Women’s Day Exclusive: Nichole Mena

You are a successful Creative Director of a leading agency, Rizen. What motivates you every day to keep your creative spirit alive?

As a Creative Director, I have to have both creativity and technical skill. I am of the mindset that creativity can be developed and honed, although it may be a bit easier for some to wield. With practice, organization, and finding inspiration, I’ve been able to become stronger in this area. I draw inspiration every day from bouncing ideas around at team meetings, speaking with clients and hearing how passionate they are, even taking a walk outside, or listening to music. Once I find that inspiration and put it into something tangible for a client, it motivates me to keep going.

Do you think business owners should factor video marketing into their social strategy? Why?

I absolutely do. It’s no secret that video engagement is through the roof across all social platforms. I think we can attribute this to the fact that videos are very easy to consume, especially on mobile. Businesses should use this tool as a way to educate their target audience about their product or services and build trust with their brand.

Running into your area of expertise, do you feel inbound marketing is taking a lead over traditional marketing forms? Do you feel traditional marketing will become obsolete soon?

I believe that inbound marketing is gaining dominance and will be the marketing of the future. Inbound marketing focuses on the consumer, helping solve their problems by providing relevant content for them to consume, sending them down a natural path towards becoming a buyer. Traditional marketing takes more of an interruption approach. We are bombarded on a daily basis with commercials and spam whether on the mail, radio, TV or online, so much so that it has become background noise and less effective. Although some traditional tactics may stick around, especially for large businesses with money to blow, inbound marketing is the best approach for businesses to track the marketing ROI and also for consumers to get the information they need, when they want it.

As a Creative Director, what type of videos do you feel a brand would need to develop an effective brand strategy?

In order to be effective, I believe a video marketing strategy should include a variety of videos. To build trust and help establish a personal connection with a brand, I would suggest content that draws on emotions such as talking about core values or on the company culture. In order to convey what a company provides and how they can be of help to their consumers, explainer videos and educational videos like webinars are very important. To provide proof that a business does what it says, review and testimonial videos are great for developing trust. Video marketing is all around beneficial and as long as they are captivating and keep the consumer in mind, they’re an excellent way to build brand authority.

Any digital marketing prediction you want to make for the next 1 year?

This year, one of the biggest trends I see is towards understanding the buyer’s journey. The content marketing landscape is becoming more complex and in order to be successful, there needs to be a shift. It’s going to be necessary to ensure you’re effectively mapping your content and video strategies for each buyer persona according to the buying stage they are in.

What advice would you give young women who want to follow a similar career path as you?

My advice would be to never stop learning. I didn’t follow the traditional path towards becoming a Creative Director in the Digital Marketing world and was mostly self-taught and moved up the ranks. This may not be the answer if you want to work in a traditional agency, but there is something different about the Digital Marketing world as “change” is a constant. I’m continuously learning about ways to better support my counterparts in a project, trends in digital marketing and how I can use different tactics and techniques for becoming more creative. The learning never stops.