With all the fragmentation in the media landscape, how can brands cut through the digital noise and create meaningful connections with their customers… without resorting to yet another intrusive pop-up ad?
Agility requires not only adapting to changing consumer behaviors but also proactively anticipating them. It demands a willingness to experiment with new channels and tactics, even those that might be considered “traditional”
Today, we’re going to talk about the surprising resurgence of physical marketing in the digital age and how it can be a powerful tool for building brand loyalty and driving business growth. To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Corin Mills, Brand Marketing & E-commerce Director at MOO.
About Corin Mills
Corin Mills is the Brand Marketing & E-Commerce Director at MOO, specializing in data-driven marketing strategies that revitalize brand experiences and foster meaningful organizational change. With over 15 years of extensive brand management experience driving business transformation across multiple sectors and international markets, his passion for impactful branding drives MOO’s success in bridging the gap between quality design and human connection. As former Head of Brand and Comms at Currys, his transformative approach centers on genuine collaboration and inclusive leadership at all levels of business. With previous success at major brands including EE, Tesco, Currys, Google, Orange, and AXA, Corin brings unique cross-industry perspective to discussions about e-commerce strategy and optimization. Corin holds a BSc in Product Design from Brunel University of London.
Corin Mills on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corin-mills-a2678211/
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Transcript
Greg Kihlstrom (00:01)
With all the fragmentation in the media landscape, how can brands cut through the digital noise and create meaningful connections with their customers without resorting to yet another intrusive pop-up ad? Agility requires not only adapting to changing consumer behaviors, but also proactively anticipating them. It demands a willingness to experiment with new channels and tactics, even those that might be considered traditional.
Today we’re going to talk about the surprising resurgence of physical marketing in the digital age and how it can be a powerful tool for building brand loyalty and driving business growth. help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Corin Mills, brand marketing and e-commerce director at Moo. Corin, welcome to the show.
Corin Mills (00:42)
Hey, Greg, great to be on.
Greg Kihlstrom (00:44)
Yeah, looking forward to talking about this with you. I’ll say I’m a customer, so a happy customer. So I was looking forward to this ⁓ to be able to talk with you about this stuff. Before we dive in, though, why don’t you give a little background on yourself and your role at Moo?
Corin Mills (00:58)
Yeah, sure. So certainly, kind of sit at the heart of the brand marketing side and the brand side. So it’s looking at the actual products that we offer, how we kind of bring them to market and kind of get across move strength and the different beliefs as well in our opinions. And then that’s coupled with our main kind of consumer contact, which is the site’s e-commerce side of things. Yeah, but I kind of joined here about three years ago, but my background’s been in
branding, rebranding, marketing, advertising, a few different areas. So yeah, it’s been nice to kind of come here and apply that to a company that’s got a strong belief in brand at its heart. And yeah, it’s been a great, great three years. I’m looking forward to many more.
Greg Kihlstrom (01:42)
So yeah, let’s let’s dive in here and what I want to start with is just talking about you know I I know that in my consulting work I deal a lot in the the digital realm and you know part of the part of the challenge is just kind of cutting through the clutter on digital channels, but you know what we’re talking about a lot here is Physical marketing and so you know with that that clutter and just you know It seems like there’s more channels popping up all the time on the digital front. How can physical marketing?
help brands to stand out and capture attention in a meaningful way.
Corin Mills (02:15)
Yeah, I think you mentioned kind of a resurgence in the intro. And I think there’s a couple of things I think obviously, like physical marketing has been around for many, many years. But I think for a number of years, it was kind of a bit unloved and undervalued and cheap design, cheap, kind of actual physical stock and the paper that was used, everything was kind of cheap. And it became a very like kind of sales mechanic or DM got it basically a bad name. But what we have seen
over the last few years is firstly, people have realized actually if you do things properly, it’s an incredibly useful tool. But the other thing is the rise of e-commerce, particularly post COVID, when the only touch point that customer has with your brand is the box that arrives in their house. There’s a huge resurgence on inserts that are beautiful that get across a story, not just
marketing message. So yeah, it’s been really fascinating to see that sector grow from labels, stickers, inserts, postcards, and it’s been nice to see beautiful design again on paper products.
Greg Kihlstrom (03:17)
Yeah, yeah. that’s, mean, it’s a great point that that’s when it’s the single kind of physical touch point that somebody has with the brand, it makes it even more valuable to both parties, really, but to the brand to get their message across. Can you maybe share a specific example of a campaign where you’ve, know, where Moos utilized physical marketing to do just that?
Corin Mills (03:40)
Yeah, think I’m well, I can’t give you a couple of I’ll give you a new example of our own marketing. But before that, there’s a customer actually we work with to rise coffee kind of in the mushroom coffee market. Again, that company that the frequency of which they send customers products and their main touch point is that box. And so what they’ve been doing is kind of these beautiful bookmarks that are added value into the box just to create that connection with a customer, even though
99 % of the interactions are on site, so digital. So it’s been brilliant to work with them to create products that enhance their brand versus just their need just to get a sale message across there. And I think they’re probably one of the best examples of an e-commerce company using physical product well to bring a bit more loyalty into their, I think a bit more desire and love into their brand.
for their customers. And I think what’s kind of, what’s been nice at Miro over the last kind of two years, we’ve grown our direct mail. Like, like we’re a very tech based company. We’re not just like old school primates about tech combined with production and linking our own direct mail with our CRM data has been a brilliant way to kind of consistently get a message across.
to use the segmentation data we get from things like Braze and other kind of companies that we use, but apply that to a traditional media. And it really means that we can give sneak peeks to certain customers, that sale is coming, so they can be quite promotion-orientated, or it can really just be a piece that we can send out samples of new products to customers.
the back of one of our postcards and it’s what I love most is on the back of all of this is printed by news so it’s really just putting our kind of money where our mouth is. Yeah. And so and we are investing more because we are seeing stronger ROI in this media versus other so yeah it’s been good to see.
Greg Kihlstrom (05:41)
Yeah. And I mean, to the to both of those examples, really, there’s there’s this element of personality that comes through. mean, obviously, you know, with with digital, you can use video, you can use lots of elements there. But in the physical marketing world, I mean, you know, there’s texture, there’s color, there’s, know, there’s there’s different maybe ways of of even shape. You know, we’re with digital, we’re constrained to, you know, a phone or a laptop screen or something. But there, you know, there’s there’s a lot more possibility to kind of infuse.
personality into the design, how should marketers be thinking about this aspect?
Corin Mills (06:17)
I think this applies to both digital and physical products and be that kind of print products or applying your brand to gifting, water bottles, et cetera, sort of stuff we do for businesses, but also your digital. And like I saying earlier, the problem with, say, direct mail over the years is cheap design and cheap investment has meant that it just wasn’t hitting home and became a bad form of advertising. I see the same thing happening in digital.
I think the under investment in the quality of the design itself or thinking about the message or standout. And I think that the volume that you get from digital is great, but in some regards, but it’s actually the thing that’s holding you back because you just spray this thing out there. so I think my advice is, the number one is it’s got to have a foundational brand system.
that’s making sure that every time a customer touches one of your touch points, be that an advert online or be that physical media, it’s recognizably you. And I think there’s these clear signals that you can put in, be that font, be that color palette, be that logo, be that personality, and all these kind of signals. So think number one is having that strong brand system that joins together a brand across digital, across physical touch points. And I think number two is just that extra bit of care in the tone.
in the copy, in the creative idea, it just amplifies performance and it is worth that extra step. And because we’re in the performance of business, we’re in a business of performance in marketing. And if you know your customers, you know what your core strengths are that resonate with them and you add that to your brand system and a creative idea, that’s when you’re in a good place. But unfortunately,
marketing can feel like, like I say, a volumes number. So you’re just shoving stuff out as fast as possible. And that’s where it just becomes pointless. So my advice is strong brand systems and, and strong creative ideas. You just taking that little bit of extra time and graft. Yeah.
Greg Kihlstrom (08:21)
I mean, it’s one of those things where, you know, with the digital, you know, because it’s easy, it’s easy to just do what you’re saying, which is kind of the spray and pray approach or whatever, and not necessarily effective or memorable for customers. How should brands be thinking about that? Because I think the other thing they’re saying here is just how important it is to have that cohesive.
experience across digital and print because again, digital is not going away either. So it’s it’s it’s more about tying that together. Like is kind of rediscovering the physical and the print what’s happening now and what do digital marketers kind of need to understand about print and vice versa?
Corin Mills (09:02)
Yeah, think it’s much like when brand teams work with social media team, they can get like, no, you have to be consistent and you have to be perfect. And it’s like, that just destroys the social media impact that then that has. I think the first thing for me is embrace the channel opportunities, be that foil, spot finish, features, play on the fact that the customer’s got this in their hand and they’ll turn it over and they’ll do that.
So think it’s like really understand the medium, first of all. And I think that’s again, that’s just general advice that we forget. So often we’re like, we’ve designed the main investment. We’ll cut that and we’ll just lift and shift and apply it across everything. It’s, it’s just pointless. So just take that bit of time to think about the medium. And then secondly, apply that brand system, but don’t let it constrain you in the creative idea that you can have and have some fun. You know, I think it doesn’t need to be boring. It doesn’t need to be.
who have a bit of fun with it, just like you would in any digital channel as well. I think sometimes the best campaigns are the ones that are a little bit more flippant maybe, but at the same time, they’re doing that great job of just putting a customer, if you’ve got your right customer segment, you’re putting your brand at the front of their mind and that in itself is a massive win.
Greg Kihlstrom (10:18)
And so, you you had mentioned certainly there there was a lot of focus on that kind of, you know, unboxing experience in the in the e-commerce thing, particularly with the uptick with just covid and post pandemic and stuff like that. And I, you know, I know there’s video, there’s unboxing videos and there’s a whole that’s a whole rabbit hole to go down even. But beyond.
The unboxing experience, because I know a lot of companies are focused on that. What are some other areas where brands should really be thinking about opportunities here and opportunities where a company like Mu could be utilized?
Corin Mills (10:53)
I think, obviously it really does depend on your business and your customer group, but I think some of the areas that we’re seeing big growth is the impact you can have outside of that event through just smart merch. So like we do pop-ups where we give out our merch, and that’s, and that merchant police kind of be useful, but desirable objects. think a lot of those events are just full of just rubbish, just like stuff that, you know, I feel like branded merch either ends up in the bin in a drawer.
or given to someone’s children. It’s one of those three things. And I think just, again, it’s that kind of less is more approach. And so what we’re seeing successfully, what businesses are doing with some of our products is just that little bit more investment, not giving out five different bits of merch, but giving out a really good quality notebook or a water bottle or something along those lines. And so, yeah, so the event space and gifting is a really big rise. And we’ve saw year on year gifting growing.
There’s this nice mix of collabs as well. So you’ve got kind of like good strong brands out there. I’ll take Drinkware Market, the fellows of this world, the standleys of this world and that sort of thing. And then people being able to customize, personalize. It’s a real like, it’s a nice rewarding kind of gift to teams. It’s not like the special gift. It’s not the Rolex watch that some banks maybe give their kind of traders and that sort of thing. But it’s just that genuinely useful.
and desirable gift sort of thing. So that’s been one big area. And then the other area actually is traditionally it’s like business cards, but they’re used in so many different ways. And so the coffee shop stamps, the ticket pricing, this sort of thing. If you think about it’s basically a square that you apply a bit of creativity to and you can do anything. And so it’s been brilliant to see a bit of a resurgence there of kind of how they’ve been used in physical retail and different bits as well.
Greg Kihlstrom (12:45)
Nice, nice. then to go to the the unboxing experience, what are maybe some I know there is a lot of focus on this, but what are maybe so either some unexpected things or missed opportunities and from your perspective that that brands should be thinking about? Because, you know, again, that’s a critical it’s a it’s a critical part of the e-commerce experience.
Corin Mills (13:05)
We’ve got a bit of a project going on now actually, because I think that the first point is the packaging itself. I think so many, like I understand why, because logistically it’s a complex piece. takes time, you know, but we’re vertically integrated here. So we make the products we pack, you know, and ship and the vast majority of our product. And so don’t forget the packaging. Like it really is that first touch point. And that’s the transit packaging as well.
when you’ve got beautiful design from that first moment in your hand, it really is an incredibly strong impression. I think the second piece actually is we have this thing about like, does your brand has the laptop test? And it’s like these die cuts kind of stick around. We’re just launching some die cut stickers at home. But like these stickers in box, like it’s just it’s got no marketing message. You might even just not even put your logo on there. It might be like a nice, strong line or something funny, something to put a smile on your face. But
just giving out something that you would want yourself. And I think that’s the thing. I think so often inserts and pieces thrown into a box, they’re all about the brands need to sell more and actually think about something different, something that inspires a bit more. I, I think that is a perfect opportunity. So I would say, rather than treating it as a kind of sales driver, treat it as a retention strategy and think about
just a simple step in doing it really in a fun, fun way.
Greg Kihlstrom (14:28)
Yeah, and mean, those those inspirational things, I mean, they have the potential to get shared with other, you know, I I remember I don’t remember everything, but I remember some of those and they stick with me and or so I either share that with somebody else or I remember it and I reorder because it’s it’s something different and memorable, right?
Corin Mills (14:47)
Yeah, and like, you know, there’s a reason why unboxing videos are so popular, right? It’s because there is an emotional moment that’s happening there. So if you can get it right at that point, it’s a win-win.
Greg Kihlstrom (14:59)
Yeah, definitely. So for some of those brands out there that, maybe smaller e-commerce brands, certainly there’s a lot of those as well that have limited budgets. You know, what are some strategies for, you know, incorporating high quality design and high quality materials and still, you know, not breaking the budget?
Corin Mills (15:18)
I
think I’m just trying to not cover some of the stuff we said, but I do think if you are an e-commerce brand and you’re growing, you’re small and that sort of thing, think firstly, the great news is that you can do stuff and you can start to measure it because the heart of marketing is that you do things, you need to measure it and work out the value. Now, with some stock, can’t necessarily and it just forms part of that kind of piece. But I think my first point would be less is more. So don’t try and do too much and focus on one or two things.
and don’t necessarily translate your need, which might be, want that customer to buy again, or I want them to refer a friend or something like that, but link it to a customer need. And I think by doing that and then looking at some of the more simpler items, like I say, actually business cards that you can buy in a high volume but use in a different way, you can actually use some products with some
few special finishes that really have a stand out and one or two of those in a box versus a ton of collateral and a ton of things like that, then that’s better. I think the big thing for me is, and you see most challenger brands do this as well, which is it’s not just new and more stuff. It’s looking at what you’re doing and like just those little, your copy that’s on your packaging, the little like the reveal when you open a box, like look inside and those sorts of moments. And even like
There was a telco in the UK that did this a while ago, but at the bottom of their Ts and Cs on a billboard advert, it just said, thank you for reading this. You’ve made our legal team happy. And it was hidden. No one spotted it, but a few people did. that to me is a perfect example of using an existing asset. There’s no extra cost, but you’ve just got a heap of brand personality out there. finding those little moments and maybe the mundane, the 404 page of your site.
That’s where you can actually have a bit of fun.
Greg Kihlstrom (17:14)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think the other thing that at least some of those touch on is just the importance of going through the customer’s experience, you know, actually unboxing your own stuff, you know, instead of I think it’s it’s one thing to, you know, design and and think of cool ideas and stuff. It’s a whole other thing to literally go through that process. Right. So how important is that to think through?
Corin Mills (17:38)
it’s massive. know, and I mentioned telco. I’ve worked with telcos before, but when you, this, this is a bad thing by the way. Like basically when you work for a telco, you never buy a phone, you get given a phone. So you never go in the shop. You never experienced it. You never have to talk through tariffs and how complex they are. That’s not good. You need to know what your customer is going through. And so whatever business you are, you really need to order your product, receive it, understand it. And I think.
By knowing your own limitations and where the problems are, one, you’ll helpfully fix the problems, but two, you will really, really drive those little opportunities that I was talking through before. But definitely getting into, not just talking about the customer journey, being a customer, no matter what industry you’re in, is critical.
Greg Kihlstrom (18:28)
Yeah, yeah. Love it. Well, Corinne, thanks so much for joining today. One last question for you before we wrap up. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
Corin Mills (18:38)
I think people often mix up agile as in like complete change all the time. And I think the thing that helps me stay kind of like on my feet and turn around stuff quickly, stay agile and all of those sorts of things is just those strong foundations. Once you’ve got a good brand system, once you know your customers, once you know your pricing strategy and all of those kind of the four Ps and you know, get your strategy in order.
It allows you to speed things up so much more. So when a problem comes in or an opportunity, you know exactly which direction to go in. I think, unfortunately, is do that hard work first. You’ve got to, you know, there’s no quick win here. So it is have the foundation. And then, yeah, it’s so much easier to quickly know what the right thing to do is.
