Today we are having a special guest who has 12 years of experience in digital marketing and is the VP of Marketing at When I Work. Sujan Patel is currently one of the industry’s leading experts on creating digital marketing strategies for companies that are looking to make an impact in their fields.
He is also an avid blogger and writes for Forbes, Inc, WSJ and Entrepreneur. In his spare time he created Content Marketer, a tool to help automate and scale content marketing and co-authored the Growth Hacking eBook 100 Days of Growth.
Official Website: www.sujanpatel.com
Twitter: @sujanpatel
Could you tell us briefly about your background? How did you get started in digital marketing and for how long have you been doing it?
“I’ve been doing digital marketing for 12 years. I first started in college when I built an commerce website to sell aftermarket car parts. I quickly learned that building a website along isn’t going to make money. I needed traffic and that’s when I stumbled on SEO. I started by learning/doing SEO and over the years as the industry has changed I’ve masters more ares of digital marketing to become a t-shaped marketer.”
Which part of the digital marketing domain do you enjoy the most and why?
“I enjoy SEO the most as it’s a constantly changing landscape. I also think SEO in 2015 takes a lot more skill than it used and so you have to learn areas around SEO and become a T-shaped marketer to do it effectively.
Personally, I love constantly learning and staying on my toes. It keeps things interesting & entertaining.”
How would you describe your approach to digital marketing?
“ROI driven.
I’m inherently lazy so I want to make sure whatever effort I’m putting into a digital marketing campaign are worth doing and that makes an impact.”
What do you think about “search retargeting”?
“In 2015 it’s a necessity.
It allows you to achieve a higher ROI from your traffic and keep your brand in the back of your audience’s mind.”
How would you describe the relationship between display advertisng and content marketing in a digital marketing strategy?
“Display ads can be used for retargeting your visitors that your content marketing brought in.
At When I Work it works really well for us. Our content marketing efforts brings in over 250,000 visitors and through display retargeting we’re able to drive conversions.”
Do you do retargeting at your company?
“Yes. I’m happy with the results but I’m always testing and trying to improve the results.”
What’s the role of visuals in a digital marketing strategy, content or display?
[Tweet “Visual is the key part of display and digital marketing.”]
It’s hard to stand out without great visuals.”
What is the biggest inspirations for your career?
“I like solving problems so my goal is to solve lots of problems (hopefully they keep getting harder) and help as many people I can along the way.”
What do you enjoy most about your career?
“The Results.
It’s such a rewarding feeling to see the results (good or bad) of your hard work. With Digital marketing I get to see results very often.”
Could you recommend two or more resources for marketers that are reading our blog?
“I recommend the following books:
80/20 Sales And Marketing by Perry Marshal
Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday
Hooked by Nir Eyal
Blink by Malcom Gladwell
I’m also a big fan of the Buffer blog, GrooveHQ blog & Neil Patel/Quicksprout“
Thank you Sujan!