Interview with Arijit Majumder, Partner Marketing Lead (AWS) from Quantiphi

Arijit loves marketing and likes to call himself a passionate marketeer. He has been closely associated with the IT industry for close to a decade now working with some of the industry giants and breakthrough Artificial Intelligence organizations. He is currently responsible for the planning and execution of marketing strategies to generate high-quality leads through an efficient marketing mix. He always emphasized digital marketing as the key growth driver and in the wake of COVID-19, it has become a forefront strategy for getting in touch with customers. He is a voracious reader, a cinephile, loves playing chess and likes to explore photography while travelling.

Further, Let us hear from him

Hello and Welcome Arijit,

Let us begin with your unique story, could you please share that with us?

Sure, my marketing journey started in 2008 right after I had passed out of my engineering college. The world was reeling under a financial crisis. Satyam was in trouble. The market was at the lowest. We all had placement offers but nobody was calling us to join. Doing an MBA right after engineering was never the plan but seemed like the best option at that point in time. After completing my business degree in marketing major my tryst with marketing begun. If I connect the dots backwards, it worked for the best.

I joined one of the big IT firms and started my career in sales. By getting an opportunity to speak to customers directly gave a real-world experience to understand how businesses actually work compared to what was taught in the classrooms. Gradually I got the opportunity into a marketing role and since then over the next several years it gave me exposure to different facets of marketing. I was incredibly fortunate to have a great set of mentors at a very early in my career who never treated me like a rookie and always gave me the confidence to experiment and think for myself.

Different areas of marketing taught me different things but holistically gave me a broad understanding of how the function works. For example, content marketing gave an insight into an inbound marketing strategy to able to plan content by different customer life cycle stages. Analyst relations gave me exposure to working with firms like Gartner, Forrester which provided a lot of insights into market trends. Industry relations gave me the opportunity to work with bodies like the World Economic Forum and NASSCOM where we could interact with industry thought leaders and form a well-rounded perspective about the industry. Partner and alliance marketing gave the platform to work with the global partners which helped to understand the partner ecosystem and how we can explore synergies to achieve mutual goals.

Digital marketing formed the backbone for most of the assignments I have had the opportunity to manage. Always striving to find a balance between Inbound and Outbound strategy it’s a constant field of innovation and improvement. The COVID 19 pandemic kind of reiterated the importance of digital marketing to help, to reach out to the customers when physical means were absent. Pivoting to digital campaigns became a necessity. Using a combination of content strategy, webinars, tech talks, and targeted campaigns helped our digital marketing efforts go a long way. The first half of 2021 also won’t be much different and digital marketing will continue to play a pivotal role in terms of getting the message in front of the customers. My LinkedIn Profile

According to you, what’s the best way to start the day?

I am a big believer in having a morning ritual before we start our workday. I try to be up at least 3-4 hours before I need to be in front of a screen. Mornings are the best time to spend to develop yourself and your skills. Though I do not have a fixed routine I always make my bed before starting the day. This habit has been suggested by a lot of leaders. The premise is ridiculously simple. Setting up the bed gives the first sense of achievement of the day and kind of roles over to help you move on with the other tasks. My other part of the morning routine varies between going for a walk, reading a non-fiction book or audiobook, or listening to a podcast. The goal is to learn something new and calm your mind before the world starts screaming for your attention.

Pro Tip: Avoid social media and emails first thing in the morning. Those are mind-killers and will thwart any effort to have any control of your day.

The next thing I do is to take a piece of paper and note down 4-5 important items that will make the day successful. This is a habit I have adopted from Tim Ferris. Do not let your day fill up with too many things. Busy being busy is a form of laziness. After preparing the day’s checklist, I take the most essential item and start working my way through. I block large chunks of time in the calendar and stick to it. No emails or phones in between. Undivided attention is something we are continuously lacking with the constant bombardment of notifications.

And hey, if my day is completely ruined by some event that I did not foresee I still have a well-made bed to sleep into. So I restart and repeat the next day.

Who is or has been your inspiration?

There are so many of them. I am in awe of the work of Peter Drucker and the thought process towards business management. I am a big fan of his book: “The effective executive”. I must have read that book from cover to cover so many times and each time I have always found something new that I can apply to my life and my work.

I look up to Charlie Munger for his wisdom and the pursuit of mental models. Tim Ferris and his books feel like a friend in need whenever I seem to get stuck in a rut. James Clear for introducing Atomic Habits and showing the power of how small habits can give exponential output. The list goes on.

What makes digital marketing different from traditional marketing?

Like I mentioned before, digital marketing is mainstream marketing now. With the smartphone revolution, the information divide is becoming less and less. Today’s customers are more informed than ever. They are continuously looking at digital forums to find out possible solution options for their complex business problems. Often at times, the website becomes the first point of a customer interaction before a single word has been spoken to. Digital marketing is the bridge that connects buyers and sellers. With time the complexity of digital marketing also has increased but that’s the fun part. Digital marketing will continue to play a pivotal role to generate leads and grow the top line.

What are your three favourite digital marketing tools?

  • Hubspot – I find it as a one-stop solution to most of the work that we do. With its powerful automation tools, we can set up a landing page and start a campaign in no time. Time and again it has proved to be a useful tool for us.
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator – I find this as a powerful weapon for running campaigns for B2B organizations
  • Trello – Although not a digital marketing tool, it works for me to keep track of my marketing projects. Without a proper project management tool, execution always runs into problems. So it makes sense to invest in a project management platform

How would you define success in your career?

Success for me is a marathon and not a sprint. If I am happy in doing what I am doing, I find that tremendously satisfying.  And I truly believe that if you love what you do, success will eventually follow. The field of digital marketing and marketing in general is constantly evolving. There are still a whole lot of things to learn every day. I think keeping up with these changes will define success over time.

What is your biggest dream in life?

I have the privilege of doing what I love. For me, it is living the dream. I am always trying to improve myself and trying out new ideas. The opportunity and the freedom to do that itself is the dream.

What’s worth spending more on to get the best?

I believe the biggest thing one can invest in is on ownself. It is good to have a beginner’s attitude to everything you do and to think from a first principle perspective. Also, it is good to have a proper understanding of the business that you are operating in. It kind of simplifies things and you get clarity of what is expected. That automatically translates into better marketing planning and execution.

Lastly, would you like to say something to our readers?

Developing a multidisciplinary approach to marketing goes a long way. Learning about things outside of your own domain sometimes opens up new possibilities. Also, it benefits a lot to keep up with the current trends in marketing. I believe people like Deepak, Neil Patel, Rand Fishkin made it possible to make digital marketing a whole lot accessible to us. Going through their articles can give a lot of ideas to apply in your own marketing programs.

Thank you, we truly appreciate your valuable time spent with us.

Thank you for the opportunity Deepak. It was truly humbling. Hope your readers will benefit from this.

Sure,

Wishing you the best in all your future endeavours.

Cheers,

Deepak Kanakaraju