Kelly Haggard, VP of Marketing Innovation at Synchrony, believes great marketing starts with great listening—both to data and to people. In this Q&A, she shares how tuning in to customer signals fuels meaningful relationships, why active listening is her greatest marketing superpower, and how collaboration across teams and vendors powers real-time personalization at scale.
1. What is your greatest marketing superpower?
Active listening and applying the learnings both within the organization and in the customer base. My leaders and coworkers are constantly showing me the metrics that matter, I make sure my program is delivering that. Our customers “speak” when email clicks drop, unsubscribes rise, spam complaints increase and I know the message, timing or audience needs adjusting. Listen to hear has been ingrained in my head as a marketer.
2. What are the main goals your team aims to achieve with your email program?
Making sure that we are doing our best at servicing our customers. A communication should provide value, offer needed information, solve a problem, and surprise and delight. The barometer isn’t always making a sale, it’s about building a valuable relationship between business and customer.
3. How would you describe your growth as a marketer over the past few years and what’s your proudest accomplishment thus far?
I have a solid network of amazing marketers now that I have learned from over the past two decades. I listen to everything and take what fits into my own programs. I know I don’t have all the answers but I try to employ a thoughtful approach to testing and learning to see what things fit that can elevate my programs. My proudest accomplishment was being selected as 2023 Email Marketer of the Year by the Association of National Advertisers. The award is not only what you have done within your own programs but about all the work mentoring and feeding value into the email industry.
4. How do you get the most out of a partnership with your MarTech stack?
Share your program goals with your vendors—help them help you elevate your program. If your vendors don’t know your goals, you might be missing out on new offerings and features that can help you get there. I always raise my hand to see if my company would be a good fit to pilot out something new.
5. What advice would you give to marketers who are looking to utilize real-time, data-driven personalization across their campaigns but are unsure where to start?
Understanding your data and how you can apply it matters. I would recommend first building out a data dictionary with information on what data the business has, where the data lives, how often it is updated, and how it comes through. From there, get stakeholders together to talk through the customer journey and where those data points can be plugged in to offer a more relevant personalized experience. Start with the simple campaigns and grow in sophistication from there. Identify your internal ambassadors that will jump on the personalization ship with you and celebrate your shared wins.
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