The blog

I’m Julie, Consulting Manager at the House of Marketing. I am 35, have been married for 10 years and am mother to a hyper-active 7-year old son. After more than 13 years of experience, mainly in the banking and fintech industries, I realized through my many interactions with consultants, friends and colleagues that consulting was maybe something for me.

I thought I was on the way to a VP position at a large multinational. I had spent several years after university working my way up the corporate ladder, eager to explore different opportunities at renowned companies such as Microsoft, Sony, Whirlpool and AB-InBev. More than once I had been able to switch roles to accommodate my never-ending need for new challenges. I was rewarded quite well for my performance and eagerness, yet I never felt truly at ease in any of the roles I was in.

Once upon a time, I was probably the most firmly rooted marketer you could find in Belgium. For the first 12 years of my career, I climbed the ladder from Junior Brand Manager for Fristi and Nutroma to Marketing Manager for the value brands portfolio and OOH with Friesland Campina, handling projects in different countries in Europe.

My career path is original to say the least, most people cannot really follow me when I explain: I am French, but, one way or another, I have worked in France for only 6 months. I have built most of my career in The Netherlands, with a French company though – one of the biggest multi-nationals in the food industry.

Content strategy, marketing automation, inbound channels – these topics aren’t new anymore. In fact, more and more companies are getting their hands dirty in content production, as they understand the power of developing a new, future-proof and strong sales engine. Having had the chance to work in different sectors on the development of content strategies myself, I’d like to take a moment to discuss the evolution of content strategy with some examples, but also actionable advice for you to act upon today.

Like most other festivals, Tomorrowland is a no-go in times of COVID-19. Instead of skipping a year, the organizers have launched a digital alternative taking place July 25th & 26th: "Tomorrowland around the world, the digital festival". Via their computer, smartphone or tablet, visitors of all ages can explore the digital festival site and attend sets of their favorite artists. All stages are built in 3D, although DJs perform live. Even the fireworks and lazer shows are translated digitally. Nevertheless, Tomorrowland remains an unforgettable experience that can be considered as a corporate religion. To stay in this spiritual mindset, we summarize the important marketing lessons of this spectacular event as we've known it before corona came along – in the form of 10 commandments. For eons the 10 commandments have been an important source of inspiration for believers and even for non-believers… so why not use this to show you the way for all your marketing initiatives?

How can businesses continue growing, at least as fast as their competitors? These are undoubtedly amongst the main challenges of the remarkable year 2020 has become.

First things first: What does innovation actually mean? We describe it as creativity, yet the kind that creates business impact. Yes, innovation covers brainstorms about new ideas and technologies, but the key goal is to ensure sustainable growth. An innovation strategy enables you to introduce both small-scale and radical changes in your processes and offerings to provide customer experiences that can sustainably outperform your competition.

The COVID 19 crisis has rocked our entire world, both personal and professional. We might not all be experiencing it in the same way. But as marketers, most of us are affected in similar ways: Either our business is thriving, or we are confronted with a downturn in demand. Both call for a reassessment of marketing strategies. At such times, do you focus on short-term or long-term growth?

With an overload of tools and techniques to implement innovation at your company nowadays, we have made it easy for you: we have curated a list of 12 tools we think you might actually use and like.