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Every day, I dig through a lot of work-related content like blogs, websites, or case studies – and every time, each tab I open or file I download promises the most valuable and insightful information. Over the past several weeks, I noticed that what does catch my eye are the more humanized types of publications, like behind-the-scenes articles or relatable life stories. And that’s what we want to offer you from our Flawless Inbound team. Let me introduce you to the very first – and I hope not last – interview style blog where our professionals share their personal, unique points of view on what they do at work and why it matters to them.
The Magnificent Three, our Marketing Technologists, got to do the honours of testing the new format. Enjoy reading the synthesis of their answers, representing the combined wisdom of “The Flawless MarTech,” and feel free to add more questions in the comments!
What do you do?
Basically, I sit in front of a computer, talk to colleagues and clients, listen to what they are asking for, and read between the lines to make sure they get the right deliverables. And before you ask, this is completely different from working in a library or tech support. Usually, the people I work with need help with their marketing technology stack. This can mean anything from setting up a new marketing platform to optimizing the platform they are already using and reporting on marketing activities. Also, I assist businesses in finding and reaching people who are interested in buying their products or services.
If I had to explain what I do to a 5-year-old, I’d say this: “Imagine you are watching Paw Patrol on YouTube. Before the next episode begins, you see a chocolate ad. Next time you go grocery shopping with your parents, you recognize this chocolate and want to buy it. This is my job: I help people find things they may be interested in buying.”
What motivates you about your work?
It’s great to see tangible results. I love leveraging technology to help clients gain new leads, make the sales process more efficient, and make it easier for their employees to work. Besides, I know that I will be up for a challenge every day at work, and the opportunity to constantly test and push my professional limits is also a great motivator.
Since I’m also a HubSpot Client Onboarding Specialist (that means I show them around HubSpot and the platform capabilities), there’s a human connection that I appreciate. For example, as soon as a client says, “That’s good stuff!”, or smiles after I explain a digital marketing strategy or HubSpot tool, it makes my day.
What is the best part of your regular day at work?
I have to admit that I love getting feedback. Of course, the better the feedback, the better the day, but even if it’s negative, I always know that there’s a way to fix whatever’s not working and move forward to delight a client.
I suppose every team has a person who posts memes to a group chat, but my colleagues actually create and find good memes.
What tools do you use?
I use a lot of different tools at all times. It’s easier to break them down into four categories:
- Running ads: Google Ads, Facebook Ads Manager, LinkedIn Campaign Manager
- Reporting: SEMrush, Google Analytics, Google Search Console
- CMS: HubSpot CMS, WordPress, other CMS
- CRM: HubSpot with a pinch of Salesforce
Are you more on the marketing or technology side?
Hard to say. I know that some people are more on the tech side, but even though I work with a lot of different technologies, I tend to stay closer to marketing because the technologies I use are marketing technologies. I don’t deal with a lot of pure technology, like programming or custom integrations. Maybe that’s the future of all MarTechs, but for now, I do my best to entwine technology with marketing. Also, I have a great opportunity to work with our Content Writers and Strategists, and together, we can build a qualified and informative marketing approach to understand and reach the target audiences of our clients.
How do your client’s business goals influence the way you approach technology?
In a perfect world, business goals should never be constrained by technology. I always try to accommodate clients’ ideas, but it’s also vital to keep in mind what is feasible, scalable, and long-lasting. That’s why as a very first step, my team and I need to understand if our client is trying to conquer a new market, launch a product, or simply get their flag flying. Running campaigns for the sake of running them doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
The client’s business goals give me direction, purpose, and clarity in utilizing different technology tools, but before jumping to build super-complex, custom systems, I always check whether there’s another approach that is simpler yet has the exact functionality the client is searching for.
What is the importance of human input for marketing automation?
At the end of the day, automation is in place to help people with their work and build the bridge between the business and its customers. Effective marketing automation considers the evolving needs of your prospects and the behaviours they exhibit across all marketing channels. It’s more than sending emails. We use automation to learn about the buying process, consider what we’ve learned to create audience-centric messaging, and consistently make improvements to decrease content fatigue.
It is sometimes hard to resist, but it’s important not to get lost in the nerdy world of tech for tech’s sake. It is necessary to understand the pain points of both internal teams and customers to find out why we are doing this automation in the first place. That’s why human interaction is so important in marketing.
In your experience, what’s the best way of aligning marketing and sales?
Marketing and Sales are allies, not enemies. They go hand-in-hand – no matter if it’s a huge corporation with multiple departments or a small start-up where one person does both sales and marketing. For me, to make sure that the solution I build is efficient for everyone, it’s important to talk to both the marketing and sales teams. I need to know what the customer journey looks like and identify issues, especially when flowing from marketing to sales.
Explain SEO in two sentences
It is work done to increase ranking for your website on platforms like Google, Bing, Yahoo, or other search engines. This can include writing quality content, getting good backlinks, and making sure the site health is good.
What was the biggest MarTech challenge you have ever faced?
The biggest challenge is interaction with clients. Coming from a technical side, it is sometimes hard to translate technicality into a business point of view and vice versa. Also, for each client, I have to spend a lot of time synthesizing information, strategizing, and segmenting the data that will be useful to them.
Do you have any other questions to our MarTechs? You can also reach out to us here and see what magic smart marketing technology solutions can do to your company.