#MarketingMinds: Interview with Newaz Chowdhury from Powerphrase

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

Marketing Mind:

Newaz Chowdhury

My name is Newaz but I also go by Oz. I help run marketing projects within my company. I help with keyword research for SEO/PPC marketing.

I project manage our SEO projects and make sure that we send out our monthly reports on time. I also manage our social media. I do a variety of things, including business development.

LinkedIn | Website

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

I originally had a background in Economics. It's an interesting subject but it's a job field that doesn't make me happy. I did some soul searching and found marketing to be fun, creative and rewarding! I'm a DIY marketer. I've learned everything by myself. Reading articles, blogs, taking online courses is how I learned marketing.

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

Using Excel, knowing how to do SEO and use WordPress. Also knowing how to manage Google Adwords, Bing ads and Facebook ads.

Which soft skills prove most useful in your role?

Speaking. I often engage in sales/customer services/business development and it requires a lot of talking with potential clients and current ones. It can be draining sometimes. Not only communication with clients but also with my co-workers.

With that, organization is also another critical soft skill. Being organized with my co-workers and clients and making sure we are on top of everything is an important and useful skill.

Which markets does your organization operate in?

All markets, from magicians, gyms to Engineering.

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

Rich Dad Poor Dad. Very enlightening the book shows the importance of financial literacy, financial independence and building wealth through investing in assets.

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

The biggest in my opinion is competition. We are in a very saturated in an industry that has many freelancers.

Obtaining clients is a challenge. why use you when I can get a freelancer for a cheaper price? A lot of people have that kind of mentality.

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

We continuously adapt. There's a saying, " a good marketer steals" I wouldn't say we steal, but we follow in our competitor's footsteps.

We try to follow those who are successful in our industry. We follow the best practices that make others successful and learn to adapt from there, whether it's marketing or sales.

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

A typical day would start out in the morning at am checking my emails the first thing. Some days we get inquiries and questions and some days it's slow and we don't get anything.

In the morning, I send out cold outreach emails to businesses to see if they'd be interested in web design or marketing. In the afternoon, I make some social media posts on Instagram, twitter, etc. In my spare time, I try to engage in content marketing by creating blog posts, articles, and PR

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

My top two digital marketing tools would be Serpstat and Convertfox. Serpstat isn't a perfect tool but it's great for keywords research. Serpstat has provided many keywords to that helped us drive traffic to our site.

We use Convertfox for our chat system. We obtain people's email addresses from there and that helps us set up an automated email marketing campaign. It has multiple tools from chat-to-email marketing

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

There are a few. The main one would be to have analytical skills. A good marketer is a critical thinker that is good at analyzing the current situation of a business and how they can help to grow it.

An analytical person is a data-driven person who can figure on what to do next based on the data. Then technical skills like how to use Google tag manager, Google Analytics, CMS's like WordPress, Joomla, etc.

What is your biggest career goal?

My career goal is to turn my company into a full-fledged marketing and development company. I'm working towards to creating a bigger company and an automated business where I have another handle my current tasks so I can live an easier life.

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

My most important KPI's are how much traffic is coming in, the bounce rate and the conversion rate. I need to know how much traffic is coming to a website and what percentage of them are contacting the company and how many of them actually use our/their service to figure out the approximate conversion rate.

What is unique about the organization you work for?

I guess that you can say that we are flexible. We can work anytime we want. My company allows you to work on your own schedule and you can work from home. We strive for a strong work/life balance.

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

Someone who has leadership qualities is organized and is punctual.

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

Inbound marketing. Digital marketing channels like SEO and PPC has brought us some great results with good clients. Outbound marketing is also important to us and brought us many clients

What is the best advice you've received to date?

Follow your passion and not the money. Not every client is worth the money they pay.