August 2023 Bonfire Marketer of the Month: Little Spoon’s Ilana Fromm

Each month, Braze selects one individual as our Marketer of the Month in order to celebrate the exceptional work being done by members of our Braze Bonfire community. Whether it's providing support for their fellow marketers or going above and beyond by sharing their innovative ideas and strategies, these individuals are making essential contributions to their companies, their users, and the customer engagement space as a whole.

This month, we’re recognizing Ilana Fromm, Director of Marketing, Lifecycle and Email at Little Spoon, a leading direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand on a mission to make parents’ lives easier and kids healthier. Let’s dive in.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I have a pretty non-linear career trajectory! I started my career in marketing at a non-profit organization where I had a generalist role. Working at a small company and within a small team gave me incredible, hands-on experience and a chance to really get a 360-view of marketing.

After 3+ years, I moved to a nutrition company and then a direct-to-consumer meal kit company, where I found myself in a role that straddled both brand and performance marketing. I oversaw our content (a robust cooking blog) and PR, as well as managed our leads emails and acquisition-focused partnerships.

I joined Little Spoon in January 2020—when the company was just nine people—to run our organic social media channels and content platform, Is This Normal, as well as handle weekly customer and leads emails.

After almost seven years working in generalist marketing roles, it’s actually thanks to Braze that my career took an exciting turn! When we began to vet new email platforms and I learned more about their capabilities, I saw the need for Little Spoon to develop a thoughtful lifecycle marketing strategy and I jumped at the opportunity. Since then, I’ve built out a streamlined lifecycle marketing strategy for Little Spoon’s leads and customers that includes email, SMS, and on-site communications. I’m a self-taught automation junkie, I geek out on data, and basically eat, sleep and breathe Braze these days!

What is your favorite part of your job?

Definitely my coworkers, who I get to work alongside every day. I have never met a group of people who are so incredibly passionate about what they do. We have created an incredible culture at Little Spoon, one where people truly enjoy coming to work every day, are dedicated to our mission, and rally together to make big things happen. I’ve seen the company go from 10 people to upwards of 50, and from one product line to four (with more coming in 2023!). As we’ve grown, we’ve been able to maintain a close-knit, supportive culture of people who truly care about what we’re doing.

What company goals are you prioritizing?

Right now, one of our main company goals is retention. As we work towards becoming a complete end-to-end nutrition solution for kids and expand our product lines, retention becomes even more important and impactful. On the retention side, when we think about what tests we can run to drive retention, we are focused on efforts that are repeatable, scalable, and can be automated. My goal is always to find ways to support our customer retention through automated communications so they can work hard for us on a regular basis.

How do you see Braze as a career accelerant?

Braze has absolutely been a career accelerant for me! It allowed me to go from someone who “did” emails to building out and running a cohesive lifecycle communication strategy. Additionally, the process of onboarding Braze and standing up our automated programs really helped me hone my automation skills.

For anyone looking to make a career in the lifecycle marketing space, I think having a deep understanding of automation is crucial. Braze enables marketers to streamline communications across channels and drive meaningful impact.

What is one campaign or initiative that you’re most proud of?

As I mentioned, one of Little Spoon’s top priorities as a company right now is retention and personally, I think successful retention marketing is what will drive the DTC/eCommerce world in the coming months and years. Last quarter, we ran two retention tests that focused on winning back churned (canceled) customers when their child hit a new eating milestone (specific age), and was therefore ripe for our next product line. We tested two different age groups for two different product lines, and A/B tested discount vs. no discount for each group. We ran these tests every other week for around six weeks. After the test period, we saw a reactivation rate that was 115% higher than our target. We were able to successfully automate these tests by the end of the quarter and now have users reactivating weekly and contributing to our retention rate!

Interested in collaborating to build the future of customer engagement? Join a collective of experts to forge connections, share ideas, and accelerate your career at the Braze Bonfire Community.