As Director of Client Services for Up&Up, Ashley’s passion for higher education and experience with marketing agencies comes full circle.
Ashley began her career in higher education marketing, working in continuing and executive education programs at the University of South Alabama, Georgia Tech, and Harvard Business School. She also held senior marketing positions at an email marketing agency and a high tech company before joining Oden, a B2B marketing agency in Memphis, where she most recently served as VP of Digital Marketing and as a member of the leadership team.
With UX certification from the Nielsen Norman Group and an unwavering dedication to client success, Ashley works to ensure Up&Up clients are happy and that our work delivers superior user experiences and results. Outside of work, Ashley likes to try out new recipes, and hang out with her husband, daughter, and their American bulldog.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- How Ashley’s first job out of college was marketing at a university, and how her career has come full circle with her role at Up&Up
- How Ashley defines audience targeting, and how journey mapping is meant to map the most common journey within your audience rather than everyone’s experience
- How to lay out the process and get started with journey mapping, and why it is important to include other stakeholders in the process
- How to use a hypothesis-based approach to journey mapping to determine pain points within prospective students’ journey
- How a research-first approach differs from the hypothesis-based approach, and why collecting and analyzing data is the key first step regardless of the approach you use
- Why journey mapping can help you identify stumbling blocks and new opportunities within your processes
- How much time should be set aside for journey mapping, and why it is important to revisit and update your journeys periodically
- How journey mapping can help you improve your marketing by indicating where you can refine your touch points
- How journey mapping presents a great opportunity to align your stakeholders, and why allowing them to participate in the process can encourage buy-in
What benefits you can expect from mapping your prospective students’ journey and refreshing your journey maps each year
Resources:
- Website: www.nngroup.com
Additional resources:
- Website: www.theundeclaredpodcast.com
- Website: www.upandup.agency
- Email: contact@upandup.agency
