Being with the company for 20 years has been quite a journey. Marketing dates back 100+ years, but digital marketing emerged only 20-25 year...
Being with the company for 20 years has been quite a journey. Marketing dates back 100+ years, but digital marketing emerged only 20-25 years ago. During this period, both digital marketing and Google as a company have developed a lot. So, being a part of the company has been a great learning process for me.
For example, competition is often seen as difficult or scary, but it is one of the best things that can happen to you. It is a particularly important growth factor for digital marketing. Through competition, everyone strives to be better and you improve collectively. This has definitely contributed to the success of digital marketing.
Another lesson I learned from my 20 years at Google is that you have to think several steps ahead and get after your business. Most of the things I did when I first started at Google no longer need to be done by humans. Digital marketing is a rapidly evolving industry, so you need to have that motivation to adapt and learn on the go. Otherwise, you will be out of practicality.
Fortunately, what is contributing to the growth of digital marketing is a lot of consumer behavior. Audiences have shifted from traditional media such as television and radio to digital media, so where eyeballs go, advertisers go.
A final lesson I learned is that as a marketer, no matter how old you are, you should always try to understand the youngest generation with purchasing power. Because this is the generation that will drive the future growth of your business.
What skill or experience can help a marketer stand out in this highly competitive race to the top?
In terms of soft skills, the ability to adapt and learn is very important because this sector is a very fast-moving field. If you cannot keep up with this pace, you will run out of date very quickly. If you want to be a leader in the industry, you must have the ability to lead your employees to do the same. You have to teach them to adapt very quickly and give them the confidence that they can learn anything with you.
In terms of technical skills, we can think of branding and performance marketing as two different disciplines. Marketers who can bring these disciplines together are naturally more successful. The most important thing you can do for your company is to eliminate the distinction between the two. This way, you can work with a strategy that covers the entire funnel and use your data throughout the entire consumer journey.
Over the last few years, we have seen how generative AI has impacted consumers and digital marketing strategies. That's why it's important to understand the impact of AI on our marketing strategies.
Will artificial intelligence replace those working in the field of marketing or will it remain just a useful tool?
When email emerged, it did not replace the phone. There is and will always be a need for creativity as well as the automation provided by artificial intelligence. Data and machine learning can tell you what to do, but creativity is about how you do something.
So there's no way human creativity will become obsolete anytime soon. Machines can help us come up with the initial idea. It still requires human insight to bring this idea to life and understand whether it resonates with consumers.
Can data mislead people? When can we trust human intuition and creativity?
I believe data can be very helpful, especially when it comes to marketing strategies. Data helps you save a lot of money, time and resources. Data can make you a smarter marketer, but it's always creativity that makes the difference.
Let's say two people go on vacation and they both pack the same clothes in their suitcases. We can think that this situation represents data. Although one of them wears the same trousers and t-shirt every day on holiday, the other wears everything in his suitcase.
This is what I see in the industry. Some marketers, like their competitors, review a lot of data but use only one or two aspects of the data. However, the real competitors are using every data available. Those who use and evaluate all data will naturally perform better.
What tools (e.g. machine learning) do you use to define your target audience when creating your digital marketing strategy?
The role of artificial intelligence and machine learning will grow increasingly in the future. Traditionally, we would start by defining personas to segment the market. We would look at specific demographics and psychographics of consumers and then create categories for the type of consumer to target. This model is still used but is becoming increasingly obsolete.
Then came the second period of digital marketing, where we did more advanced target audience identification. We looked at the similarities of consumers, their situation in the market, and what life stages they were in.
In short, we started to determine our strategies based more on consumer behavior. In the future, many of these methods will be replaced by algorithms and machine learning that will identify the best customer and highest profitability. This way, you won't have to think too much to define your goal.
Are influencers overrated as a digital marketing method? How do you choose the method that's right for your brand?
Influencers still have an influence in determining the digital marketing strategy. When marketing experts analyze the data, it seems that a large part of the digital marketing budget is allocated to influencers. Many marketing experts say that the most effective part of social media is influencers. In short, the data definitely shows that influencers have a significant impact on marketing strategy.
When it comes to how to choose influencers, there are many audiences and markets out there, depending on what type of audience you are after.
One tip I always give my partners is to ask your interns who may be interacting with influencers about this. You can even ask your children or young family members.
I've worked with many older executives who didn't even know what influencers were. When they go home and ask their children or grandchildren, they mostly like the stories they hear. At the end of the day, these executives say that they have no idea that influencers are more famous than celebrities, but we can use them when determining our digital marketing strategy.
From a digital marketing strategy perspective, when you reach out to these influencers, you should make sure that the audiences they reach are compatible with the audience you are targeting. For example, is your product and service suitable for the type of content they produce? Another thing to consider is how willing they are to work within your own contractual requirements.
One of the topics you will cover in your course is 'Reverse Budgeting' , what is it? And why is it important for marketers?
Traditionally, the way marketing budgets are set is that you look at which part of the previous year's budget performed better and gradually make the necessary changes. You then ask your finance team to approve the new budget and break it down accordingly.
This method is no longer valid. Because two types of problems arose in this method; Either your budget is allocated too much towards the end of the year, or your budget runs out. So you may need to “go dark” on your digital marketing strategy , which is a very bad strategy.
In "reverse budgeting", instead of basing your future budget decisions on past budgets and determining them in stages, you start with a goal you have in mind. For example, you can start by asking "What is my branding goal?"
You then calculate what is needed to achieve that goal and how much budget you need to have. In short, you determine budgeting based on the goal rather than determining it in the first place. This is important because it allows you to build more trust with your finance team and allows you to feel comfortable holding them accountable.
What skills do you look for when hiring and how do you evaluate candidates?
This depends on the company. If you are a large company and need people with specific skills, then I would pay extreme attention to what information they offer regarding the role we are looking for.
For example, if you are hiring a marketing professional, ask yourself: “Have they done this type of work in the past? What achievements do they need to demonstrate? What case examples do they need to review?” Therefore, if you are hiring experts, knowledge may be a sought-after criterion for this position.
Because the industry moves so quickly, we often hire generalists who need to be able to adapt. What someone does today may change in six months.
So we assess what we call “general cognitive ability,” how quickly, accurately and comprehensively a person thinks. When solving a problem, what is important is their approach to problem solving rather than the actual solution. This is an important factor for me when interviewing candidates.
Of course, leadership skills are also important. Leadership doesn't always mean taking action; it also requires stepping back and letting others try. It's important to demonstrate this skill when interviewing candidates.
It is also very important that they adapt to the company culture. Every company has its own culture, and you don't want to risk that culture by hiring the wrong people. Regarding the evaluation of the candidate, asking direct questions for each of the criteria I mentioned is important to make an accurate evaluation.
When you give candidates cases to deal with, you better observe their behavior and often get more honest answers. Candidates were asked: “There is such a case, how would you deal with it? Have you encountered such a problem in the past? Asking questions like these honestly gives me more insight about the candidate.
How can a marketing director help his team develop strategic thinking skills?
Team members should be interested in solving any issue before thinking about it and making a decision. Because most of the time we don't even know what we don't know. That's why it's important to approach the problem with curiosity to understand what the options are.
Another strategic thinking method is to critically approach. Do you critically question what you see, hear or read? Or do you take things at face value? You must also put your own understanding and thought into a situation. Approaching it critically means you ask a lot of questions. Is this true? Isn't this it? What else can help me understand this? You can ask questions like:
Finally, when you are trying to research and make sense of something, there is so much information out there that it gets you nowhere and causes “analysis paralysis”. Therefore, critical thinking also requires the ability to condense what you have learned into a useful and applicable situation.
Is there a special exercise you do with your team?
We constantly have brainstorming meetings. Sometimes we do hackathons where we try to solve a specific problem. For example, you can write 100 ideas on the board and then choose the ones that work best. We call this approach “broad thinking”. You write down as many ideas as you can and then identify from that list the ideas that will actually work.A particular digital marketing strategy is about how you bring all the elements together. The best examples are; These are examples of cases where owned, paid and earned media are combined. Everything you own; your website, app, stores, digital and offline advertising; and it is pure bliss for a marketer when everything you earn through media is aligned.
Anything user-generated or crowdsourced can also be interesting because the idea comes from the customer. It's great to see the impact of this on a big brand. Creating a solution by the user allows customers to become more connected to the brand.
We can give Airbnb as an example of this situation. Every Christmas, their CEO asks via Twitter what features Airbnb users would like to see next year. Then they take all these ideas, choose the most suitable one and put these ideas into practice.
Are there any books you would recommend?
I recently read this book by Bill Perkins that got me thinking: Die Resetting: Taking Everything Out of Your Money and Your Life. Maybe you can find something that can be applied in your business life. It was a book that fascinated me because regardless of business income or money in general, we want more and more.
At some point you have to ask yourself: What am I doing this for? How can I make better use of not only the money, but also the time that money can buy? If you own a company, what benefits can you bring to society? Learning how to balance all of this and putting a plan in place will be a game-changing approach.
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