Allison Najman interview: Working on all three sides of marketing

Marketer and world traveler Allison Najman is active in the Raleigh-Durham, NC marketing and social media community. In fact, she’s the first person I met “in real life” from Twitter. Allison recently shared:

• why today’s B2B marketing requires the same principles as B2C marketing
• the marketing career benefits of reading pop culture publications like Entertainment Weekly
• the pros and cons of doing marketing in three types of roles: client-side, agency, and independent consulting

I interviewed her last month in person and via email. For more insights, follow Allison on Twitter, read her articles on the Capstrat blog, and ask for a copy of her terrific travel tips presentation.

Allison Najman, MBA

Web Producer at Capstrat and Marketing Strategy Consultant in Durham, NC
More info: @mbagrrl, LinkedIn, and MBAgrrl.com

B2B = B2C, and the Blurring Between Work and Life

Allison has an unusual view on business-to-business versus business-to-consumer marketing. I asked her to elaborate. She explained:

I know this is controversial, but I believe there is no such thing as B2B or B2C marketing; it is all marketing to an individual.

There are two reasons for this. One, our work lives (for better or worse) are no longer contained 9-5 in an office. We work all hours, all days of the week in offices, our homes, coffee shops, etc. People no longer compartmentalize their workday and therefore marketing should not be compartmentalized either.

The second reason is that marketing and communications is only getting more targeted and more personalized and expectations are higher. It doesn’t matter to me if a company is typically a B2B company; I expect them appeal to me and interact with me the same way a typical B2C company would.

At the end of the day, marketers need to know who they are targeting and why, and it is always a person.

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How She Got Here, and What’s Changed Along the Way

I asked Allison how she got to where she is today, and about the biggest trends since she graduated from Appalachian State in 1998 and N.C. State‘s MBA program in 2006. She replied:

Wow… I am not sure there is room in your blog for the complete answer, but here’s a short version. I love design, but it never came particularly easy to me, no matter how hard I worked at it. I started my career as a web and graphic designer. However, after moving to Portland, Oregon in the late 90’s and meeting extremely talented people I eventually realized as much as a I love and appreciated design, I just didn’t have that special talent to be a great designer. So I reevaluated my strengths and what I enjoy and followed a path to marketing. Although I am not a designer myself, being in marketing I still get to interact with creative and talented people.

Obviously since 1998 the Internet has been the biggest trend, but I think beyond that is the ubiquitousness of high speed internet. High speed internet at home has really changed the way we do everything. I remember when people had to do their Amazon shopping at work because it was so slow with dial-up. In addition, the portability of technology has also changed the way we do almost everything.

I hate to be trite, but since 2006, you can’t ignore social media as being the biggest trend. Aside from the tools, I think social media has brought a paradigm shift in how companies interact with their customers that won’t be going away. Ten years from now, there will probably be very different tools for social media, but the mentality of social media will remain. To me, social media is comparable to the rise of the web in the 90’s. Today, no one can fathom not having a website; tomorrow no one will be able to fathom not interacting via social media.

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Keeping Up with the Trends: Pop Culture and Marketing

I asked Allison what she reads, follows, or attends to keep up with the latest trends. She shared:

On my “must” list: Consumerist, Entertainment Weekly, Mental Floss, Marketplace, Marketing Over Coffee, and Twitter. As a marketer, I think it’s really important to be on top of what’s going on in the greater world.

People might consider EW fluff, but it’s a great resource to keep up on pop culture. Honestly, because I don’t have kids and I can only watch so much TV, see so many movies and read so many books, it’s a great way to keep in touch with pop culture references. Without reading EW, I would have no idea about Justin Bieber, Jersey Shore, or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I always feel smarter after reading Mental Floss and listening to Marketplace.

As far as marketing reading, I love Twitter. Because it is through my personal circle of people I choose to follow, it inherently filters out the crap. It is such a great way to aggregate marketing articles from so many different sources. Almost everything I read from my Twitter feed, I probably would not have found on my own. To me, this is the value that Twitter provides.

I also love listening to Marketing Over Coffee. It’s a great podcast that I almost always come away from learning something I didn’t know before.

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Diverse Experience: Client-Side, Agency-Side, and Independent Consulting

Allison has an unusually diverse marketing background — she’s worked on the client side, she’s worked on the agency side, and she’s worked as an independent consultant. I asked her to highlight the pros and cons of each. She replied:

Maybe because the agency side is the newest to me, I am really enjoying working for an agency. I love that I get to work with a variety of industries and cultivate different strategies and tactics. It might also be because Capstrat is a great place to work.

Similar to working in an agency, I enjoyed being a consultant because I got to work with a variety of clients on a myriad of different projects. However, I consciously decided to pursue a full-time position because I missed being an office, as well as the camaraderie of a team. I also didn’t like the business development aspect of it. I was really lucky that almost all my clients came to me through word of mouth, but I realized that would probably last so long and that I would have to eventually actively pursue clients. The hours, flexibility, and dress code are great. Nothing beats working in your pajamas.

I have the most experience working in the client side. I find knowing a lot about one industry, product or target audience has pros and cons. On the one hand, you get to become a subject matter expert in a particular area, having very in-depth knowledge, but on the other, I find this gives you a bit of tunnel vision. I believe it’s important to have deep marketing experience but not necessarily in one particular industry.

I think it’s good when companies bring in someone that doesn’t have 20 years of specific industry experience to their marketing department because they bring a fresh perspective. It’s important for marketers to not get stale and complacent because they think they know their audience as well as they know themselves.

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Something Most People Might Not Know

I asked Allison what most people might not know about her. She replied:

I have been watching Jeopardy! every night ever since I could remember (much easier now with a DVR).

I love to travel. My life’s goal is to visit at least 25 percent of the world’s 192 countries. I am up to 21.

If someone just handed me money to start a business, I would start a shoe company for fashionable wide shoes (this still doesn’t seem to exist).

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Career Advice: Change and Authenticity

I asked Allison about her marketing career advice for someone who’s new to the field. She shared:

Don’t get too attached to a job, company or industry because in your 35+ year career it will probably change. Imagine if you started your marketing career in typewriters; where would you be today? As the world adapts and changes, you need to adapt with it.

Although some people are better at compartmentalizing work and non-work, I think it’s important as a marketer you believe in the company or product you are marketing. Your job as a marketer is to create demand and sales and if you don’t believe in the product or company, it’s much more difficult to market it.

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Conclusion

Thanks for sharing your experience and insights, Allison! Sounds like I need to pay more attention to Entertainment Weekly.

Marketing strategist and account manager Karl Sakas uses research, insights, and relationships to help companies quickly find new ways to make more money. He’s available for hire on a full-time or consulting basis from Raleigh, North Carolina. This is the 16th in his regular series of interviews with marketing and business leaders.

Photo courtesy of Allison Najman in Barcelona, Spain.

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Tagged as: ad agencies, Allison Najman, Appalachian State, B2B, B2C, Capstrat, career advice, client-side, Entertainment Weekly, graphic design, interview, marketing, NC State, self-employment, trends, web design