Recently, we had a chance to chat with Milja Merta, our brand manager from Finland currently based in the Canary Islands. Milja is not afraid to experiment with new strategies while enjoying the adrenaline rush of seeing it all play out.
Milja is passionate about surfing, camping, and indulging in a game of chess by the beach. On the professional front, she is responsible for the growth of the acquired brands. We managed to ask her about a typical day in a brand manager’s life looks like, and she gave us some valuable insight that you might find helpful as well.
The Day Kicks-Off
The first ritual in a brand manager’s day is to look at the sales performance analytics to determine what the next course of action should be. If everything has green lights, it’s nice to celebrate with the team and spam a little bit on Slack and let everyone know what’s going on.
The next step is to update relevant stakeholders and meet with the brand management team, and work on current initiatives in the development phase.
Migrating New Brands
A brand manager speaks to the seller to get a better understanding of their brand. The next step is to leverage e-Brands’ own market research and development strategy for both channel and market expansion. The goal is to use a data-driven approach to improve brand’s profitability through aligned Pay-Per-Click (PPC) strategy, supply chain development, and conversion optimization.
The second strategy is to work on branding via establishing visual identity, tone of voice, and several marketing initiatives suitable for the seller’s niche.
Milja is an agile approach enthusiast when it comes to new product development. However, eBrands has a creative talent to help create a product-to-market strategy to ensure brand's growth. Milja Merta says,
“We involve people throughout the organisation to enhance the creative process. We have a wide range of competencies in-house, and it enables a certain level of reactiveness and flexibility.”
Managing Multinational Teams
"Troubleshooting and problem solving is a big part of selling brands on Amazon’s different marketplaces. We’re quick to solve most of issues due to our large team and effective processes. If there’s something we can’t solve with our main framework, we have direct connections to specific teams inside of Amazon to help us.
Best part about managing an international team is to have a deep understanding on different cultures which we need to understand our end customers worldwide. And of course it’s a plus to have people working on different timezones as well."
A Fulfilling Aspect
Although being a brand manager comes with its own challenges, it all pays off when a seller trusts you to take over their brand and you see the brand fly higher. A brand manager is personally invested in the brand’s growth, and watching it flourish is the most fulfilling aspect of this job.
Milja is very optimistic about the company’s strategy. She says, “I feel that combining both our understanding on running Amazon business with our high sustainability standards, we create an interesting environment and new home for our brands.”
The Takeaway
Being a brand manager is all about bringing the whole team together to win every day at every project that requires us to take a brand to its next level. You have to be like a parent taking care and nurturing a child and watching them grow and make it on their own in the world. That is what eBrands does!
