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Digital Marketing Expert with Sonja Kamper
8 Plays22 days ago
It's time to close an incredible chapter and reflect on the journey that shaped me. Join me as I share my most impactful memories and experiences as a digital marketing expert. We'll dive into the day-to-day work, the pivotal moments, and the path that brought me here. As I prepare for my next adventure, I'm excited to find a new team to grow with. If you're looking for a dedicated marketer, let's connect.
The proof. My interview with the Austrian Minister of Defence, Klaudia Tanner.
Shout out to: kanal3, Sigurd Meiche, Gert Zaunbauer, Thomas Kenyeri, University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten, Helmut Kammerzelt, Achtzehn Grad, Natalie Geider, Philipp Aschauer, Mike Gattereder, Marketing Natives, Carola Wild, Schouckry Najem, Susanne Hofmarcher, EEX Group, Vanessa Birnbaum, EPEX SPOT, Juliane Ferreira, David Assaad, Elena Bosisio, Luisa Neubert
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Transcript
Introduction and Early Decisions
00:00:00
Sonja Kamper
Servus and welcome to the World of Marketing Jobs podcast, where I'm taking you in a marketing journey of job awareness, consideration and application.
00:00:13
Sonja Kamper
And today you're listening to my first solo episode because today ends an era, my academic era.
00:00:23
Sonja Kamper
And what better way to go to the beginning of the chapter than when it ends. To find a beginning, I need to cut some parts of my life, including primary school, most of secondary school, and also I need to cut the introduction to the Austrian school system.
00:00:46
Sonja Kamper
So let's make it easy and say, let's place myself at the age of 16. This marks my first indirect career decision.
00:01:01
Sonja Kamper
And I needed to talk to my father about that a little bit yesterday because understandably i can't really remember what my thoughts were at that time.
00:01:13
Sonja Kamper
But apparently I knew exactly that I wanted to do something within the media landscape. But what exactly was still to be decided?
Media Career Beginnings
00:01:24
Sonja Kamper
And so eventually i got an internship at the regional television Canal 3. To illustrate that a little bit or to illustrate my career a little bit, I bought, so to say, my first land to place my house or my houses, so my career on it.
00:01:46
Sonja Kamper
This is sort of my playground, very unknown one. because what I didn't expect was to land ah ah role as a moderator there.
00:01:58
Sonja Kamper
So I was a moderate moderator at the television. Something i must say that's super frightening, but also super exciting. One of my first tasks there was for a segment of the show called Spontaneous.
00:02:17
Sonja Kamper
And as the name suggests, both the interviewee and I needed to be very spontaneous because my role was to approach strangers on the street with a microphone in my hand, hoping for answers to my question.
00:02:36
Sonja Kamper
And depending on the theme of the show we were doing or the location, these were question along the lines of what's your favorite type of barbecue or why do you like to go camping?
00:02:49
Sonja Kamper
So pretty fast, i went from please let me sit this one out to actually that's quite exciting.
00:03:01
Sonja Kamper
So I grew my voice, I grew my passion for being a moderator over the years to the extent that I was even asked to in interview the Austrian Minister of Defense.
00:03:18
Sonja Kamper
And if that was not exciting enough, it was. taking place in the middle of the Austrian Alps on a military training ground and I was surrounded by soldiers.
00:03:35
Sonja Kamper
And this is really a true story. I will put the link to the episode in the show notes. And This was really the moment, probably when I realized, okay, there is just me and the person I'm talking to and I forgot everything that was happening around me.
00:03:57
Sonja Kamper
I was truly in a state of flow.
Education and Early Work Experience
00:04:00
Sonja Kamper
And this story was also interesting for my French professor in my bachelor's when I told the story after I came back from summer break.
00:04:11
Sonja Kamper
And even the French word for Minister of Defense, so ministre de la Défense, was even part of my French exam this year.
00:04:22
Sonja Kamper
So studying, marketing and communication meant to experience both elements with real life practice projects. And so, for example, moderating was still part of my marketer mix.
00:04:41
Sonja Kamper
not as often as a concrete subject, but more so in extracurricular activities. For example, I got the opportunity to talk to Sigurd Meiche who is the former head of global sports at Red Bull or other Austrian event management experts like Gerd Zaunbauer,
00:05:10
Sonja Kamper
or Thomas Kenyeri. So it opened really the doors to people I wouldn't have otherwise met and sort of also sparked the passion for interacting with people, learning what drives them, what fuels them.
00:05:29
Sonja Kamper
So to say maybe the foundation of this podcast also lies in this experience. But as part of my podcast,
00:05:40
Sonja Kamper
not my podcast, but my bachelor's, I also covered other topics. For example, for one entire semester, we would have real world briefings from companies like, again, Red Bull, IKEA, or an Austrian supermarket chain called Unimarkt.
00:06:02
Sonja Kamper
And so for the duration of the semester, we would work on this briefing And at the end, we would present in front of them and in front of industry marketing experts.
00:06:14
Sonja Kamper
And this was really a great experience because you got feedback from the people who are working on marketing concepts, communication strategies, ex-a etc.
00:06:29
Sonja Kamper
on a daily basis. And this practice equips me for the industry as well. Adding to that, we also learned how to code, we tackled user behavior, studied how to do market research, organize events, social media, Google ads, graphic design, and so much more.
00:06:55
Sonja Kamper
And that more, namely digital marketing, built my first work experience, the first pillar of my career house.
00:07:06
Sonja Kamper
Because whereas a lot of companies say, oh, education is important, but what is really looked at is the work experience in my point of view.
00:07:19
Sonja Kamper
So my first one was at Digitalwerk, a full service creative marketing agency in Vienna, and they are now called 18 Grad, so 18 degrees.
00:07:31
Sonja Kamper
eighteen degrees And sometimes you just need a new positioning. That's something I probably thought as well when it was
00:07:44
Sonja Kamper
less and less about being a student and more and more about being an employee and learning the hands-on skills necessary to be a good one.
00:07:58
Sonja Kamper
And this was my engine.
Personal Branding and Networking
00:08:00
Sonja Kamper
I presented in front of one of our clients in the first month, learned how to do trend research, learned for the first time what a website looks like on the back end, taught myself Google Analytics, and I grew as a person and also as a marketer.
00:08:23
Sonja Kamper
I developed the mindset of a personal brander. I understood that being good at your job is great, but that's not enough anymore.
00:08:39
Sonja Kamper
You need to be visible. So I started to go to industry events. I was the first one to answer when the uni provided us with free tickets for conferences.
00:08:56
Sonja Kamper
And i met more and more people, including Carola Wild, who brought me from the wild, pun invented, to the marketing natives, the junior group of the marketing club Austria.
00:09:15
Sonja Kamper
And with my growing basket of fruit, that's also something for Carola in case she's listening, and the completion of my bachelor thesis about digital personal branding on LinkedIn, it was time for next challenge, the next pillar for my career.
00:09:40
Sonja Kamper
And with Shouckry Najem I met the right person who knew someone who worked at the company I worked now over the past two years.
00:09:55
Sonja Kamper
This job that today on Thursday 25th of September is coming to an end. The job that brought me to France and the job that accompanied my masters in digital marketing management.
00:10:16
Sonja Kamper
Because in France, they have a very special concept of Alternance, translated this would be work study program. So I got the opportunity to to university and work alongside in the rhythm In a wheel of, in my case, it was either two or three weeks at the company and one week at university.
00:10:43
Sonja Kamper
So for the past two years, I gained really crucial work experience, but also I almost officially can call myself and MSc and Master en Alternance, Sonja Kamper.
00:11:00
Sonja Kamper
So this is really the reason why I moved abroad, because I thought it's a super great way to learn to grow in a new language, a new setting, and boost my skills here.
00:11:14
Sonja Kamper
And in my job as a digital marketing expert, I covered mostly three elements. Design, LinkedIn, and the website.
Professional Responsibilities and Innovations
00:11:27
Sonja Kamper
And it wouldn't be the word of marketing jobs podcast if I'm not covering the elements of my podcast.
00:11:39
Sonja Kamper
So starting with this or that.
00:11:42
Sonja Kamper
And I'm not asking myself this or that and then I'm going answer it. No, I'm going to give you the answers right away. So with my job as a digital marketing expert, I'm working in a B2B environment of a small, well, rather medium enterprise in an international setting.
00:12:06
Sonja Kamper
And my tasks are tackled in an in-house setting. as I'm a specialist in a structured small team.
00:12:16
Sonja Kamper
And to make it a little bit more clear of what I'm talking about, let's cover the job slogan, From Pixels to People. Because my key exercise is to create digital assets that help the client or prospect to understand our company, our products, our markets better.
00:12:43
Sonja Kamper
Because it's not enough to create, for example, I even now have like a little visual here. It's not enough to create something nice, something appealing, but it's also crucial to have the people in mind who are targeted by my advertising material,
00:13:05
Sonja Kamper
my brochures, etc. So from pixels to people is something that summarizes that really nicely. So with the help of mostly Adobe Express, InDesign and PowerPoint, I was creating brochures, banners, roll-ups, booths, presentations.
00:13:28
Sonja Kamper
And to this day, I'm known as the marketing apprentice with the purple blazer. Not this one wearing right now, but a brighter one.
00:13:41
Sonja Kamper
Because last year we introduced a brand refresh and i was asked by my manager to present this change to the entire company.
00:13:56
Sonja Kamper
And Something important to know about this brand refresh was the color purple. Because beforehand, we see it here a little bit, we had orange and some gray tones.
00:14:09
Sonja Kamper
And with the brand refresh, we won the purple over to be included in our color palette. so Presenting the new color purple in a purple blazer was something I thought it was a good idea and yeah to this day I'm remembered as the purple blazer marketing colleague
00:14:34
Sonja Kamper
and I was also present on LinkedIn There it was more about strategy work, but also writing and designing the postings, educating our coworkers also about the platform.
00:14:52
Sonja Kamper
Because juggling the interests of different teams, especially when you have, for example, product experts, the marketing team and the sales who
00:15:03
Sonja Kamper
have similar but sometimes different ideas. It's really something that excited me to bring these interests together in one post that makes a lot of people happy and that portrays situation with an added value.
00:15:23
Sonja Kamper
And I'm also passionate about making this corporate account that we had As a central hub for interaction we implemented LinkedIn ambassadors who are internal opinion leader who were from different teams and who we thought were yeah interesting voices to hear also on LinkedIn so we engage them that their comment share repost our LinkedIn postings from the corporate account on their personal ones and yeah so seeing
00:16:06
Sonja Kamper
this different views come to life and the thumbs up and excitement when post was launched was really something that I really liked to watch.
00:16:19
Sonja Kamper
And my third element was corporate website.
00:16:23
Sonja Kamper
That included actualizing content in the back end. So in the content management system, CMS. bringing awareness for search engine optimization, SEO topics, and owning the content owner master file.
00:16:42
Sonja Kamper
Especially through writing my master thesis about search engine optimization, building sort of a strategy from scratch.
00:16:54
Sonja Kamper
I learned a lot about the importance of having clear pages, having good meta descriptions, alt text with images, etc.
00:17:07
Sonja Kamper
and Bringing this expertise also to the team, bringing awareness for the topic, being the marketer who also through knowing a little bit of code, et cetera,
00:17:22
Sonja Kamper
be really yeah essential for for the web website team as well to bring these strand of ideas to life.
00:17:34
Sonja Kamper
And it was really interesting to see that happening. Also my evolution from hearing about a backend the first time in my first marketing internship in my bachelor's and now being the responsible one from the marketing team for the website, really something super interesting.
00:18:00
Sonja Kamper
And this was sort of my trinity of tasks. So the Design, LinkedIn and websites and everything that doesn't fall under these three is not my job.
00:18:15
Sonja Kamper
I have wonderful colleagues in external communication covering PR topics or in the marketing team, my lovely colleague Julianne who covers emails.
00:18:28
Sonja Kamper
So Whereas we are not a big team, we have very specialized interests and usually you know which one to write a little Teams message like i like the one I received earlier or a little email to get to know how you can bring your request across.
Career Reflections and Skills Development
00:18:51
Sonja Kamper
So next on the line is the ideal job persona. So as my contract is ending today, how does my replacement look like?
00:19:03
Sonja Kamper
The persona of my replacement. but Well, replacement is maybe not the right word to say. So my successor, person taking my job after me.
00:19:14
Sonja Kamper
So job persona. I would say doing this job to put it under a headline is someone who is a creative communicator.
00:19:29
Sonja Kamper
Someone who is a visual storyteller bringing concepts to life but in an appealing and contextual way to Have someone who really breathes branding, who understands the importance of coherence from one channel to another, from a to z. But also someone who is a digital strategist, seeing the full picture as well.
00:20:07
Sonja Kamper
to know, okay, how can we bring the offline messages to the digital sphere, adapting them as needed, and do it seamlessly and in a way that, once again, from people to pixels, everyone understands and it's clear to the audience.
00:20:27
Sonja Kamper
People, very important too. Someone who is a digital marketing expert should be a relationship builder in my case.
00:20:40
Sonja Kamper
Someone who leaves a mark on the people they met. Someone who bridges gaps between teams. Especially in my case, I came in as the only one with this sort of expertise about the digital marketing world.
00:20:59
Sonja Kamper
Or at least about some aspects about it and so taking this knowledge you have and bring it to the respective teams for ward. ah ah Which it's interesting to know about For example ah ah SEO is really important to close the gaps and to add sort of the glue for different teams
00:21:25
Sonja Kamper
So it's important to translate complexity, someone who is really proactive, in a way innovative, and someone who takes project ownership.
00:21:42
Sonja Kamper
Because especially when you look at the work-study rhythm, you are working for the majority of the time but especially when you are for this one week in university and you come back or you do the handover with your colleagues before you go to university it's really important that you emphasize importance of the projects you're having either
00:22:11
Sonja Kamper
talking to the person taking your tasks to continue, for example, reaching out to several people or if the project is on hold until you come back.
00:22:23
Sonja Kamper
So project ownership, being a good communicator is really something crucial. In my case, as a digital marketing expert.
00:22:35
Sonja Kamper
And yeah, I think it's now time to summarize it even further with my job value proposition. A digital marketing expert helps colleagues, customers, and prospects who want to have a digital touchpoint with the company by avoiding inconsistencies in branding and messaging and increasing a coherent brand identity across digital platforms.
00:23:14
Sonja Kamper
I think that's a really good way to encapsulate that in my sense it is key that we are in the digital sphere but there's also this understanding for the people and the branding
00:23:33
Sonja Kamper
and to do so on the website and LinkedIn.
00:23:37
Sonja Kamper
If I were to pick golden nuggets So what are ways to do my job as well as or even better in the future?
00:23:51
Sonja Kamper
I would say it's all about working on your skills and on your relationship, especially when we are talking about AI
00:24:06
Sonja Kamper
a lot about innovation, having that literacy, having that knowledge about these emerging trends is crucial to know also where do I still need to improve my skills?
00:24:22
Sonja Kamper
Where do I need to sort of transform my skills and which ones are no longer relevant? And so you can learn how to better do it with AI, for example.
00:24:36
Sonja Kamper
But I also talked about relationships. So it especially today where we are and a job market that it's not flourishing as directly after COVID. Let's phrase it that way.
00:24:56
Sonja Kamper
It's good to know the right people, to have relationships, not only if you're in need for a job or if you need to do a career change, but also to gain that first-party hands-on knowledge that maybe you won't get or get delayed if you were to follow any other check channels.
00:25:22
Sonja Kamper
So that's really something that's key And to have really these multiple strong pillars in your career house. to have your wonderful land and to build strong foundations in your houses.
00:25:44
Sonja Kamper
Because in the past two years while working as a digital marketing expert, I also learned other skills, more for my personal journey.
00:25:56
Sonja Kamper
My second house can also call it passion projects or side hustles. First and foremost, you're listening to it right now.
00:26:09
Sonja Kamper
It's my podcast. And this one particularly was created to help marketers interested in different jobs in the field.
00:26:20
Sonja Kamper
This is a way for me to, let's say, satisfy my inner people people person. I love to interact with people, hear about their stories, give them ah ah stage to shine.
00:26:37
Sonja Kamper
And so doing this solo episode today and to give me the sole stage to shine was really a next step for me because my intention initially was that I will...
00:26:49
Sonja Kamper
interview people in every single episode so it's also a way for me to grow my skills, grow my network and even if this podcast episode helps one person I'm already happy and that's also something that's present in my second project which is YouTube YouTube is part of my marketer mix.
00:27:21
Sonja Kamper
Every month I summarize all my experiences a virtual photo or like photo album, virtual video album would be the better way to describe it.
00:27:37
Sonja Kamper
And what started out as really a project to stay connected with my family turned into this multilingual project to not only have a video in German for my Austrian half, but also one in English for now my little more international setting with co-workers and friends who wanted to be part.
00:28:07
Sonja Kamper
of this one as well. And so editing with different programs like Premiere Pro, also an Adobe Express or CapCut, it's really something I switch around every month to gain my skills there as well.
00:28:25
Sonja Kamper
And LinkedIn is sort of my central hub for everything. This is where everything comes together, all flows together. Not only is this my digital CV, where have pretty much the summary of this podcast in a little bit different of a setting, but it's also the source of information of staying informed.
00:28:53
Sonja Kamper
To come back to this golden nugget I was mentioning about relationships, about network, LinkedIn is really a place for me to stay informed about the industry, to stay relevant, stay updated and stay connected with my network, with my people.
00:29:14
Sonja Kamper
And yeah, I think LinkedIn is a really great platform to do so.
Career Advice and Closing Thoughts
00:29:20
Sonja Kamper
And now we're reaching already almost the end of this podcast. What's remaining is the question from my previous guest.
00:29:33
Sonja Kamper
It's Vanessa. She is also ah ah working within the broader ecosystem of my company. So we have been working together over the past two years.
00:29:47
Sonja Kamper
And she didn't know that I will be my own or i will be the next guest on my podcast. And so oh she asked me the following question.
00:30:01
Sonja Kamper
One tip that I would give someone who wants to do something com completely a new with their job. If I were to change jobs, if I were to try something new, one tip to follow and to succeed.
00:30:21
Sonja Kamper
And that's a really interesting question for me personally, because as I'm ending my contract today, i don't have something lined up yet.
00:30:33
Sonja Kamper
So I'm in this stage where I'm open, where I'm exploring for different ways of doing something new. And if I were to give one tip, it's following your gut.
00:30:51
Sonja Kamper
Because if you know in your side that you want to change, but maybe you don't want to because this means giving up the control that's so important for you or leaving some co-workers behind you have been working over the past years or leaving projects behind that are close to your heart, etc.
00:31:15
Sonja Kamper
I think my cousin this. wonderful like a little mantra to me not long ago which is just do it it might be good just taking that first dip to experience something new something exciting something that can push you further is ah ah something that excites me
00:31:47
Sonja Kamper
And I would give as a tip to anyone being in the same situation.
00:31:53
Sonja Kamper
But this element of succeeding is something that's super personal there is no one-size-fits-all perfect KPI key performance indicator to say oh yeah this is for successful or this was not
00:32:16
Sonja Kamper
I would say just do it and dive into something new And I think there is more to learn from it than to lose.
00:32:32
Sonja Kamper
So I think you can never lose if you dare to do what you really want, what your gut is telling you.
00:32:42
Sonja Kamper
that got very philosophical. But yeah, it's truly what I believe in and what fuels me every single day, especially now in this time of uncertainty where I don't know what's going to happen next.
00:32:58
Sonja Kamper
And... I'm just open for any opportunity within Europe, within the marketing field, where i can bring my key competences of LinkedIn, design the website into my workforce.
00:33:19
Sonja Kamper
But maybe this is more towards branding to create presentation beyond that and maybe it's more on the website itself on SEO maybe it's more on the communication element of crafting website texts and maybe even PR so for me key is to stay open and to await that what's coming in the sense
00:33:53
Sonja Kamper
that the right thing will come and the right challenge awaits maybe also already for you Vanessa and you just need to take the first step well so so The very last element of the World of Marketing Jobs podcast is the question for the next guest.
00:34:20
Sonja Kamper
And the one I would like to know, and even I don't know who my next guest will be, is what is your spark?
00:34:32
Sonja Kamper
What fuels you? What makes you exciting to go to work every single day? And how did you find it? That would really interest me.
00:34:44
Sonja Kamper
Because passion is something that's more and more important. At least that's something that's very important for me.
00:34:55
Sonja Kamper
And finding that passion and working on it Sounds like the absolute dream. And I've been living part of this passion for communication for people, etc. already. But I'm curious what my next guest has to say about this.
00:35:15
Sonja Kamper
And so the last thing that's left for me to say you. thank you Thank you for those listeners or if you watch it, for these people who watched me talk very vividly over the last couple of minutes and also saying thank you to the company I've been in over the past two years.
00:35:46
Sonja Kamper
Thank you to my co-workers for giving me these opportunities two learn new skills, branch out, meet people. and also to Elena, one of my co-workers that I can shoot in this wonderful room, which is our webinar room. So now it's also a podcast room, apparently, which is a very nice and inviting room, even though my background is gray.
00:36:15
Sonja Kamper
But yeah. Without further ado, see you in the next episode. Bus- si Baba.