#MarketingMinds: Interview with Hanna Cevik from Reason

The #MarketingMinds series share real-world stories from marketers showing how digital marketing has helped them develop their careers or businesses.

Marketing Mind:

Hanna Cevik

I'm Hanna, I've been a Marketing Manager for 10 years, working in the third sector, the arts and now technology. I am a generalist, which I think is increasingly rare, but I enjoy being part of the strategy as well as the tactics of marketing in the B2B space, so I tend to join organisations as they are growing large enough to start separating roles like marketing out for the first time. That means I'm most often a one-woman team - with support from all over the business.

Reason is just that; five years old, growing, with a great client roster and a really smart team of designers, strategists and engineers. I've worked with Reason since the beginning of the year. LinkedIn | Website

What is your background in Marketing, and how did you come to be in the position you are in now?

I started my career in the third sector, building a marketing department for a great education charity. I learned the ropes hands-on, as social media was just beginning and the potential for changing the methodology of the charity was becoming essential.

I moved abroad, honed fundraising and bid writing skills to add to my expertise and came back to the UK sure that I wanted to work in tech. I love the interface between geekery and creativity - both in the work I do in marketing and in the companies I work for.

Which technical skills do you believe are most important in your role?

• Analytical thinking (staying outside of the organisation you work for somewhat in order to understand what the customer sees)
• Persistent interest in data
• Reporting and iterating ideas
• Ability to understand web build (HTML, CSS, JS and web hosting)
• A good eye for design (if not the ability to use InDesign, Photoshop, Sketch, Zeplin, etc.)
• Good writing and editing skills

Which soft skills prove most useful in your role?

Patience, kindness, being adaptable, and not being precious about your work.

Which markets does your organization operate in?

UK, Europe

Which Marketing or Business related book would you recommend to a colleague, and why?

The Extraverted Nerd: The B2B Marketing Cookbook

What can be one of the biggest challenges Marketers face in the industry you operate in?

Other areas of the business understanding the activities and value of marketing.

How do you and your team overcome the aforementioned industry challenges?

Regular updates to the team, lots of fireside chat about what we're up to and internal communications campaigns.

Describe what a typical day at work looks like for you?

I usually review emails at home before I come in so I know what's new from yesterday and what's a priority that I don't already have on my list.

Once I've cycled in, I make breakfast with colleagues, catching up with their work this week (and their weekend!), review my to-do list, check my calendar and make sure I know what needs to be completed that day. I often have a few articles to read, so I try to read one of those before I go into today's tasks.

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I review our lead monitoring tools, new business emails and update our CRM software with any closed deals, updates and new contacts. Then there's usually a stand-up or project update meeting for marketing projects like website updates, events or content creation. Off the back of that, I'll update plans, make sure everyone knows what's changed and what they need to do as a result, and I head off for some lunch with a colleague. We usually go for a 10-minute walk to release the thoughts of the morning and often, most of the team have lunch together on our big kitchen table.

In the afternoon, I'll update our social media scheduling tool, review analytics and performance, get back to anyone who has contacted me during the day and make sure I've completed all the 'urgent -for today' tasks on my list, like ordering event collateral or pushing a specific piece of content to stage for review, or live.

There's probably a couple of meetings to have to get approval for those things and complete the iterations if needed. The afternoon is then spent looking forward longer term - how have campaigns performed, what events should we go to next quarter, is there anything we can add to the content plan?

Please share digital marketing tools that help you and your team accomplish your goals every day.

buffer - social media scheduling: means I don't have to be constantly bothered by this endless task.

slack - slack integrations allow me to see so many things in a prioritised way, like influencers mentioning us, website staging pushes (updates to the site) and of course, speaking to colleagues without having to physically bother everyone.

In your opinion, what are the most valuable skills a marketer in your role can have?

Patience, strategic insight, the ability to work fast and with many different parts of the business

What is your biggest career goal?

I'd love to start a test kitchen - mixing my marketing career with my love of feeding people amazing food and supporting local businesses.

What are your most important KPIs (Key Performance Indicator)?

AWARENESS: more people knowing who Reason are, showing interest via blog visits, newsletter sign-ups, social follows and likes.

LEAD GENERATION: connecting marketing activity to new leads

What is unique about the organization you work for?

Great people, with amazing skills doing really interesting work.

What are the most important attributes you look for in a Manager?

Thinks in a linear way, guides my activity from a holistic (business) point of view,
has the ability to stick to long-term plans for the next benefits.

Across the marketing mix, what medium has brought your organisation the best results?

As a B2B agency, we have to find the right people, and it's a very personal interaction we are seeking. Our most successful medium is meeting people face to face at events. A close second is content - promoted via LinkedIn using earned and shared interactions.

Describe one of the most successful projects or campaigns you've worked on. Why was it successful?

Helping my previous agency build their client base by becoming experts in a specific arena. It was successful because we built the reputation of the agency via community involvement, genuine social media interactions and sharing our work generously and widely.

What is the best piece of work-related advice you have ever received?

be. more. zen.

What do you see as the most exciting future opportunities in digital marketing that you are working on?

AI, allowing more intelligent interaction for people without needing a person monitoring everything.

More open APIs in marketing software - I think so much of the toolkit I use will be forced to publish APIs to allow people to make better use of the data insights that can now be gained, but are useless unless they can be connected.