She conquered our Expliciet hearts like a whirlwind. Not just because of her unrestrained positivism and sense of community, but also because when it comes to marketing campaigns and the many figures behind them, there’s no stopping her. We are delighted to introduce you to Marjan Swennen, coach of our performance marketing team and member of our Culture Committee.
In a parallel universe, one of the biggest hits by boy band Get Ready! would have been called Marjan instead of Marjolein. As a child, her big dream was to become the manager of the iconic (?) foursome.
Yet the PR slash marketing story was never far away in Marjan’s life. ‘I knew countless advertising jingles by heart and sang them at the top of my lungs in the school canteen, much to the delight of my friends. Something must have stuck (laughs).’
Today, Marjan focuses mainly on the analytical side of marketing. As a performance marketer, she and her colleagues monitor how our clients’ efforts are paying off. ‘We set up dashboards, measure the return on their efforts, and check to what extent their set KPIs are being achieved. In the meantime, we continue to monitor and optimize their campaigns. When results are good, my heart leaps, because I know how much work went into the preparation. Everything has to be right in the preparation so that everything is right during the rollout.’
‘But I also dare to be critical of the choices made by other companies. It regularly happens that I receive a newsletter from some organization or other. When I notice that their CRM system isn’t up to scratch, I send my feedback to their marketing team. Consider it a free consultation (laughs).’
One free tip for our own clients, perhaps? ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Test different channels or platforms. It sounds strange, but the less dependent your website traffic is on pure online advertising, the healthier it is for the business.’
Besides being a performance marketer pur sang, Marjan is the team coach of her division. ‘I love supporting my team as a coach whenever necessary and helping them grow. Performance marketing comes with a lot of responsibilities, so I want to help ensure they remain manageable and that everyone can be themselves within the group.’
‘I try to do this mainly by conveying a passion for the profession and a positive spirit. But I do need to be able to feel the fire, both in my own team members and in other colleagues and the clients themselves. It’s hard for me to share an office with sighers and complainers. We all know where we want to go and how to get there together.’
‘That is more than fine at Expliciet. When I applied here, I was already amazed at how good and driven everyone is in their job. It really felt like I was standing before the golden gates of the agency world. I often wondered back then if I would earn my place here. Three years later, I am incredibly proud of what I have already proven here and continue to prove every day.’
What I am personally most proud of is that I have been able to systematically help build my team across various areas of expertise. But also that I helped our former intern Céline grow into the first official social media manager ever at Expliciet. And on top of that, I get to help guard the Expliciet group spirit every day through the initiatives we set up from the Culture Committee.’
Apart from a possible new comeback for Get Ready!: what are Marjan’s short and long-term ambitions in life?
‘Professionally, I’m especially looking forward to mapping out our clients’ customer journeys even better and tackling as many pieces of that sales funnel as possible. Thanks to our recent partnership with HubSpot, we can calculate even more conversion rates and will soon be able to shift up a gear in this area.’
‘On a personal level, our nearly one-year-old daughter Anna is one of my biggest ambitions that I’ve already been able to check off. But there are plenty of things still on my bucket list. I’m currently learning Spanish. I donate money monthly to a young girl in Guatemala and her village. Today we write to each other, but one day I want to travel there to meet her and talk to her.’
If I hadn’t ended up in the world of performance marketing, I might have become a Zumba instructor. I love dancing and I love getting people onto the dance floor. That one person sticking to the wall? I’ll drag them back in. They’ve known that for a long time here at Expliciet (laughs).’
‘I am definitely happy with my totem name and it has a nice ring to it. Although lead generation is, of course, only a small part of the funnel ;-)’
Advertising
‘I grew up with advertising jingles and sang them at the top of my lungs at school. For example, I remember that by the age of 12th, I knew the Senseo jingle entirely by heart. Pure entertainment in the canteen!’
Friends
‘Friends is life! Ask me any question about the series and I’m guaranteed to answer it. Our victory in the Expliciet Friends quiz says enough, right? ;-)’
My cat
‘My previous cat has since passed away, but I’m still a crazy cat lady thanks to my two newest furballs: Sammie and Jean-Bob.’