Alumni Spotlight: Austen Smith, ’19

Austen Smith

I currently serve as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Research Strategies at Phoenix Innovate. At Phoenix, we utilize data and research to develop custom solutions that evolve our clients’ marketing strategies and achieve their business goals.

Through consultation, we create solutions that address our clients’ most critical marketing challenges such as improving ROI, increasing customer acquisition and developing a deeper understanding of target audiences. Marketing success relies on developing a strong understanding of who your audience is and what motivates them to act. That’s why at Phoenix, we utilize a variety of campaign tactics and technology that address our clients’ specific audiences and marketplace demands.

My education at IMC put me in a perfect position for my current role. In fact, I envisioned myself in this very type of role while I was in school. Between the subject matter of the IMC coursework, the flexibility offered by the program and the accelerated timeline to graduation, it honestly couldn’t have worked any better for me personally or professionally.

Before IMC, I had experience in content marketing and direct response marketing in the fundraising space, but IMC truly accelerated my understanding of classical marketing and advertising disciplines while also delving into modern-day marketing and ad technology such as SEM, SEO and how to analyze data to develop audience insights.

IMC also taught me the importance of campaign measurement and attribution which is vitally important to demonstrate value to clients or your company. As we learned in IMC, you won’t be able to determine a campaign's success without a goal and a defined way to evaluate the metrics.

One of the things I really liked about IMC is that it’s artfully designed to fit around the schedule of a busy, working person. For me, I have two younger children and worked full time throughout the whole course. Me and my team took the accelerated track which meant we would graduate within two years which was the best fit for me. But you can certainly work on a longer timeline if that suits you better.

My best advice for any prospective student would be to really commit to the coursework and be prepared for the time commitment. The amount of value that you squeeze out of the coursework is entirely dependent on you. The learnings from IMC will TRULY help you in the professional world and differentiate from you other job candidates. Take advantage of it.