Ep 31: Julie Roehm is Chief Experience and Marketing Officer for Party City
Overhauling a business takes a willingness to experiment and iterate, and it is so important to have a company culture that supports this approach, especially during a pandemic! Today’s guest is Julie Roehm, Chief Experience and Marketing Officer for Party City, and she joins us to talk about the transformation she and a brand new executive team implemented in this firm with the help of an agile turnaround plan and synchronized culture. Before Julie joined, Party City was following a ‘stack it high and watch it fly’ approach relying on vertical integration and a market share as big as their SKUs. Julie talks about how the challenge of shifting this business model was a big drawcard for her joining, along with the excitement she felt at being a part of such a dynamic and fresh executive team. She gets into some of the strategies they began to implement to turn Party City around, drilling down on how they came up with new sales and marketing strategies after firstly mapping the customer experience. This whole process was already in motion and then COVID struck, so we also get into the second tier of pivots the team had to make to stay afloat in a new socially distanced reality. In today’s conversation, Julie also speaks to the importance of implementing and iterating on new ideas without hesitation, and the centrality of having a team whose culture backs an approach like this. For all this and more from today’s great guest, be sure to tune in!
Key Points From This Episode:
Two fun facts about Julie regarding how much of a marketing rockstar she is!
How the new executive team at Party City implemented their turnaround strategy after COVID struck.
The climate of lenience that allowed Julie and her team to try new things.
What drew Julie to working with Party City and how she helped shift it from an older business model.
Mapping the customer journey to work out how to make party shopping easier.
Changing the way products were displayed and categorized in stores and online.
Choosing which parts of optimizing the customer experience to lean into.
Curbside purchases and same-day delivery services implemented during COVID.
Partnering with influencers for virtual events and putting how-tos on the website.
How the reimagined virtual celebrations will influence traditions for IRL ones in future.
The way Party City serves wholesale and B2B customers using their party planner team.
Julie’s ‘fail fast forward’ mentality that aims to try new things, have fun, and optimize.
Why Julie sees understanding customer experience as a prerequisite to good marketing.
The centrality of having an aligned company culture in strategizing and decision making.
How the leadership teams are structured and trained to be self-reflexive with personality tests.
What the next-gen stores will feature and how marketing is being focused on these.
Perspectives how Party City will hone in on local and personal marketing.
Final advice from Julie about success, company culture, and marketing like a pro!
Tweetables:
“What we started off with was doing a full customer journey mapping from end to end.” — @jaroehm [0:20:24]
“The hardest part of our transformation was defining what are those elements that we're going to lean into, and what are we going to be disciplined enough to say no to.” — @jaroehm [0:22:50]
“Let's just go out and try it and learn and constantly optimize.” — @jaroehm [0:32:40]
“There is a psychology to trying to create a healthy working team.” — @jaroehm [0:45:55]