Ariel Norwood, VP Client Strategy, on getting more strategic for our clients

It’s not every day you chat with a professional dancer turned professional pastry chef turned world-class marketing strategist. But that’s what makes Ariel Norwood, Orso’s VP of Client Strategy fantastic: she’s open to life’s surprises (like her third chihuahua), while carefully weighing her choices and crafting her path.

In her day-to-day role, Ariel applies that same pathfinding skill to Orso’s clients. She balances their requests against marketing goals, intuition, and hard data to come up with partnership plans that will help them succeed.

Here we talk about what Ariel is building for Orso and our clients, what she recommends for businesses who are just getting started, and what exceptional pastries she still bakes in her spare time.

Let’s start with your role, because you’re building something new at Orso and we’re all pretty excited about it.

Yes, what we’re building is totally new! While I’m taking on what we’ve traditionally done with Client Services, we’re introducing a more strategic approach. I work directly with clients to understand their overall growth goals and develop partnership proposals that support those goals through a blend of our service lines. Then, I manage our relationship day-to-day to ensure we deliver that custom combination.  

Organizations tend to see their marketing needs in silos, like “Oh, we need social media” or “We need email campaigns.” Historically, clients would then come to us for help with those specific projects and we’d connect them with the relevant service line. While we’ve maintained great, long-term relationships with clients, those relationships have often been built project by project, through repeat engagements. 

Going forward, we’re seeing more opportunities to help clients build a continuous growth engine, and to that end, we’re putting more definition around our partnership model. So my remit now is to look at our clients’ entire marketing landscape, not just a single service line or marketing sub-function. Then, by pulling from across the expertise of our service lines, we can deliver a correctly-proportioned mix of deliverables to help them achieve their goals. We’re building repeatable frameworks that allow us to do this in both a custom and predictable way.

What does this look like tactically?

We start with an analysis of the client’s marketing function. And to be fair, Orso has always done this: started with a deep dive into a client’s brand. Only now, we’re looking across their whole marketing ecosystem. We score them on everything from how they’re perceived as a brand to how well their email functions in conjunction with social. We then look at the budget available and make a recommendation: “Here’s how we’d address your goals within your budget and time constraints.” 

So, for example, a business might come to us thinking they want a new look and feel for their website because they’re not getting repeat visitors or conversions. Imagine we run this assessment and learn that they’re performing super highly on customer experience on their website, but many of their customer relationship management systems and data efforts are duct taped together. We could, of course, just deliver on their original project-based ask. But we’d first want to share what we’d learned and encourage the client to pivot some of their time and money toward more impactful quick wins like SEO and CRM.

To do that, our creative and visual design experts, SEO experts, and CRM team would talk about what they’d recommend delivering and where and how those deliverables would interact and overlap within the client’s stated budget—so we could deliver really integrated work all directed by the client’s root problem and goal. We believe that that kind of integrated work is what will really help our clients grow.

How did you start with Orso?

A friend of mine did some SEO work with Orso and she introduced me. Vince and I started talking about this concept last summer. At my core, I’m someone who likes to build things, and so this vision—to build out a new arm of a marketing agency—appealed to me. I was in another role at the time, though, and Vince had a baby on the way so timing didn’t click for nearly a year. Fortunately, we reconnected earlier this year and this time the stars absolutely aligned.

Traveling in Greece and Belgium

What brought the stars into alignment over the course of your career?

I have an unusual professional background. I started as a pastry chef. I went to culinary school and then worked in everything from a small kitchen in SoHo to Whole Foods Market food service. Meanwhile, I was also a very active performer and teacher of Middle Eastern dance. But with evening dance classes and 3 a.m. shifts in the kitchen, I started to experience a conflict wherein I wasn’t sleeping. I had to pick. 

So, I chose dance and that’s where I began to pick up marketing skills. I had to learn how to market myself as a teacher and performer in the Northeast. I did find an audience, and I kept my classes full! But I realized the next logical step would be to open a dance studio, which didn’t feel right. 

Looking for a new opportunity, I used that marketing experience and my culinary degree to pivot. I began my career in marketing at Whole Foods Market, where I gained tremendous hands-on experience with in-store marketing, brand partnerships, social media, and digital marketing. Eventually, that experience expanded into multiple verticals. I’ve worked in book publishing, financial services, CPG, FMCG, and dining. Ultimately, I’ve found that I love building brands and teams through all aspects of digital marketing.

Wow! What do you love about marketing that keeps pulling you in?

So much. Marketing is the nexus of a lot of things I’m passionate about. Like I said, I love to build and since the field is always changing, I am perpetually building. I also love how marketing is essentially about solving problems and helping people enjoy their lives. That’s what I found beautiful about pastry and dance and it’s what I love about marketing too. People are just looking to enjoy their life. Good marketing helps people find the things that will help them do that, even if it’s just a drink on the go.

What are your top 1-2 tips for a small business just starting their marketing function?

Understand your audience. What drives them? What problem are you solving for them? Knowing this will guide you toward positioning and language that resonates.

Also, understand your own capacity. Make strategic, thoughtful choices. Look for the opportunities, not just the constraints.

Then, keep in mind that nothing works the same for everyone. So be creative, test, and learn. Follow your instincts and pay attention to the data. Surround yourself with people whose opinions challenge you but who you trust. Find that balance between science and art.

How do you spend your time when you’re not focused on marketing strategy?

I sketch dogs! I have an Instagram where I do dog sketches (@snootsiesketches) and it’s a total stress reliever for me. I still dance as a hobby. I still bake. Oh, and I have a motorcycle!

I also have three dogs: Butter Snoots, a tiny apple head chihuahua, Hamlet, a Jack Chi, and Nova, a chihuahua French bulldog. No idea why we keep ending up with chihuahuas, it’s totally been an accident. We rescued them all and every time it seems to go the opposite of according to plan. Like, in one case my partner tried to adopt the oldest dog at the shelter but ended up fostering a puppy. The next time we went in looking for a big dog and left with a little tiny friend. So now we’re just a chihuahua family!

Ok Ariel, time for the hot seat.

If you’re struggling to manage an aspect of your marketing plan and suspect that the issue might run a bit deeper, reach out. Ariel and the Orso team are here to offer our strategic expertise and help you get past your pain points—so you can focus on growth.