MarTech Interview with Jeff Lortz, CEO at Creator by Zmags

Jeff Lortz, CEO at Creator by Zmags shares a few tips that can help drive better digital experiences in this chat with MarTech Series:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat Jeff, we’d love to know more about your journey at Zmags… 

I’ve been in tech for most of my career – building and managing high growth SaaS businesses. I’ve worked with small companies preparing for growth and public corporations that achieved their potential. Zmags is a company I’ve admired, as a thought leader in eCommerce with solutions that give brands unique capabilities to engage buyers and increase conversions.

I joined Zmags for the opportunity to lead a company with an innovative team and a product in Creator that is quickly developing into disruptive technology in the digital experience platform (DXP) space. Our platform allows retailers to easily publish and optimize digital experiences across multiple channels, while maximizing the value of their existing tech stack.

I have really enjoyed collaborating with our team and partners. Whether it’s chatting about Creator with key stakeholders, or leading our All-Hands forum, it’s extremely energizing. I am excited about what we have planned to support our rapid growth.

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Zmags recently announced the launch of the Creator platform’s new design file transformation capabilities: what inspired this innovation and tell us more about what it entails and benefits? 

Design and marketing teams all use powerful design tools like Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma, and Sketch to design the look of their shopping experiences. Using the Creator design transform functionality (patent pending) each element of the design can be brought to life and published in minutes without coding. This allows marketers to quickly create rich digital experiences that drive engagement and conversion. 

Our customers were already using Creator to reduce the time and effort in publishing dynamic content to their eCommerce sites. Now they can create revenue-driving, commerce powered content even faster. Design Transform further reduces the number of handoffs needed to publish digital experiences. The Creator platform now enable marketers to add shoppable elements to any design file and publish directly to their website in minutes. 

Can you share a few thoughts on the importance for marketers to find ways to streamline and quicken internal processes (like their design elements) today and what best practices can help here? 

Publishing or updating content fast helps consumer brands save time and resources, but more importantly be more competitive and drive sales. 

Seasonality and staying ahead of trends require retailers to be agile. Streamlining internal processes by leveraging tools like Creator to publish engaging digital experience from a flat design file allows them to respond quickly to the needs of the market. Whether it’s responding to a new trend or swapping out Black Friday campaigns for Cyber Monday ones they can make those updates faster and while remaining consistent across all their digital channels. 

As the impact of drawing engagement from better visual campaigns increases, what do you feel marketers should keep in mind when charting out campaign plans? 

Keep the consumer in mind and deliver the experiences and interactions that they not only have come to expect, but frankly, demand. Engage them with interactive quizzes or product flipbooks and make sure you are staying up to date on the things that don’t change, such as website page speed and sending customers to the correct pages. 

Regardless of your brand strategy telling a compelling visual story will differentiate retailers in a crowded marketplace.

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A few predictions you’d like to talk about for the martech niche for 2022 and beyond? 

There is going to be a newfound emphasis on consumer trust. With the eventual demise of third-party cookies around the corner, it’s going to be up to marketers/brands to develop new methods and create better value exchanges with consumers. 

Brands will have to test and iterate innovative ways to gain consumer trust, so they will feel comfortable opting into data collection. 

This new engagement will require more transparency and brand authenticity. Make sure your digital presence sets the right “first impression” for your brand. Consumers want to feel connected to your brand, not “sold to”. How can you balance trust and experience? Invest in tools that enable you as the marketer to build genuine, authentic experiences.

Some last thoughts, takeaways, digital marketing/martech tips and best practices before we wrap up!

Something that we stress to our customers is brand alignment. Whether it’s your content, website, emails, or social media channels you want to present a consistent and cohesive experience to your audience. Particularly with social media. Snapchat, Pinterest, and Instagram are going bigger with shoppability and features to buy items directly in those apps. 

As we head into a new year, I strongly encourage businesses to make a concerted effort with their social media and develop a consistent presence there. Just like making a webpage engaging with interactivity, bring that same energy and thought to your Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and various social profiles.

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