Ovwighose Kate, Head of Marketing and Growth Lead at Peexoo Technologies, has extensive knowledge of marketing. She helps startups get exponential growth through growth hacking, effective marketing and product strategies. She has worked with different startups over the years and has seen amazing results.
In order to adapt quickly to trends, you need to add a bit of flexibility to your marketing plan and strategy.
MEDIA 7: Could you please walk us through your professional journey?
OVWIGHOSE KATE: After completing my degree in Marketing, graduating as the Best Graduating Student, I started my career as a content marketing intern in a software development company. One highlight of my first job was helping the new startup get an influx of marketing qualified leads with content and SEO marketing strategies. Since 2018, I have worked with startups in Nigeria, South Africa, and Canada as a growth and marketing consultant and helped them scale up and refine their marketing strategy. Helping them develop bespoke marketing strategies and training their marketing team to execute the marketing and growth strategies. It has been a thrilling journey as I am fortunate to also speak and share my marketing knowledge at global events like the Global digital marketing summit and African Digital Week and also trained hundreds of young digital marketing specialists.
M7: What are the expert photography services at Peexoo Technologies?
OK: Peexoo is a revolutionary platform for photographers powered by cutting edge AI technology to find a solution to managing their business and organizing their schedule and developing their brands to becoming powerhouses in the world of photography. Peexoo acts as an end-to-end product solution for photographers from automating their business from booking management to service delivery. Peexoo also is a marketplace connecting users to on-demand photographers.
Research on the company, competitors, industry etc. to better understand the strategies to develop and the implementation of these strategies.
M7: The findmyface feature on Peexoo Technologies’ website is quite interesting. Could you please tell us more about how it works and what it does?
OK: Using AI tech Peexoo gives users the ability to scan their faces and find their photos from events they attended. The find my face solution is built to using tech to help photographers provide better service to their clients. A photographer can upload their pictures and users can get their pictures by using AI to identify their faces and bring out their photos from the photographer's album. The findmyface feature is an innovative feature and the first of its kind in the African Space and will change the way photographers deliver their products to their clients.
M7: At the Global Digital Marketing Summit e4 2021, you spoke about some of the most common marketing mistakes. What are some of the best methods that marketers today can use to avoid these mistakes?
OK: Thanks for the question. Mistakes are inevitable for every discipline and are more prevalent in the marketing space, and weirdly not talked about by marketing experts. We hear a lot about wins and successful marketing campaigns but no or little talk on the failed campaigns or mistakes made in marketing. That's why, I was so excited to talk about common marketing mistakes experts make. I have been privileged to work and communicate with marketing experts and I can say that we do make mistakes in Marketing.
I highlighted 3 common mistakes in the GDM Summit:
Inability to adapt quickly to trends: Marketing advantage is adapting quickly to trends especially users usage and consumption trends. I used an example of Blockbuster that failed to adapt quickly to the tech trends and also how Amazon adapted and are standing out as one of the top online eCommerce platforms in the world. In order to adapt quickly to trends, you need to add a bit of flexibility to your marketing plan and strategy. The first thing you need to do is to be aware of the trend then refine your marketing plan to meet the trend.
Data dilemma: With data dilemma, I talked about 2 aspects where marketers make mistakes; Not tracking the right data and not utilizing reports from your data. Fortunately, we have had a good level of awareness on the importance of tracking data on websites, social media and all marketing campaigns but we still haven’t gotten it right with tracking the right events and micro-actions users do on our solution but focus on vanity metrics. 3 key things to solve this problem is to make sure you are tracking data from your marketing and product at large, make sure you are tracking the right data by identifying the macro and micro-actions users take on your solution or campaigns and utilizing this data to inform your marketing decision.
Lack of user-centricity: Not focusing on users but solely focusing on business or product. What we (marketers) fail to realize is that helping users reach their goal in respect to the solution we provide will ultimately help our business or product reach its goal. So the ideology is focused on users goals and pain-points and you will indirectly win the "war"
Lastly one mistake I couldn't add but I also think is important is lack of experimentation and the fear of failing forward. Which I think goes together.
I shared a story of a marketing campaign that I created out of assumption and not adequate research. I created a hypothesis or a plan and thought it would work without validating the hypothesis. I understand we have a target to meet with a limited budget but we have to be creative in trying out new strategies, tactics and experimenting with new channels. we should not be afraid of testing new channels and be willing to fail. The high note in failing from these experiments is you get to take some valuable learnings that will refine your marketing going forward and experiments are done with little budget and time so the loss can be covered with successful campaigns that will spring up from the learnings from your failed campaign. Back to my story, my campaign failed but I was lucky to detect it at an early stage. I did troubleshooting on the campaign and used the learnings gotten to carry out a more successful marketing campaign. So don't be afraid to fail, but make sure when you fail you fail forward.
The aim is to build yourself with the right knowledge to work with any organization and make a difference.
M7: What are some of the best bespoke marketing strategies have you created that you are the proudest about?
OK: Well like I mentioned earlier, I have worked with a lot of startups across different industries and I don't just go into a marketing strategy meeting with a generalized playbook because I know each startup is unique. Different product, industry, audience and channel market fit. So all my bespoke marketing strategies start with intensive research. Research on the company, competitors, industry etc. to better understand the strategies to develop and the implementation of these strategies. Although it takes time and a lot of effort, I have seen a lot of success with being bespoke. One of my proudest was with a biotech startup. The founder reached out to me to help with their marketing. I did full research on the business and developed some marketing strategies that got the company a massive increase in their revenue in less than 1 month, and also ran a lead generation campaign which resulted in 1000+ new leads in 2 weeks with little marketing spend. Results like this make the work worthwhile. The truth is I have a lot of proudest moments but I will just end with those 2.
M7: What is your advice to young girls starting their career in marketing?
OK: Well, my advice is simple; never give up on yourself and believe in yourself. Because nobody will believe in you unless you believe in yourself. I had a lot of discouragement 8 years back when I wanted to start my career in marketing, but I never gave up and was consistent in growing and developing myself. It really pays to be consistent and believe in yourself.
Keep learning: take courses, read marketing articles, follow marketing experts, join marketing communities, Ask questions, Read books. The aim is to build yourself with the right knowledge to work with any organization and make a difference.
Keep practising and experimenting: As I said earlier, aim for success but never be scared to fail. Practice, test out channels and get your hand dirty with marketing.
Take Opportunites: Imposter syndrome still do the best for us, but you have to believe that you have the right knowledge to get the job done, so take opportunities and don't limit yourself. The more you expose yourself to bigger tasks the more you grow in your career. Marketing is not a game of luck, you have to gain expertise and put it to work.