Das Jahr 2019 neigt sich dem Ende zu. Ein Jahr voller spannder Momente. Einer davon: Arun Mohan ist als Werkstudent und Spezialist für Growth und Inbound Marketing zum Team von made2GROW dazugestoßen.

Auf der Plattform Medium erzählt er von seinen Erfahrungen in dieser Zeit. Und ganz nebenbei hat er seine absoluten Lieblingstools verraten, die für einen erfolgreichen Marketer sicherlich von Nutzen sind. Das wollten wir dir natürlich nicht vorenthalten. Also viel Spaß beim Lesen und einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr 2020.  🎉

Dein made2GROW Team

 

A little more than 9,000 kilometers ( 5593 miles for the imperial system followers) from Silicon Valley, in a small city called Cologne, I am writing this article of the hope at least somebody will read this article.

Image source: Shutterstock

Europe as a whole itself was a whole different world for me, who comes from a small, suburban town in India. The language, the people, the commute through trams was too much to digest on my initial days of arrival(hasn’t sunk in yet!).

Honestly, I was excited about what I get to study at my University. I also expected to score a part-time job which would partially support me financially as well as contribute to my experience in the field of digital marketing. Hence, I had started sending resumes even before I left from India hoping to land a job as earliest at the mid or later of my first semester. But, life does not happen for you, it happens to you.

Even after several resume submissions, some responsive calls and a few interviews later and a lot of web series later, I still hadn’t got a job. Mostly due to lack of German proficiency and some due to lack of expertise in their required job preference.

Fast forward to the end of November 2018 — I received a call from the interview I had earlier that week. The conversation started like, “Hello Arun. How are you doing ?. .. Sorry, we didn’t call earlier and after further discussion with our colleagues, we would like to give you the job. ..”. That sentence blew my mind and I was quite overwhelmed with emotions that I cannot describe in words. Rejoicing that moment is something that gives me inspiration even now.

The biggest task for me was to understand the German B2B market and the client expectations and values that were quite different from the previous experiences from different firms in India.

Also, I had to really balance work and studies. As anyone who had worked in Germany as a student for a part-time job knows that students are only allowed to work 20 hours per week. I had classes almost every day and some were just 1 or 3 sessions per day. So, my hurdle was to balance to attend the classes as well as complete the hours per week for the job. Fortunately, for me, my school was quite close to the office and it took just 10–15 minutes of walking to cover the distance.

Hubspot: The beginning of a beautiful relationship

I was introduced to the world of Hubspot -A marketing and sales automation platform which was a gamut of potential and I believe still is. One thing I really liked being here is that I encouraged and were supportive to learn about new tools and platforms.

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My initial responsibilities

At made2GROW GmbH, the primary role of a Junior Inbound Marketing Manager would be to assist with the daily activities that relate to Inbound, Digital or Online Marketing. Also, the main objective was to provide efficient and time-bound solutions for the various processes required by the clients that we served.

1. Preparation of Landing pages to gather user(contact) data collection such as forms for contact or resource download forms.
2. Familiarize with the Hubspot platform to carry out various tasks and processes related to its usage in correspondence to client activities.
3. Involve in the SEO health of the home website along with social media and engage new methods to improve the status quo and further enhancements for further traffic.
4. Defining the firm’s core audience and differentiate them against unqualified leads through filters using different metrics and variables.
5. Write, publish relevant articles related to the field of digital/inbound marketing and promote company events such as HubSpot User Groups.

Among the various responsibilities and tasks, I consider myself fortunate to learn certain things that were not only work-related but also I could implement in daily life.

a. Process Optimization:
This was one of the primary skills and I am still learning how to optimize my tasks using the Eisenhower Matrix Framework as illustrated below.

Image credit: Jamesclear.com

b. Choosing the right tools :

Hello Bar: The pop-up creation tool

Now to engage users who land on your website and direct them to a or to a potential landing page which has huge conversion rates, it is essential to have a pop-up that pops up.

Prices start from 29$ per month. But, here is also a basic free plan which lets you do practically the same with the starter plan except that the ‘Hello Bar’ brand logo.

Creative Graphical Tools

I really had a weakness for making things creative and it really took hold of me when I did graphical work.

In such cases, other than opening Photoshop or similar, it is best to stick to an online tool. Ideally, for such situations, the time that you spend on a tool depends upon the proficiency and expertise that you have on that tool.

Some of the best tools are:

Canva

Courtesy: ©2019. All Rights Reserved. Canva

Canva is mostly one of the common tools used by expert and beginner marketers, publishers to produce and edit static visual content. The free version can help you understand the product and let you understand the way around the Canva-sphere. However, if you wish to edit more and design almost anything along with brand kits, unlimited folders, and collaboration among teams and more, it would be best to subscribe to the pro plan which is 12.95$ per month(As of Nov 2019). Canva also offers special plans for agencies.

 

Lucidpress

© 2019 Lucid Software Inc.

Lucidpress forms more of a design and publishing tool. Its free version is packed with most of the features except the fact that the paid version allows you to export your work to Retina and Vector quality. But, I would say that the free version provides a good insight into how and what can you do with this tool.

There are several other tools that may serve as an alternative for the aforementioned two.

But, one tool should be also included in this list is:

Photopea

The Online Photoshop Equivalent © 2019 Photopea.com

Have a decent computer with enough processing speed? Just forget Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe XD, Sketch or GIMP — You can do what all these tools do just with a browser.

The free version is quite enough for engaged individuals who look into creating graphics for their content and the ads presented in the free version stay clear of the workspace and can be removed if upgraded to Pro version in which teams can collaborate. I mostly used for creating graphics for banners and cover images for social media, which can be exported in PSD (PhotoShop Document) format (This is something which blew my mind off!) — for future editing using offline programs such as Photoshop or similar.

Conclusion

So far the journey has been quite exciting and I am learning something thing new every day- Whether it is a new tool, strategy or just a whole new perspective.