Exploring Careers in Growth Marketing with Abhishek Jain

Jennifer

Now I'm going to let everyone in. 

Hello everyone, welcome. Hello, hello. Welcome. Good morning, evening, afternoon — depending on where you are. 

Alright. I think everyone is just filing in right now, but while we're waiting for everyone, why don't we put where we're calling in from the chat? Maybe we'll find some people in the same city here. 

I can start. I'm Jennifer, calling from Vancouver BC. So it is 6 a.m where I am but I'm full of energy because I'm so excited for this event and to talk to everyone here. And Abhishek has a lot of knowledge that I'm excited to hear about. 

So I think Abhishek, you’re from…India?

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Abhishek

Mumbai.

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Jennifer

Mumbai, India.

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Abhishek

[Music] Yes, it's like 8PM here, so just for the evening, yeah.

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Jennifer 

How's your energy level? Like are you excited? Are you kind of tired?

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Abhishek

So actually, I've never had a call on a Sunday evening, so this is a first for me. But like, from an energy perspective, I'm just…I was just preparing myself for tomorrow which is…

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Jennifer

Oh, thing! Thanks for being here so late too. [Music] 

It looks like there's people from Lagos, Nigeria. It's only 3 PM ish. That's not too bad. Oh, we have people who are…oh I don't know how to pronounce the city, Abuja? Hopefully I did that right.

[Music] 

Someone from the United States and welcome, welcome, thanks so much for being here. 

Wait, is Abuja the capital of…of Nigeria? Cause I think everyone thinks it's Lagos that's the capital but it's actually something else. 

Wait let me search that up real quick. Capital of Nigeria, yeah it is. Okay, now that makes sense. Well, if you didn't know that then now you know. 

Awesome, so we have someone from South Carolina. Oh! I always wonder, like, what's the difference between north and south, and then there's like North and South Dakota but then they don't even seem to be like in the North or in the South. So confusing for a Canadian. 

Okay. Wow! So many people sharing where they're from. Lots of…oh, I did pronounce it right. Yay, thanks. 

Okay, it's different states but it's like, you know, it's not really in the north of the United States and one’s not really in the South. It's all like together, but like I don't know. It's just weird, sorry. Uh, awesome.

I think we can probably get started because I have a little bit of an intro. 

Oh, there's also Virginia and West Virginia? Oh my gosh, every time I have to think about the United States, I get very confused. 

Awesome. I'm gonna start with the presentation now, but thanks everyone for putting in where they're from, cause I just learn so much about geography every single time I do that activity. 

Alright. So, I'm gonna do a little bit of an intro but just a disclaimer that we are recording right now and live streaming to YouTube as well. So, if you're not comfortable being recorded just keep your cameras and mics off. 

So I'm gonna pin the speakers. Oh, I don't know how to do that. 

So, I would just spotlight you Abhishek, if you don't mind. And then I would spotlight myself as well. 

Okay. Alright, time to get started. 

So, I'm Jennifer. I'm the growth associate here at Entry Level and — oh I think I'm hearing some sounds. Maybe, if everyone can just keep themselves muted. Perfect.

So, I’m the growth associate here at entry level.  My job has lots of fun things in it. I can leave my calendly link in the chat later if you want to book a time with me and hear all about the fun things that I do as a growth marketer. 

But, in the meantime I'm gonna introduce Entry Level. So we basically help you learn and get experience so that you can get hired. If you're here, hopefully you already are familiar with us. Just some words before we start.

Number one, is please be respectful, obviously and then two, don't spam the chat. We love seeing engagement, so if you have questions, feel free to put it in the chat, but just don't put like, random letters and like, say inappropriate and disrespectful things. 

And then three, just keep your mics muted so that we can hear the speakers.

Okay, so now here's how you can ask Abhishek a question after he gives his presentation. 

So, oh, we actually don't have a slider today, but you can just put it in the zoom chat and type it in or you can unmute yourself and then we’ll call on you. 

So how to do that is pressing ‘alt y’ on Windows, option ‘y’ on Mac, and then if you're on your phone, there's three dots on the bottom right and then you can just click raise hand there, I think. So the Q and A section will be at the end and this is how you can ask. 

So now I'm going to ask Abhishek to introduce himself and share the presentation in details.

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Abhishek 

Sure. Hi everyone, really happy to be here. I think this is one of the first times I'm gonna be talking about careers in growth marketing. 

So to say a little bit about me, I am based in India, Mumbai to be specific. I'm currently with Meta. I manage Marketing Solutions for Meta. 

Before this, I started my journey back in 2017. Essentially, it used to be called digital marketing, which ideally means you could be optimizing for search engines or anywhere on the paid side which is running ads on Facebook, Google and all of the online platforms. 

It's been some of…some…quite a roller coaster journey for me working across different level of organizations, especially OTD platforms — are quite massive in India. So the likes of Disney plus, Hot Star, Z5 MX Player and similarly also I was part of the Tik Tok user Pro journey in India.

Right now, my role is more into focusing on how can we help advertisers scale their businesses on Meta platforms. So that is where I'm right now. I have been with meta for almost a year now and just just quite excited to talk about growth marketing in general, because this is that one space where it's specially like…given when I started, it has been growing massively. The growth has been exponential. So I wouldn't take too much time talking about the things which are there already, but I just have prepared like a one slider to you know, just help you guys navigate this whole ocean right now which we are in. 

Just a quick second.  Jennifer, can you allow me to share my screen? Just a quick bit.

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Jennifer 

Yes. Yeah, now you can share but please, nobody else share. Okay, go ahead.

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Abhishek

Just a second. 

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Jennifer 

Wait, I have to ask. Do you work in the Metaverse or is it just like Meta, Facebook?

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Abhishek 

No. At this point it's just the actual office and work from home. So, I am a big fan of the hybrid ecosystem, so that is where I am right now. But, yeah, I think up for future that would be it. 

I haven't, like, tried to make this a very boring long presentation, like where I could have shown everything visually. I'm guessing a lot of this is already there on the internet but I just wanted to give a snippet of how I am looking at it, given like I'm also…this is for me a reflection of my last six years; how the industry has grown, how the vertical has grown, and how the landscape looks like. 

So when we talk about careers right, the first instance that we would, I would like to talk about is the landscape on its own. The race between growth and profit is the one I like to call it, because majority of the businesses that you see these days are trying to grow. Be it beyond a geographic level. 

Something; a startup which is starting out of a city or a state and given to a country level as well versus a lot of organizations which have been established to a level where they are now looking for profits. And for both of these, you need to leverage the marketing side of it, and in marketing, the one I would like to focus is the growth side of it which has massive massive scale on the digital part of it. 

When I say digital, all the mediums that you see across your mobile phone devices, on connected TVs, all your smart devices. So everything which is digitalized to a level now where we can make it automated, make a bid on an actual user who would be part of the digital landscape that we talk about today. 

And there are different different segments when you look at careers in growth marketing, right? The starting stone itself, I would like to keep is identifying what you like, right? 

For an instance, we come across a lot of videos, especially on YouTube, right? Where they talk about the side hustle and all of such things of, you know; how you can learn these things, learn these tricks, and do it even when you are in a university. 

But how do we manifest that entire thing to build a career out of it, right? 

When I started in digital, I just picked up an internship and it turned out to be something I really liked. It had a lot of elements which were very close to who I am, like my personal side of things, so it kind of made sense for me, but does it make sense for you? 

It shouldn't be a starting point where your friends or your colleagues or your co-workers or any of your people, you know, from university are doing it, and that's the reason you are doing it. The premise should be — is it something which is interesting enough for you? 

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There are all…there are tons of videos online which you can see. I'm not gonna focus on them. I'm gonna specifically talk about the pillars that I see in growth marketing. 

Sorry if I'm going too fast, this is usually my clue, so feel free to interrupt, I can take questions in between. 

But identifying what you like the most, right? 

So when we talk about growth marketing, there are three pillars the way I look at it. There are several more, trust me there's more and more which can unravel as you spend more and more years in this industry. 

Similarly, like 30 years back whoever was working for a tech or telecom businesses, now it has grown to a level where it's massive, massive business. 

So we are in the starting decade of growth marketing, right? Essentially where Google, Facebook and all the like stepped into the online advertising of it, is where this entire industry grew. 

There are three pillars, one primarily is paid, which is the side of business I sit in. Paid is where any kind of growth which comes at a cost that you have to pay. 

For an instance, you are running a business, you have 10 customers so to say right now, you want to grow to 100, to a thousand, whatever that goal might be. How do you reach there and how do you reach there faster with efficiency and all of that? 

That is when you need to spend money on all of these platforms, and that is where paid side of growth marketing lies. 

There are plenty of new, actually numerous of ad platforms which already exist. The ones which are already massive would be — in the likes of Google, Facebook, Snapchat, there is LinkedIn, there is Twitter, all of the top social media platforms, as well as search engines, as well as all the display platforms — are the ones who already have a self-serve system in place, and that is where paid side of business is. 

Now when I talk about acquisition and retention, acquisition is purely when you are in acquiring user space. 

Let's say you are an Uber and you have started your business, let's say in Canada. Jennifer is sitting out there, I'm sure Uber already exists there but they want to start off there. There would be an acquisition side of things where they want to acquire more and more users. You develop and deploy different types of strategy. That is where majority of the growth marketing right now lies; how do you reach the next scale of the business, right? Because it's one thing to sustain on growth, but it's other to keep on growing over time.

Similarly, retention is that piece — once you have acquired the user, how do you retain that user? 

You know, you've got someone who took a ride, let's say in Vancouver, and now you want that user, for Uber to become a primary app. How do you retain those users? 

Similarly and of any of the competition app. Lyft is the one I can recall in North America, could be there in Canada as well. So, how do you retain these users, right? 

Now, things you have to learn — things are tools, the basic tools you would have to know to get any kind of roles in such space — is you need to learn about the advertising platform, those exist, not learning to the level of very deep understanding of it, just the basic premise. 

When you are running any campaign on let's say on Google, Facebook, or any other platform. How do you look at a campaign, right? Think of a campaign which was let's say 20 years back — any political campaign, any of the campaigns which are just to promote your small bids, any fmcg — think of a campaign, what would you essentially look at, right?

You would look at your target audience, you would look at the demographics, you would look at the geography, you would look at the amount of budget you are spending.

Similarly, you would also think of, what is the return on investment, the ROI you would like to get out of it. 

For all of these things, you need a basic understanding of advertising and measurement platforms and honestly, trust me, the kind of world we live in right now is very much data driven. So measurement becomes a very very big aspect. How do you measure your success? How do you measure and evaluate your current campaigns, your future strategy? 

So, everything which is on the lines of strategy, planning and overall execution. This is where things would lie in. So this is that basic pillar. 

Similarly, when we talk about organic side of things — where you want growth but you are not willing to pay for it, that's one easy way to put it out there.

I see a lot of…a lot of questions in the chat. Should we take a break, Jennifer, right now or is it okay to go on?

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Jennifer 

Oh, no, it's okay. I'm saving all the questions for later.

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Abhishek 

Yeah, perfect. 

Now when we talk about organic, the only difference between the two is, right, organic is where you would want to grow at a linear space and not also spend money at the same time.

There are a lot of businesses which are built who don't believe in, you know, spending online to get and acquire users and that is a call you as a business have to take. 

Do you want to grow fast and grow at a massive scale? Or you want to grow on a linear pace but also ensure you get profit. 

A few of the things I've listed here are like, you know, you can work on search engine optimization, which is any Google search engine optimization, there is bing, there are Yahoo, all of these search engines which plays a very massive role in any of the user looking for a product, right? 

Most of the users have an affinity towards a product. For an instance, I have affinity towards a brand like, let's say a Mercedes, right? But am I in market for that? In market definition is someone who is willing to buy a Mercedes and that is how the overall landscape is determined. 

So when you are, whenever you are building a business — you are building a shampoo, you have a soap, any of the product — organic side of things would be, how do you work on the content pieces? How do you make things more contextual for the user, for you eventually to come on a search engine ranking? So, this is the basic understanding you would need. I am sure there are often tons of courses out there, I fortunately and unfortunately have not done any of those. 

There is not one course which I strongly recommend. I do believe in self-learning. So, whatever you feel is you are comfortable with, at the pace of study you are comfortable with, you can just search online and look at all of these things, and you would get a basic understanding is what this means, right? 

Similarly, when I say product-led initiatives, now when I say push, this…this could be something as simple as; you are on a website, you have an app, and you get a push notification. How do we keep and retain that user? 

When I say in app and on web, whenever you go on an e-commerce website or an e-commerce app, there are a lot of things which happen when you are there, right? They are suggesting your different, different products, the things that you are already looking at. 

How is all of this happening? That is how the ecosystem is divided, right? So when you get and when you look at organic side of things, these are the kind of roles that you essentially can get when you…

Let's take an example of Nike. You're on a Nike app or a Nike website, you have shown interest in sneakers. How the website or the app will cater to you with more and more options for sneakers? 

Let's say you have shown interest in specific types which are, let's say, a yellow sneakers. 

How can you make an experience which is giving you more and more options of yellow sneakers on the website or the app? That would be all on the organic side, that would all be on the side of how user is already part of your ecosystem because organic doesn't, is not on the side where you can push the users. 

Push mediums rely on paid sites, where you can essentially show them as you like, yellow sneaker on this app or a website, now you are seeing an idol. 

So organic would never be pushed, organic would always be based on context. If you don't find something contextual, you will not be engaging with it. So that's the basic premise.

Third part of all of this is analytics. There are people who are part of growth marketing teams but they purely focus on analytics. By analytics, I think it could be organic, it could be paid, it could be future element, it could be something which you're building as an overall strategy. 

This is looking at numbers, looking at drop-offs, all the user journey. So, all the number related things would essentially come here. A basic understanding of coding plays a pivotal role here, because of all the tools. 

Wherever you want to track someone, analytics plays a very very important role. So, I think this is that one place of all of these three roles I feel, where an experience or let's say any kind of introduction to coding which would actually be helping you. 

Either on the paid or organic side that's totally not required. 

In fact, I have done Computer Sciences but I sucked at coding and I was actually maybe not even interested. But I now have a role which is on the paid side of it, so it doesn't really matter if you don't come from a paid background or if you don't come from a coding background. 

So, this is somewhere where, if you come from a science, commerce, anywhere actually even arch for that matter, this is where basic common sense would eventually take you to places. Obviously you have to build skills over that.

Now, second part of the journey, right? In terms of identifying, let's say you have understood that digital is growing as an industry, you have understood what you like. Now, how do I leverage when things are at the right place at the right time, right? A lot of people grow in their career just because they have done this. 

I don't know how many of you follow football, but a lot of players, they score a lot of goals because they have something called movement. Thomas Muller, back in 2010 World Cup scored so many goals just because he was at the right place at the right time, he know when to score a goal, he is not a national goal scorer. 

So, how do you become a national goal scorer? By leveraging the opportunities in growing industries. 

When I say growing, let's say in India, example, and this is a very very, my use case, this I'm not taken from any of the publications. But when I say OTT, this essentially means over the top services; a Disney plus, Hot Star, similarly or Amazon Prime video, Netflix, all of the world is called OTT. 

OTT has been growing industry especially since 2017 to 19. When I say growing, the number is very exponential. Whenever a linear growth happens and then there is a blip, that is called exponential, right? 

So how do you become part of it? By showing more interest, by learning the nuances of the industry, and eventually, if you already have first two things in your head and you are already at the right place at the right time, this is that one place which can help you grow faster.

And similarly SFV is short format video; the likes of tik tok, the likes of any of these small apps trailer, I think is one of them. Reels is a very very new surface on Meta and has been on that side of things right? Similarly, YouTube short. So how short video platform as an industry has evolved a lot over the last three four years, how you can become a part of it.

Similarly online education, I've written edtech over there. Especially in covid times, online education was, I think, the biggest industry I could think of because even the likes of e-commerce had taken a hit. They couldn't deliver on time, so on and so forth. 

Travel tourism, direct to consumers, auto, every…all the industries that you can think of were heavily affected by covid but online education was that one place which was thriving. So how can you use that opportunity? 

Similarly, in the current times we see a lot of businesses on direct to consumers scale up a lot. 

Where, let's say you have a product, you have a website and an app. Now your entire goal is to…how to make the overall journey more native. 

One of the easy example is; there is a shopping mall in your city. Now that shopping mall has a website too. Because of covid, because of any XYZ reason in the last two years you have been now used to going on that website to buy your products, be it be a grocery, be it be an apparel, be it be anything that you can think of, which you can buy, right? 

How can you make that experience so native that you don't make user go to other places to buy your products, right? 

So for instance, you’re McDonald's, how can you make sure people buy McDonald's just from you — from your website, from your app and not to let them go anywhere else for that overall experience. 

So d2c is that one place where I have seen growth and these are all the industries where now I have been part of these teams. 

So leveraging the opportunities of growing industry is one of the easiest steps. Where it can help you give that boost that you require in the initial phase of your career. Once you have already done all of this — now, because the way I have structured these pillars is, first, three are on the prerequisite side of it, most are on the post-mortem side of it — you have already reached a point. 

Now, how do I define it, how do I grow from this point onwards? 

Let's assume you did all the first three right things. You took your sweet time, let's say a couple of months, you studied, you understood the basic premise of digital marketing. Now, you have your own narrative ready. 

You eventually get a job, know what you need to do on a job, how do I feel? Few of the things, I mean there's…there's a massive checklist you can build but, few of the things where I feel you can stand out in that career and can build on top of it, other ones I've listed here. 

So for an instance, understanding the business nuances right from a basic consumer journey point of view. 

We all know if you want to buy something from Amazon, you click on that product, you see the reviews, you see the different pictures, you eventually add to it, add to your cart, and you buy it. 

But besides that, what are the other nuances you can learn of the business, right? This is how you can stand out. 

The eventual goal to grow in growth marketing because it's a growing industry, everyone wants to be part of it. What makes you different than the rest is where this pillar would come into play. 

Similarly, building a strong input system where I have seen and I have also been part of that entire thing, where we believe we will only do things which are supposed to give us success, and that is not always helpful because you eventually end up not learning a lot of things. 

By…by that I don't mean if there are 10 things to be done you do all of that. Prioritization is always going to be required but how do you do all those three to four five things on top of the tree, on top of your checklist in a way where you are that go-to person for a lot of people in your organization, right?

Similarly search for insights and ignore the observation. This is one of my practice, where wherever we look at a presentation file in any of the meeting — and this goes back to the college days as well, where people call out the obvious things, right? 

Like let's say 60 people out of 100 did this, that sixty percent of people wanted this. That's a basic observation that is right there. So how do you look at the other side of it? Why those 60 percent are there in the first place? Why the rest 40 percent did not make it? 

So looking at data which is rich is very important and…

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Jennifer 

Oh sorry, I think I accidentally muted you, you can keep going.

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Abhishek

Oh that's okay.

And similarly, when we talk about in insights, numbers with context makes more sense. 

Again, I will use a football example. We often compare players, this guy has scored five goals in five years versus a player who has scored one goal in let's say, five game. 

But context matters, maybe that one goal was enough for them to win a World Cup versus someone who scored five games in the first game of the World Cup and their team eventually did not reach anywhere. 

So context matters a lot and there is Iniesta scored the winning goal, and I don't know why I'm referring to 2010 World Cup so much. But context is the is, is of the you know, of the core importance here. 

You have to understand that numbers will always not help you. It will only help you if you are using them in the right way, where context plays a larger role. 

Now, the second point, second part within this journey is — once you have defined your role, you have defined the way you will operate at your job — is road mapping helps a lot. So by by in terms of road map…

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Jennifer

Alright, just a reminder, that please stay muted unless you have a question and then just raise your hand if you have a question. 

You can also put in the chat and they'll call on you later. So yeah, sorry, you can go ahead.

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Abhishek

No worries.

Now similarly, once you have defined your role, define things which will make you stand out, your basically code of conduct. 

Now these points can be different for everyone, right? We are all humans; we are supposed to have different ways of thinking, different ways of having an approach, right? 

Now once you have all of this, you'll need to think of long term. Also, when I say long term — in growth marketing side of things — that would just be five years from now. That is how, at least I operate because there are a lot of working pieces. 

I think as an industry, we did not know how to had a role or an even a requirement before covid, right? We did not think that online education was required to that level. 

Similarly, we did not really appreciate a lot of things which were happening at covid, right?  Be it be online streaming, be it be talking to your friends over calls, all the things we did during pandemic did not really had a use case, let's say two, three years back. 

So how do you make a plan for yourself in the next five years? By defining where you want to go next.

So thinking of the things which makes the most sense for you in your next role also plays an essential role in your current role. 

So basic things I have listed on here is, whenever you look for a new role, when you are already trying to switch, right? What is the role? What is the kind of role you are getting? What are the kind of responsibilities and accountability which will be attached to it? The compensation? I mean this is one of the biggest thing, right? When we look for a job we look at compensation because this defines our current as well as future. So, role compensation and the brand value, wherever you are going next, the brand value will help you get the next job in the next role as well. 

So, often times out of these three, I wouldn't say like prioritize one the least, but you always have to ensure that you at least gain 2 out of three.

So for an instance, you are a person who just recently completed an internship in digital marketing, now you are actually looking for a role. These three should be the premise and now you have to decide what out of these three you can cover. 

I mean it's a very rare situation where you get all of these three, but at least two you need to have a check on because it defines your future also. Safeguarding your future, you are the only gatekeeper there. So that is one of the important point I feel you need to put in your roadmap.

And similarly, how do you attain longevity? One of the things where I have had a hard time in my past organization, it has been one of the challenges and this is something I have spoken with other people who have faced in growth marketing is the longevity, right? 

When a product is not working, when the business is not working, we all look for growth and profit for businesses, right? Similarly, our growth role is also defined by all of that. 

So how do you think of longevity? Do you want to stick to a role for a two year to a five year? That is something you need to be very clear about on day one itself, as the more you learn you need to keep on defining that. But not having a goal of longevity creates that uncertainty where you would not know where you would be next let's say two years, five years. 

So, my entire agenda with this point was you need to be very much certain because the times that we live and live in are very uncertain, right? Day in, day out, we see new industries coming in, we have seen crypto, we have seen NFT, things we did not know like three, four years back, right? So you have to be very cognizant of how you can be not affected by things that is not in under your control. 

So that's the overall point and I think I've spoken for like 20 minutes straight, and I think I can take a few questions now. Yeah.

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Jennifer

Yeah, I'm just gonna recap basically what you said, and then jump into questions.

So what I got from it is, you're basically giving some advice about how people can go forward if they want to pursue marketing.

So, number one, like, identify, do you want to do paid, so, like ads or organic which is like social media, like other content stuff or analytics. Analytics is very interesting. I think it's for like the data analysts out there who are trying to do marketing as well. 

And then, there's like industry stuff, defining your role in the roadmap for the next five years, which is just planning out what you want to do, and what you think you would like. 

Perfect.

So the first question actually, I think it's a tough one because it's about growth versus digital marketing, like what's the difference there, do you think? 

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Abhishek

So digital marketing as a word was coined when, you know, when people started thinking, how do we diversify? Let's say because marketing exists on print side, marketing exists on TV side, marketing exists on ooh side, which is all the outdoor advertising you see, right? All of this also is part of marketing. 

Digital marketing essentially only meant everything that you see on a digital screen. Be it a mobile, be it be a TV, be it be a laptop screen, anything which is a device which is close enough to your eye, right where you can digitally see it. 

Out, outdoor marketing is still something which is scaling to a level where we now say digital out, digital board, so to say out there now digital banners out there. But I wouldn't say that's part of the same mix because that is not something where you can have a control on a bid and budget level. 

The way digital marketing was built years back was you have a control on bid and budget level because all of these advertising platforms, right? Paid, the Google, Facebook; they are built on a premise of you can do bid and budget on individual level. There will be auction that will happen. Whatever suits your brand, whatever fits your brand, based on the kind of communication you have, the product you have, you will go for those users. Print does not give you that feature, right? Similarly, TV does not offer you that level of control.  

So digital is that one place where you have that control, where you can be very razor sharp with who you want your user to be. So this is that place where product find people instead of people finding product. So that's the difference. 

And on the growth side of it, given in the, I think, phase of last three to four years, when…whenever growth marketing term is used, its major focus on the point I have mentioned here, the race for growth and profit is, when…whenever we say growth side of thing, there are a lot of teams with an organization who have different different goals. Growth is that one place which means you are doing something which means more than the linear growth. There are teams who specifically work on brand building. Also there are teams who specifically work on product side also. 

Things which I have listed here are all meant for your business to grow at a certain pace which you have a control on, which you have a goal on. 

If we remove growth out of it which can also mean like, you know, without all of these things, marketing would still exist. You can still show ads on TV, on paper, so on and so forth. 

Growth and digital, both always will mean how you can be razor sharp, how you can be specific reaching out to your users and your target group. We can be able to have a completely different approach, this is how i would define it, but yeah. 

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Jennifer

Yeah, I think what I would define it as is, growth to me is like very experimental because like digital, is like ads, like the traditional stuff like, add social media but growth is just a lot more than that. It's like experimenting with things, like running exactly.

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Abhishek

Yeah, the point I've also mentioned here the measurement side of things, right? It allows your ‘test and learn’ approach. You don't get a ‘test and learn’ approach in all of the offline mediums right because that is all slot based, that is all competition based. If you don't take it, someone else will. 

On digital you have to be very cognizant, right? Your users once they are exposed to your ad, it's almost like they will have some sort of an affinity, some sort of a relation of your brand, with things. So it allows you to do all of that — a lot of experimentation like you mentioned. So ‘test and learn’ approach is very much required for you to grow as a business.

Jennifer

Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks for the great answer Abhishek. 

We did have a few questions sent in when people were registering but I just want to quickly address those. So a lot of people asked about marketing for this startup, but I wrote an article about that that I'm going to link in the chat. Some people ask very specific marketing questions that's already covered in our marketing program in more detail. So I'm going to link to that as well. And a lot of people are asking about job search but I have a workbook for that which I'll also link. 

But one question I think you could answer is like, how do you suggest people transition, like from a different background? For example, somebody in the chat, I think, is from a banking background and is looking for opportunities in digital marketing. So how would you suggest they get a job?

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Abhishek

I think, approach it like anyone new would do, right? 

Like I mentioned, the first three pillars here, you need to learn and study those. 

Unfortunately, the kind of ecosystem we live in, university will never be able to prep us for literally everything that is out there. But most of the things that is your…right, is a homework that you can do on your own, that only like, is limited by you, right? You can accelerate your journey on your own. Within let's say four to six weeks, you can learn enough and more just via YouTube itself, just by searching on all of these terms, right? Llike, what is paid marketing 101? What is organic? What is search engine? What is an app? So you can understand the basic premise of it.

Similarly there are a lot of courses that you can fast track and complete. There are a lot of free courses. I would not suggest any of the paid courses. That is something I've never done, so I'm not a big fan of it because most of this comes for free, right? And if it already exists then information which is already there you just need to study that. So your approach has to be as same as someone who's starting off new, like right after the college. 

The one advantage you will have is how you can use your past learnings in your current role. Let's say you are coming from banking and finance, you can look for digital marketing, growth marketing roles in banking and finance. Maybe with your experience, they will be useful at some point of your career, right? So maybe not completely lose all of your learnings if you go in, like a totally different space, but think of it you…you will use study as your foundation and opposite you add your own insight to it. So I mean that is how I would do it if I were you. Yeah. 

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Jennifer 

Awesome. Thanks for sharing. I really like what you said about using your unique background to stand out because it'll come in handy in some way. Perfect. 

So the next question is more about how you know that marketing is for you. Like, how do you decide to fully go into it as a career and how do you know if you like it? So for example, if you're interested in PR, do you know, like, if that makes you also a good candidate for being a marketer? 

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Abhishek

I think easiest thing you can do is you can just plot a graph of comfort and effort. How much you are willing to do on effort versus How much you are there on a comfort level. If it's something which is too uncomfortable while the effort is, you know, relatively, let's say a 5 out of 10, that is something I would not suggest to you. But if your com…comfort remains intact why your effort keeps on growing, maybe this is that right space for you. 

So all of this I think, has everything to do with comfort especially when I started out in my internship days. I was pretty much just clueless like, you know, what I need to do. I started learning things on SEO (search engine optimization). I used to make ad copy for social media, the 140 characters Twitter back in the day. So I started off there to eventually reach to a point now I pretty much, like on the paid side of it, I have done it all for my past organization. 

So you will, your journey will enhance over time. It's just you have to understand that if you are not comfortable with something on day one, it will not come out of nowhere, right? Like, if you are naturally not a swimmer, you can practice over time but it's just something you are not comfortable with. So I think that is that one place. and of course with comfort comes the effort and all the things that follows by effort, right? Your input metric, like one of my pointers there, your input system matters a lot because over time you keep on doing something, you will eventually get the results out of it. So the endeavor there is very much important. 

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Jennifer 

Wow, there's some great insights. Thank you so much for sharing. 

Kind of related because you talk a little bit about the effort that you're going to put in but, like, what is the qualification that you need to have? So if you're willing to put in that effort, what kind of skills do you need to get and the qualifications?

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Abhishek

Skills wise, I think the bare minimum that you would do on any starting positions in growth marketing is; know the basic…basic understanding of the platform. Let's say you want to do paid marketing, you need to understand how the platform functions. What are the things you can do on a platform to target a user? What are the things you can do after user has been targeted? What are the things which are available on your app and website?

So, honestly even if you are not in marketing, not in growth marketing, you can just use your mobile phone. You can open any app, you can see how your journey is when you start an app. 

Let's say we talk about Instagram. You see a post; how do you react to a post? You see a story, you see a reel, you go back. Now in between, you are also served an ad. Let's say you clicked on that ad, you go to a website or an app, right? You just follow that journey and try to learn more and more use cases. If it is something which gives you more curiosity, then learn more about that. Curiosity without action would actually mean nothing. 

And like this is something where most of the people I think has a roadblocker, where they are curious but they are curious to a level where someone should come up to them and summarize it for them. But if you're curious, follow that action, you will learn a thing or two out of it. I think that is one of the most, you know, easiest way to even learn, where you can make learning fun, where you want to learn how paid marketing works, how growth marketing, organic, analytics work. You try and test on yourself, right? You are the guinea pig in that entire experiment, yeah.

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Jennifer

Oh my gosh! I love that because a lot of what I suggest to people when they're finding jobs is, like, treat it like you would…like a product and then you want to, like, experiment and find what works and get feedback and it just, like, improves based on that feedback. 

So I love what you said about experimentation. Perfect. So just a few more questions and a reminder, like, if you have more questions feel free to put it in the chat or use the raise hand function. If you can't find the raise, it's okay. 

I think you can probably stop, but just a note to everyone this is being recorded and it's gonna be on YouTube. So if you missed anything or if you had, like, bad Wi-Fi and sometimes the audio cut out, it will be on YouTube so you can download it and watch it later.  

Oh hello, did you have a question or…?

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Participant:

Yeah, Jenny yes, I asked a question on the chat and you directed me to that thing [Music] I'm sorry if I missed the link to her thing please could you kindly direct me. 

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Jennifer

Okay, perfect. I think I couldn't hear a lot of what you said but I think you said that I answered it. So, okay, so I think I'm gonna move on to somebody else. 

Somebody

Yeah, you answered me right, Jenny and you directed me to Hell's Tech [Music] 

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Jennifer

Thank you. Yeah, is that my Wi-Fi or not my Wi-Fi? 

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Abhishek

There’re a lot of breaks and okay…I think it's best to stick with chat for now I think could be the connection.

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Jennifer 

Okay. Yeah, sorry, I think, like, we can't hear you because it keeps cutting out. So please just send it in the chat and we'll do our best to answer it. Sorry about muting you like that, it was just really like we couldn't really hear what you said but there are some other questions here that people have been sending in.

So, one is about like from a startup point of view; if you're trying to grow your company, if you're trying to grow your company, like, how do you do that when there's lots of competition? 

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Abhishek

I mean, no good product can be built without a competition, right? 

Like for instance, we already have so many websites let's say on, I'll take an example of shoes for this. We already have so much competition and shoes, right? Let's talk about sneakers, talk about trekking shoes, talk about casual wear, there is competition all around. 

For you to grow is, you have to determine as a business what makes sense for you. Whatever is outrageous in the starting phase of it will eventually not turn out to be that good is something you have to be cognizant of. 

So for an instance, you are a small sneaker brand and if you eventually want to grow you cannot think of let's say a Nike or an Adidas as your competition. They have done it all for years, I think over hundreds of years now. So you have to understand within next two or three years, four years, five years, you cannot be as strong as them from a brand perspective. 

What you can do differently is have your own USPS. Let's say you have built a shoe which is only with you or which defines you as a brand. Think of any of the small brands right? Over the time, we only remember them because they did something differently. So you have to think of USPS and marrying it with a very realistic growth. 

What most companies get wrong is they look for unrealistic numbers because, you know what? Working with numbers on Excel is very easy. I…I have done it, everyone else have done it. So, don't marry those two. Don't marry the numbers you think is a dream picture for you with your actual reality. Keeping it very linear, keeping it to a level where actually you are taking into consideration your consumer feedback is where you will eventually grow. 

So, all the startups which are in a very nascent stage, right, need to understand for them to have a very longevity based picture, they cannot go from an outrageous standpoint. Unless, of course, like, we have done, people have enormous amount of funding and go berserk with the marketing and all of that. 

But I think for you to have a very long picture, because a lot of thought and effort goes into an idea and then eventually becoming a startup, you have to be aware that how you can build it for long term. So important is doing it right instead of doing it now. So, yeah. 

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Jennifer

That’s a good point. I like what you said talk about small brands because I immediately thought about Dollar Shave Club, because their ad stood out so much and then, like, for razors there's always lots of big brands but then people started buying from Dollar Shave Club because they stood out in a unique way. So I recommend googling Dollar Shave Club if you don't know about it.

Okay so we just have another question. So someone's saying they're an fmcg sales professional, how can growth marketing be a choice of knowledge? So I guess, generally, like, how can you pivot from sales and growth and, like, what's the difference there? 

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Abhishek

I think the pivot here would be… For an instance, for most of the fmcg companies, right? They don't really have a channel to sell it online on their own, they don't have their own d2c website or an app so to say. They rely on heavy distribution, they rely on heavy lifting done from like an e-commerce website. 

So if we talk about any of the big fmcg brands, they usually rely on these two things, right; distribution and using other channels — other sales channels. The likes of Amazon, the likes of let's say in India, there's Flipkart also. For a fashion brand, there is myntra, there is agio, and all of these brands, right? 

Similarly I'm assuming for all the countries there are at least five to six e-commerce channels to buy these products. Something where you can marry the…this part of growth marketing with your fmcg brand is making your own ecosystem on app or web. 

Now you have to understand in the geography where majority of the users sit. Are they more comfortable with app or are they more comfortable with website? Doing two at the synchronous time and not having the best resources, you will not get a good product. So you will have to channelize, then focus on one thing. Try and test that. 

Let's say you built a website, marginally easy. A lot of things you can do on mobile web as well. You can try and test what is working for you. Are you growing numbers there compared to your other sales channel? Let's say in Amazon, still a very big number to look at but what about other sales channels. 

Then eventually putting more energy, more energies from paid and organic and analytics point of view on your own website, because this is that one challenge where I feel most of the traditional brands these days have, right? Where they have established, most of the people in their country know their brands but they don't have their own direct channel for a consumer to buy it while you compare it to any of the new startup any of the new age products. They have their own app, their own website. They don't have that same relationship with the distribution networks, they don't have the same equation with the sales channel plus the margins that they would not make. So, here you will have to decide that. What is that one avenue where in the long term you win, and once you believe in that idea, you channelize all the other things in that direction for you to eventually get those results. So it's a long and continuous effort but for any fmcg, it's a long journey for sure. 

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Jennifer

What he said just reminded me of this really cool newsletter called Zero to Marketing, which I linked in the chat. 

Have you heard of it, Ahbishek? Zero to Marketing? Have you heard of that newsletter?

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Abhishek

No. 

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Jennifer

Okay. So basically there's this marketer who shares I think, monthly articles about how she would grow certain companies. So it would be like, oh it's startups. 

So you can learn from her and the advice that she shares and then like apply it to whatever project you're working on. So I think that's a resource that's pretty cool on top of all the advice that Abhishek has already shared. 

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Abhishek

So original ideas, like, you know, whenever you look at… 

So I think there are pages called mad over marketing and all of that. I think it's a channel on LinkedIn as well but one of the things which people do in this time is they try to replicate things which have worked for other brands, right? 

Now, in business sense, it makes sense but on advertising side of things, if you are not original, right? If you are not doing something which is very unique to people that come across your brand, you will not really stand out. 

Like when we talk about case studies or being the best in class. That happens when you create something from scratch, when you do something on your own. And if you had that time and effort to create a brand or a business on your own, I think then one small step is spend enough time brainstorming the advertising and marketing side of things also. I mean, you did enough to build a product, to build a service, so replicating it I think a lot of people do it because it's easier but it does not really guarantee you those results. So, yeah. 

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Jennifer

That's a really good point because like you can't always apply what other people have succeeded with to yourself, because you have a different audience, a different industry, different company size. Yeah, I think you have to figure out why it works for them and see if there's anything you can take from that. 

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Abhishek

Absolutely.

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Jennifer

Perfect. So I think that's basically all the questions we have time for right now, but Abhishek, like can people connect with you on LinkedIn if they want to stay up to date with what you're up to?

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Abhishek

Actually, I'm not so active on LinkedIn. 

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Jennifer 

Oh, that's okay. 

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Abhishek 

I mean, I can, we can connect there but it's just, I'm generally not so active there. 

A majority of my time goes on making travel plans and that's that one goal I have. I don't believe in side hustle unlike most of the other millennials would say, but yeah, that's my one place. So I usually just spend time looking at maps and all of that. So...

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Jennifer 

That's okay, yeah. I think that's fine because I do have a lot of resources that everyone can turn to instead. 

Oh and then there's…we did have some questions about remote work but we have like five minutes left so can you like…

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Abhishek

I can…remember, I can do all these questions.

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Jennifer

Yeah, okay. So I think, last question we're gonna do today is; how would you suggest you get a marketing role like a remote job?

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Abhishek 

Okay, remote job. So this is something I have not done myself personally but I think one thing you need to understand in marketing is your local insight makes a lot…very much difference, right? 

So for instance, we talked about the first three pillars: paid, organic and analytics, right? You have to understand in all of those three, there's a flavor of a local team which comes into place, right? 

So for an instance, you would not know seasonality if you are not from there. You would not know the current market layout if you are not actually there. 

So these are, I think, the only roadblocks which stops you from getting a remote job but other than that let's say if you are an expert on any of the tools — any of the marketing, advertising platforms, any of the measurement platforms — if you truly have that skill if you are really really like, I would not say the best in business, there's no such thing, right? Best in business. If you think you are really good at it, I think that's enough for you to get a job. 

But you should understand that for an instance, if for that same role, if there's a local who is competing, I think it's fair for companies to, you know, get someone local instead of someone foreign because of these factors, seasonality, the whole. 

Like let's say India is a very festival-oriented market, right? Every month, we have at least one or two major festivals. If you are someone who is not aware of those festivals, you will not be able to help with strategy, help with planning, help with execution. 

Let's say execution is still input based, you would be able to do it but strategy and planning would still require your some bit of understanding of the market. 

As long as I think that is there, nothing stops you from a remote job, right? Because your skill would be determined of your understanding of growth marketing, growth marketing tools, platforms. So you are as good as someone actually sitting in the office. So yeah, nothing stops you then.

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Jennifer

Yeah, I also want to add on that. I think remote work isn't for everyone. It's kind of really different, you don't see the… You don't work in the same space as your co-workers. So it…you might feel a bit lonely at times but, I don't know. I personally love it. You have to decide if it's for you based on what you… 

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Abhishek

Yeah, and a lot of businesses are based on building relationships also, right? So for instance, if you are in a B2B service model company where it makes a huge difference for you to actually talk to teams using your platform. 

Similarly, you are some, you are a startup who's trying a new service model or you work with a lot of agencies, a lot of partners, a lot of stakeholders, having that relationship helps you, you know, build a business better at times. So it's, I think more than an individual it also is a business choice there. 

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I'm sure there could be businesses who don't really perceive the idea of remote work but I think the current time and age we live in, everything being digital, nothing stops you from applying to let's say 98 out of 100 places, right? 

So the opportunity is massive and as long as you are confident on your skills, your tools, your platforms, I think that's good enough resume for anyone to get a job. 

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Jennifer 

Yeah. I would recommend though, if you have a specific niche — I think somebody in the chat said they were from a health background — I would leverage that because, people, you might stand out more. So like, even if you apply to a lot of jobs, if you focus on like, specific ones, sometimes you may have more success. You have to like, see and like, learn from all the feedback that you get in the job search.

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Abhishek

And you can always like, you know, just make that as your USPS, right? 

So for an instance, for me personally, I love spending time on Excel and spreadsheets, numbers and all of that. So that's that's where my turf is. I…I really perform well there as opposed to like, a creative, right? 

Creative is a very subjective thing on its own. So that is something I don't spend much time on debating because we have all different perspective, right? But numbers and context would remain the same. So you have to play on your strong points. 

So yeah, I think that's pretty much what is required. 

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Jennifer

Yeah, I'm the opposite. I'm more like, creative. Like I don't have a coding background like you, so I refuse to code. 

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Abhishek

Trust me, I don't use my coding background ever.

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Jennifer 

I…but you're more analytical, right? You go on spreadsheets and stuff, that's not me. But..

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Abhishek

One of the things which is a good about growth marketing, and I think, I maybe did not document this is, you didn't…you do not need to know math to a level where it's too much for you, right? You don't need let's say a trigonometry angle or a calculus or even any coding background, so to say. 

It's common sense, right? The things we learn in a very nascent stage in life; addition, subtraction, division, multiply, literally these four basic things. The more everything which is doable on Excel is usually something which is required on growth marketing too. 

So do not let your discomfort on math stop you from pursuing anything on growth, I would say, because it's…end of the day, it's very simple, right? It's very fundamental. You don't need to do anything out of the way to achieve all of that. I mean I was not the best at math, let's say not even good but yeah, I think you have to determine that. 

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Jennifer 

I love what you said about not letting your discomfort stop you because I think a lot of people reject themselves before other people have a chance to do it for them. So it's like, you need to just go for it and see what happens because the worst that can happen is people reject you. But then like, it's not even that bad in the first place. Yeah, just try.

Yeah, I think. Yeah, those are awesome insights. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom Abhishek. I think…

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Abhishek 

I was just reading through chat. Thank you everyone for making it on a Sunday. For me, it's a Sunday evening and I'm sure for everyone Sunday, still an off day. So for you to come here, I think, going one extra mile on growth side by just a normal search would get you there. Yeah.

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Jennifer

Yeah, awesome. So I think if any, if anyone has any questions, I do have a calendly link where you can book a time with me. I just sent it in the chat, make sure to save it. I'm happy to answer your questions but I work more like…I don't work with meta or anything. I don't have as much clout as Abhishek but I do work in growth and more on the creative side. I don't do paid though, so feel free to book a time with me, but yeah. 

Thank you so much Abhishek for your time I really appreciate it and you staying up so late as well so…

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Abhishek

No this is not late and not an issue at all but thank you everyone for making it. Thank you Jennifer and I wish also for giving me this platform. 

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Jennifer

Yeah, awesome. Thanks everyone. I'll see you all later. [Music]

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