JB:
1. Not having data governance processes around the collection and storage of marketing data for the enterprise.
2. Not putting the time or resources in to properly analyzing the data to inform future marketing.
3. Not having testing plans support marketing activities. |
| Q: Which are your three favorite digital marketing tools? |
JB: I haven’t actually used digital marketing tools in some time. |
| Q: What are the top 3-5 skills you look for when hiring a candidate for digital marketing profile? |
JB: Expertise and experience, ability to assess risk vs reward, informed in latest technologies and channels, ability to maximize ROI for an ecommerce business. |
| Q: Who are three people you respect when it comes to digital marketing? |
JB: Don’t have any off the top of my head… |
You can come hear Julie Barile in her session Retail’s Big Transformation and How To Deal With It on April 13th, 2017 at MDMC from 11:20am-12:00pm. This session will be held in the Coegi room.
