Phoebe Russell recently joined online fashion brand In The Style, based in Manchester, as its new marketing director.
Russell has previously worked at the likes of LOOKFANTASTIC as global head of brand, NASTY GAL’s global head of social and brand director of Rise at Seven.
Now at In The Style, she will collaborate closely with Ben Armstrong and the wider Baaj Capital team to guide In The Style towards profitability, leveraging her extensive experience in marketing and campaign-led work.
Private investor Baaj Capital acquired the business for £1.2m last year, to avoid it falling into administration.
Here, she shares a recent week in her life…
Monday
It’s Monday!! That means coffee, budget tracking and trade meetings discussing the last week to date against forecast. It’s a heavy analytics and data tracking day which almost always requires the caffeine shakes to get through. We take our learnings from the various meetings and strategise on the plan of action for the week coming, and make any last minute changes to marketing plans to ensure we put our best foot forward for the week.
We’re always in the thick of the next launch given we do around three drop edits per week with influencers and celebrities so assets are circulated, plans are finalised and the team gets excited to make some magic happen on launch day.
Tuesday
Tuesdays are always centred around heavy marketing plans – again, assessing MTD performance and WoW progression. We have a unique framework for our collaborations that differs from other businesses given the talent becomes an inherent part of the In The Style DNA. We therefore report on the success accordingly and as a collective with our talent.
We’re preparing for a big launch with our creative director, Perrie Sian, and some last minute ecommerce changes needed to happen ahead of the launch tomorrow. We’re also entering into our biggest sale YTD with a 30% off everything (including sale) messaging at 8am Thursday so it’s all go in the office. Made better of course with the throwback tracks on repeat on the big TV – although, I wish it was Wimbledon.
Wednesday
It’s launch day which means one thing… organised chaos. The business fully gets behind every launch, every time. The excitement is unparalleled. The marketing team specifically is excited about the new Perrie edit as the product is a keen favourite and the shoot was flawless. We’re ensuring all lines are properly listed on the website, email and app push are ready to go and we have our influencer supporting content lined up.
We’re also in the midst of creating our In The Style Marketplace, a one-stop shop for our customer for all things fashion (and maybe beauty and lifestyle but you didn’t hear that from me). It’s still a work in progress but given our strong relationship with retailers ASOS and now F&F, we’re excited to create a more seamless shopping experience for our consumer. More on this soon.
Thursday
Today we usually do new model castings in the studio so the team are busy assessing the new faces to work in line with our new brand and marketing strategy I’m developing. We love seeing new talent come through the doors, people underestimate just how important models are to the wider brand picture.
We’re also looking at how to provide more personalised user experience when shopping online, so I had a good few hours with our in-house tech team on how to make the consumer central to every piece of marketing and ecommerce activity we do. Given In The Style really pioneered the drop model of influencers fronting collections, we’re doing a deep competitor audit on how to ensure we’re the leaders in the *next big thing*… again, more on this soon. I LOVE innovation and nothing gets me more excited than seeing where shopping can really go in the future.
Friday
Friday is a WFH day so this is where I do top level data analysis, check in on all channel managers for the weekend activity and make any last minute tweaks. For most people Friday is the last day of the working week, but I’ve always had a problem with separating the personal with the professional so I do tend to work weekends. Not because I have to, but because this is where I can do my best thinking time whilst the teams enjoy some well earned rest.
We’re starting with our new agency across Google and SMS so super excited to see what we can achieve with all our digital coming out of one agency and layered up to the same north star. Today brings meetings with a side of meetings around our current go-to-market strategy across digital and SEO along with trying to better understand the new Instagram algorithm which is penalising brand reach… social media managers, I feel you.
It’s been a hectic week but wouldn’t have it any other way. Thanks for reading.
