Conversation with Allison McGuire, Vice President of Marketing at Paper Mart

About Allison McGuire:

• Allison McGuire is the Vice President of Marketing at Paper Mart. Allison leads the Marketing and Ecommerce strategies for the company that has entered their 100th year of business. Allison and her team collaborates and executes Affiliate Marketing, Social Media, Community Outreach, Branding, Public Relations, and others.
• Prior to Paper Mart, Allison has held recent director positions at companies such as Oversee.net, Harbor Freight Tools, and Overnight Prints. In addition to her current role at Paper Mart, Allison has joined the advisory board at Cordial Inc.
• Allison received a BA from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

(01:37) Paper Mart’s marketing journey

• We implemented different types of reactivation campaigns based on their life cycle with us and where they were in the buying cycle
• Allison introduced their affiliate program and expanded to all social media platforms
• Allison has also launched their SMS program that has seen immediate success

(03:46) Social proof’s role with consumers

• They have worked to build a brand and community through social media platforms
• They focused on sharing time-sensitive material through blog content
• They created #MYPAPERMART as a tool for consumers to share their experiences

(07:38) Leveraging personalization towards consumers

• They began to collect data points through email to understand the consumers before they visit the website
• Future emails contain customized content such as sales or blogs based on previous experiences
• Implementing machine learning within the site to allow for effective recommendations of products and offers

(10:15) Personalization in the evolution of Paper Mart

• They have used a catalogue mentality and transferred it to the online space
• Allison’s interest in targeted emails with consistent messaging throughout 
• They are currently building their loyalty program to continue to engage the consumer with the brand and offering

(12:23) Leveraging Machine Learning to understand consumer behavior

• Using auto-complete in the search on the website to ensure it’s based on how others have searched and where they’ve landed.
• They are working to have the website continue to learn and adapt to trends while sorting products on the index page based on engagement
• Allison and her team are working towards having AI understand if the customer is a B2B or B2C customer while showing them imagery that matches who they are