Meet a Member: Erika Mayhew

November 17, 2023

Erika Williford HeadshotJUST THE FACTS

  • Name: Erika Williford
  • Title: Marketing & Communications Director
  • Years of Experience: 13
  • College Name & Degree(s): University of Houston, Bachelor of Arts, Communication
  • Firm Name: Doeren Mayhew
  • Firm City & State: Troy, Michigan (however, I’m based in our Houston, Texas office)
  • Firm Size: 575
  • Email Address: [email protected]
  • Professional Memberships: Association for Accounting Marketing and American Marketing Association
  • Community Involvement: NA
  • Twitter Handle: NA
  • LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erika-yanez-williford-23479a10/

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

  • What types of internal communication strategies does your firm employ? We leverage our firmwide employee intranet as our go-to spot for communications. All information deployed to employees can be found on the site, and we also distribute a monthly employee newsletter to highlight firm-wide news, events, employee achievements and more.
  • What is the structure of your marketing department? We operate as a national marketing group, which is led by our Chief Marketing Officer in our corporate office (Troy, Mich.), with regional support at the manager/director and staff levels within our primary locations.
  • What have you learned the hard way? It’s OK to make mistakes … as long as you take something away from it.
  • What is a “must know” for new accounting marketers? Stories sell! I would encourage new accounting marketers to learn about their firm’s story, so that they find ways to tell it in a compelling and engaging manner, whether it’s to an internal or external audience. Simon Sinek recently said, “tell your story like it’s a movie,” and I couldn’t agree more.
  • What is the biggest benefit you receive from your AAM membership or what affect has AAM had on your career? Back when AAM had local chapters, I always enjoyed connecting with local accounting marketers and learning from them, since I was a new college graduate at the time and very green to the industry. Attending AAM’s annual conferences today, it’s always great collaborating in sessions, seeing inspiring firm achievements and absorbing/sharing success stories.
  • Share one marketing tip related to internal communications. Think about your audience and make sure your communication approach aligns with the firm’s and leadership’s values.
  • What do you feel is the biggest issue is facing accounting marketers today? Navigating the evolving industry and quickly adapting/responding to our clients and employee’s needs.
  • What would you be doing if you had not become a marketer? A writer or a chef … who at some point writes a cookbook.
  • What is the biggest project you are working on right now? There are quite a few new and exciting projects on the docket right now, including redesigning our employee intranet and working with our human resources group to revamp our employee onboarding experience.
  • If you had an unlimited budget, what is one thing you would implement immediately? I’d hire an in-house videographer and social media extraordinaire to help us develop all the content we could ever imagine.
  • What blogs/social feeds do you subscribe to that are helpful? Associated Press and Ragan Communications for content and Brene Brown for leadership.
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