This blog features a guest interview with Kartik Kakar.Kartik Kakar is a technology marketing professional with 10+ years of industry experience. He currently leads Marketing efforts at Ameyo, an all-in-one software-based communication solution that has earned several awards and accolades from industry experts worldwide including Gartner Inc.
Ten years back, if someone said they wanted to become a radio jockey (RJ) most people would be astonished. However, today we see that times have changed and many youngsters are pursuing career options beyond conventional ones. Now, these options can include Blogging, RJing, Food Taster, Environmentalist, Ethical Hacker, etc.With social media and internet becoming a very important part of our daily lives, marketing has also a changed a lot in the last decade. Today there is no dearth of information available on the internet and customers are more educated and smarter than ever before. If you talk about the B2B space, earlier buying used be heavily dependent on actual sales people. However, today a typical B2B customer is already about 57% far in the purchase process even before they engage directly with any supplier. Traditional Marketing or Outbound Marketing strategies such as cold calls, email blasts, trade shows, etc. are no longer that effective.
But, now there is a whole new field in marketing that focuses on bringing potential customers to you, rather than having your marketing efforts fight for their attention. This field is called Inbound Marketing. Remember the RJ example I gave before? Had a marketer talked about this type of career option a decade back, industry gurus would just dismiss it but now. If you are someone that has deep interest in Business Strategy, Digital Marketing, Social media, Customer Acquisition, Blogging, Graphic Design you should definitely explore a career in Inbound Marketing. As per a study conducted by Moz and Fractal, inbound marketing skills are one of the most wanted in the industry and jobs in this field are one the fastest growing ones! However, at the same time today there is a dearth of quality talent in this field. If you are someone who is confused about how to go about building a career in Inbound Marketing, this blog will be really helpful for you.We interviewed Kartik Kakar, a Technology marketing professional with 10+ years of experience ranging from Startups to Fortune 100 brands in digital marketing, direct marketing and in deploying content and services across media platforms. Kartik was really excited for this interview and felt that there is a need to guide young people who wish to become Inbound Marketers. We are really grateful for giving us his time and valuable inputs.
How has been your experience with inbound marketing and how are the results so far?"
I was first exposed to inbound marketing almost 3 years ago, it was still new concept at that time but the whole theme of inbound marketing just made sense. Initially, it was a challenge for us to identify the right persona to reach the right audience. We are able to get past that hurdle as a team and since introducing inbound marketing to Ameyo, we have seen considerable growth. It has had a positive impact on all our marketing channels, our blogs are recognized globally as one of the most respected authority in contact center space, earning accolades from industry leaders. This has helped us improve our organic rankings as well and as a result we have been able to boost our sales team with quality inbound leads that are growing.
"Do you think young professionals are a good fit for this field?"
Absolutely, since inbound marketing in itself is a new field, I feel that it is a career for the millennial. Young professionals have an inherent advantage over others since they are avid users of social networks and have been consuming digital content from a young age so they can apply themselves better.
"What would be your advice to young professionals looking to make a career in this field?"
I would recommend that you should keep your marketing basics strong, as they will lay the foundation of your growth in this field. You cannot master inbound marketing if you do not know the basics of SEO, SEM, social media, and digital marketing. Also, you need to be a good storyteller. Nowadays, marketing is not flashing your name everywhere hoping for something to work, it is all about who tells the better story about their product.
"What qualities do you look for while hiring inbound marketers?"
For me, a candidate having no prior experience in inbound marketing is not a deal breaker. Since, the field is new, I have accepted the fact that people will need to be groomed. The qualities that I look for in hiring inbound marketers are excellent communication and writing skills, basic knowledge of SEO, SEM, and digital marketing. They also need to show a keen sense of learning as this is a growing field; you need to be able to experiment multiple things. I have yet to come across an inbound marketer who has it all figured out. In fact, you will be surprised to see that the largest community of inbound marketers, i.e., Inbound.org is all about people experimenting various things and posting their success and failure stories for others tolearn from it.
Lastly, I would just like to say 'the secret to getting ahead is getting started.' So, don't wait and start executing right away. The good thing is that there are no barriers to entry in Inbound Marketing and it's never too late to start.Did you find this blog post useful? We'll be interviewing more Inbound Marketing industry experts soon. Being pioneers of Inbound Marketing in the country we feel there is a lot of untapped potential. Our aim is to guide young individuals passionate about making a difference in this field. Feel free to reach out to us in case you have any questions related to pursuing a career in Inbound Marketing.
