An interview with Anna Kocsis, Head of Digital Marketing at Sign In Scheduling (formerly 10to8)
We sit down with Anna Kocsis, Head of Digital Marketing at Sign In Scheduling. Sign In Scheduling (formerly 10to8) gives businesses the power to make appointments happen effectively.
How did you end up at 10to8 and what problem does Sign In Scheduling (formerly 10to8) solve for its clients?
I joined the team back in 2018 as a Digital Marketing Executive to focus on social media and content related projects. I was given the opportunity to step in the footsteps of the exiting Head of Marketing a year after I was hired. It's a role that has challenged me greatly and allowed me to accelerate my professional growth. Sign In Scheduling (formerly 10to8) is appointment scheduling software used by over 200,000 businesses worldwide. As part of Sign In Solutions, we help businesses streamline the pre-registration and appointment booking part of the visitor management flow and delight visitors thorughout their scheduling journeys. Our solution is powerful, accessible, highly-customizable and delivers results that really make a difference to organizations' outcomes - such as reducing no-show rates by up to 90%.
As the Head of Digital Marketing, what are your main responsibilities at Sign In Scheduling (formerly 10to8)?
I lead the marketing team: I prioritize our projects and identify the most impactful initiatives. I also try to make sure my team is happy and fulfilled and has the growth opportunities they want and deserve. But I'm still pretty much hands-on. All-day meetings are not my thing. I've worked with all digital marketing channels you could imagine but I'm most passionate about our marketing automation projects, and running integrated campaigns. I always seek the Next Big Thing and try to keep on tactics that aren't overused yet but are proven to work. I love a good experiment and I'm on board with anything exciting - but sometimes it's the boring things that end up working the best, of course.
To get a bit more technical, which methods work best for making people aware of and interested inSign In Scheduling (formerly 10to8) , and why do you think they work so well?
Good old word of mouth and brand awareness have never failed us - but of course, we had to get there. We used to write a lot of buyer-intent optimized blog content and always made sure that our pages are good for SEO. This has helped us a great deal in getting in front of our ideal customers and gain organic traction while also running some paid campaigns. Gathering reviews has also been a very important part of our marketing strategy. If you look us up online, you will find thousands of glowing reviews and that reassurance really matters to business owners who are struggling to find the right scheduling solution on this saturated and often hard-to-navigate market. Nowadays we also us buyer intent data to be more proactive with our audience and support them on their decision journey. I'm really keen on CRO (conversation rate optimization) and personalized customer journeys are a big part of that. I think about what I would expect from a brand during my decision making process and I aim that we deliver experiences that we're proud of and our customers talk about.
At ColdFire, when we look at our clients' Marketing strategies, they vary greatly. Some have found a single, scalable client acquisition process while others thrive on a mix of top-of-funnel strategies. How would you summarize the high-level marketing-related strategy of your organization, and what key elements contribute to its success?
We try to keep our marketing fresh while not using sight of what works. Over the years, we have identified content, PPC, social, and other strategies that work well for our audience. But we're always up for a new experiment and cutting-edge tactics to ensure consistent growth. What has worked for ages could stop working tomorrow, so it's important that we always have new things in our back pocket.
What marketing tactic have you employed at Sign In Scheduling (formerly 10to8) or past companies that you feel is often overlooked by marketing teams, and what makes this technique effective in your experience?
Circling back and re-optimizing things is wildly underrated. As marketers, we tend to always look for the next new and exciting play - I'm guilty of this too - but the biggest successes I had so far were related to optimization. Instead of spending endless resources on new campaigns, we often look at tried and tested playsand see how to scale or repeat them. We have a handful of blog articles, for example, that we kept circling back to over the years, adding new assets, improving the copy, etc. and now they are driving a consistent amount of leads each month. It's great to have avenues that work reliably because these take creative pressure off and leave room for experimentation and the unavoidable occasional failure.
Has your Marketing team experimented with some kind of cold outbound strategy (like cold email)? If yes what was the general outcome and if no, why not?
We have tried cold email campaigns in the past with very little success on its own. When paired with integrated marketing plays like social retargeting and webinars, we've seen more success. I feel strongly about cold emails. There might be industries where they still work, but generally, people absolutely hate cold emails and cold calls. I know I do. 'Unsubscribe' (or a version of it) is my most used subject line in replies. I think cold emails go against good customer experience practices and generally cause more damage than bring results. Sorry, I know this is harsh, but it's my honest opinion.
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