June Marketing Pro of the Month: Jennifer Jayne Bell

We are loving everything that we’re learning from our incredible Marketing Pros this year! And our next Marketing Pro of the Month has so much knowledge—we’re honored she took the time to share it with us. Plus she offered up a LOT of goodies to read, watch, and listen to—get the entire list when you read up on Jennifer Jayne Bell with Warmington Residential—our June Marketing Pro of the Month!

Tell us about your builder – market, product type, average units sold per year, average sales volume per year

Warmington Residential

Based in Costa Mesa in Southern California

Privately (family) owned for nearly 95 years

Market Region is CA – Northern, Southern, and Central Coast

Single-family homes, attached and detached

Units closed in 2019 – 78

Sales Revenue 2019 – approximately $63.2M

What is your exact title and how long have you been in the position? How did you get your start in home builder marketing?

Currently my exact title is Director of Creative Services. I wear many hats and struggle with my title…I am open to suggestions! I have been in this position for about 20 years. (Really 28 but I consulted for 8 years when my kids were little).

I got my start just out of college as an intern at an ad agency, of which Warmington was a client. They decided to go in-house to save money during the early ‘90’s recession and hired me and one other person to come over and set up the agency.

Let’s talk responsibilities: What are yours on a day-to-day basis when it comes to marketing?

Primarily I lead an in-house team at W Advertising. We are a team of four that functions as a full-service agency. My specific responsibilities include creating digital (PPC and display) and social campaigns, copywriting/content creation, website management, reporting, CRM management, managing our OSC, and overseeing the creation of creative content.

What is your favorite social media platform to use?

Personally it’s probably Instagram and Pinterest because they are passive and I can simply scroll and look at pretty pictures. And Reddit because I am forever curious and you can find ANYTHING on Reddit.

Professionally? Facebook/Instagram but not the front-end necessarily. I like all that juicy back-end stuff.

What does the average Monday look like for you personally and professionally?

Rainy days and Mondays never get me down. They are meeting days of course, so they are typically jam-packed.

How do you see your role evolving over the next few years?

My role evolves weekly. My team’s agility is valued in our organization and we regularly get tasked with new asks. We enjoy rising to the challenge I don’t see that changing. I read recently that agility is the new growth. I really related to that.

What is a question you’re frequently asked in your role? (Maybe it drives you crazy, maybe it doesn’t!)

“Can we…?” And the answer is pretty typically YES.

What is a big success you’ve had in your current role?

Staying consistently employed for more than 20 years! I work for a great company and I have been extraordinarily lucky. I have been able to grow and learn and continue to achieve successes because of the trust that has been placed in me and my team. We celebrate little successes each week in the form of items marked COMPLETE in Asana. And off my hand-scrawled “to-do” list which I still keep!

One of my recent victories has been mastering importing lists of mobile apps to exclude from display campaigns in Google Ads so they don’t take over my digital world.

When it comes to marketing, we all learn from our mistakes. Care to share a time you learned from a marketing mistake?

Eek, it’s still hard for me to talk about. I have PTSD. We’ve been using Lasso for years and about 10 years ago, we accidentally sent an event invite meant for a small list of VIP partners and investors to an entire prospect list of more than 800 people. To this day, I have full-on OCD when it comes to Lasso.

Marketing tends to be very experimental. What do you love about that and what do you hate about it?

I love what I know good marketing can accomplish and that it can be forgiving. It’s an elusive love as I seem to always be chasing what’s next. Hate? There is nothing that I hate about it.

What are you currently reading or listening to? Work and personal.

Personally:

American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power

DJ D-Nice: Club Quarantine and Rachael & Vilray

Whoop it up with Vicki

You forgot watching, but in case you are wondering, I just finished Better Call Saul.

Professionally:

Too much to list. Since COVID-19 hit, my inbox has been flooded with content! Blogs and Webinars and Zooms and Facebook Live. So much good stuff, so little time…

Favorites I always make time for: Mike, Kevin and Jen/Do You Convert. They are so great. And Meredith, of course. And Lasso webinars. I usually lurk in the background in listen mode because I am forever multitasking.

What is your favorite app or tool to use for work-related tasks? Personal tasks?

One of my character flaws is that I cannot name favorites. There is too much good stuff to narrow it down to just one…across the board!

Professionally, Pages Manager app, Google Drive, Asana, Repost

Personally, Instapaper, Stitcher, Listonic, Mindbody, NYT Cooking, and of course, Google.

Are you team taco or team pizza? Or team other? 

Both of course! I could never pick just one. (See above)

If you had a Friday off of work, what would you do with it?

Sleep in (I am still striving to achieve a sleep score in the 90s..come on, Fitbit!), drink coffee, do yoga, watch Real Time with Bill Maher, drink a Rye old fashioned and cook!

Categorised in: Marketing Pro of the Month