“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.”
—Amelia Earhart
Although my current job offers little to no autonomy, once I had the privilege to act on my own and shape the way I am comfortable performing my task. And my responsibilities were dealing with digital people; you know, content marketing and the like.
It was amazing. Playing around with the data of consumers' online behaviour and strategically guiding them towards the ultimate goal— conversion; it was so enthralling. Stressful as well though. But once you successfully bring in some audience and potential customers through effective mapping (read funnel), you can sense your heart racing instead of the usual beating.
So, my favourite job I've done so far is working in the content department of my previous organisation; leading a small team of enthusiastic content writers, social media marketers, and graphic designers.
Having been involved in such a career, I had to spend most of my time surfing the web. Either researching on targeted customer group, analysing the demographic, planning and executing content map, and monitoring progress. Although they are my past memories, the enthusiasm didn’t die. And guess what, apart from doing my mundane job which, to some extent, has no futuristic gain, I spend significant time reading the latest trends in the digital world and how they are about to shape consumer behaviour in general.
Although there is no immediate gain from what I do at my leisure, it fills my heart. As I continue gathering more knowledge, I find it enjoyable when marketing algorithms show me irrelevant content knowing that the person responsible for this is wasting the company’s budget. While I feel sorry for them, a part of me gets delighted as I can reach out to the organisations and show them how they are wasting money and how they can improve their targeting lineup— potential job opportunities always at my arm's length.
Marketing in this digital world has changed like never before and it will continue to do so. Companies now don’t want to spend £1000 and get £1500 in return; they want the same £1500 even without spending half of that £1000 budget. Here, it’s all about data— the more you have the better your chances are to stay ahead of the competition; but only if you are strategic enough to identify the potential of whatever data you have. Otherwise, it will be like billboards, aimed at some, displayed for all— quite a waste of resources if you consider it against digital platforms.
Anyways, content marketing, to me, is more than doing my job— you know, work and get paid. Rather, it’s a journey to me; navigating through the dynamics of digital trends and pursuing consumers based on data available, crafting campaigns for different people, analysing performance, and redesigning it according to their preferences. It’s all about dealing with the psychology of the human mind. And most consumers don’t even know how they are leaving footprints of their behaviour, their choices online.
Sometimes it feels like data companies know more than the person himself what makes him cheerful or sad and how they can be easily fabricated. It’s the challenge of challenging myself with the ever-evolving landscape that thrills me most; knowing that I can read my audiences’ minds feeds my soul.
