Join Digital Marketing Foundation MasterClass worth Rs 1999 FREE

An Interview With Soumyajit Dey – Digital Lead Cloud Performance Marketing, IBM

Banner 6

Soumyajit deySoumyajit Dey has overall 14+ years of work experience, out of which 12+ has been into Digital Marketing. He was fortunate to be one of the early members at Google India (2004 – 2012) and worked there for 8 years. He learned his basics of Digital Marketing with Google Adwords, Search, Display, Mobile and Youtube advertising. He supported North America Market as a Digital Strategist/Consultant and was responsible for end-to-end planning and execution of campaigns, help the clients scale up their business and drive ROI.

After Google, he worked for couple of start-ups. Simplilearn Solutions – where he was the founding member in the Online marketing team. He was responsible to manage Google Adwords across all of Simplilearn product portfolio. Post Simplilearn, he worked at Social Audience Pvt Limited (Tookitaki). It is a Facebook API partner and currently the most promising ad tech start-up in India for Facebook paid ads. He led the digital team at Tookitaki and was responsible for managing clients and book of business. His role also included close liaisoning with the Facebook global team and integrate the ad tech features in the back end for Tookitaki’s ad execution platform.

Currently, he is based in Bangalore and works at IBM as Digital Lead for Cloud marketing, India South Asia. His role includes end-to-end planning, strategizing and execution of Digital Campaigns to ensure business growth. He is also included in several projects, working with the global team on several digital campaign deliverables.

How did you get into Digital Marketing? What interested you in learning Digital Marketing?

Soumyajit:  I got in to digital marketing accidently. I joined Google in 2004 as an AdWords rep and then gradually moved up the ladder to learn more about search, display, video and mobile marketing. Post Google my experience in the start ups helped me learn more about digital marketing, specially social (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn) marketing. I find digital marketing very exciting and I actively participate in seminars, events where I can deliver notes. I also teach digital marketing in business schools.

According to you, what are the advantages of conventional marketing over Digital Marketing? Do you think that Digital Marketing is a threat to the future of conventional marketing?

Soumyajit:  Honestly, I think both conventional marketing and digital marketing has its individual role to play. Both should work in sync and be married to each other to deliver best results. However, digital marketing shouldn’t be perceived as a threat. It should be looked at a marketing route which is more logical, data driven and every action you take as a marketer you can measure in terms of numbers. With digital marketing, you can set an objective and then go out to achieve it because you can measure your activity based on real time analytics.

Share about your 3 favorite Digital Marketing case studies. What did you like most about them?

Soumyajit:  

  • Uber: The best example of how digital marketing can be disruptive and innovative. No one would even think of using mobile apps to such an advantage few years back as Uber has done worldwide.
  • Cleartrip: How Cleartrip used innovative digital marketing techniques and routes to scale up their seasonal campaigns to achieve great ROI?
  • Alibaba: The most disruptive in digital ecommerce with billions of sales happening every single day.
According to you, what are the top 3 mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging Digital Marketing?

Soumyajit:  

  • Short term strategy: Digital marketing should always be looked at as a long term bet. You start your digital journey with an objective and optimize along the way. Short term view doesn’t help implement best practices. Lot of organizations lost out on scaling up opportunity as they burnt money in shorter run.
  • Lack of adopting best practices: Often organizations don’t adopt best practices that Google, FB, LinkedIn, Twitter etc share. As a result, they try to opt for short cuts which doesn’t yield good results. To be successful in digital marketing, you need to understand the DNA of the big giants mentioned above and adopt the best practices accordingly.
  • Lack of proper data analysis: Most often organizations don’t analyse data available and make use of it. They loose out on significant opportunity to grow and scale up.
Between Agencies and In-house, which approach would you recommend for maximum value of Digital Marketing? Why?

Soumyajit:  It should be a combination of both. Agency comes with specialized experience which an organization should leverage. Agencies should be treated as extended team. Having an inhouse is important because the inhouse team is closest to the business need and they understand the pain points and requirements best. The inhouse team should act as a guide to the agencies and partner with them to strategize scale up of campaigns and potential business through digital marketing.

Which are your 3 favorite Digital Marketing Tools?

Soumyajit:  

  • Doubleclick Bid Manager
  • Google Analytics
  • Facebook Power Editor
Why do you think it’s important for entrepreneurs, marketing professionals and students to learn Digital Marketing today?

Soumyajit:  

  • For Entrepreneurs: Since they are the business owners, they should understand digital marketing in order to set up a vision for the company. They should be able to guide the marketing/sales team with strategic direction and leverage the advantages of digital marketing to scale up his business
  • For Professionals: It’s a great career path for professionals. Understanding digital advertising will help them score over their peers who are more traditional marketeers. The new breed of professionals also bring in a dynamism which compliments the dynamic nature of digital marketing.
  • For Students: Great career opportunity for future. Students are the future of the country and economy. If they learn digital at early years it only goes to help them in long run.
What are the top 3-5 skills you look for when hiring a candidate for Digital Marketing profile?

Soumyajit:  

  1. General Cognitive Ability
  2. Analytical ability
  3. Knowledge about overall digital marketing and someone who is able to give you an overall holistic picture given a situation
What is your advice for newbies, who are looking at building a career in Digital Marketing industry?

Soumyajit:  Embrace this as it can be one of the most satisfying career path you can take.

From an early stage, learn to be analytical, set objective, question till you get your answer and finally have fun learning digital.

How do you stay updated on the latest trends in Digital Marketing? Which are the Digital Marketing resources (i.e. blogs/websites/apps) you visit regularly?

Soumyajit:  

  • LinkedIn – SlideShare
  • Techcrunch and other tech news sites
  • Various digital blogs which I come across while browsing Ex: emarkeeter.
Share the names of 3 people you respect when it comes to Digital Marketing.

Soumyajit:  

  • Marissa Mayer – CEO, Yahoo
  • Larry Page – Founder, Google
  • Jeff Bezos – Founder, Amazon
How do you see Digital Media evolving in future? What are the top 3 trends do you foresee for 2016?

Soumyajit:  The scope to evolve is endless. Digital marketing is so dynamic that every day you find something new in this field. Top trends I foresee is mobile marketing, mobile commerce, digitization of events (face to face events being converted to more digital) and emergence of more stronger data-driven marketing with lot of intelligence predictive analytics tools being available.

Would you like to share few words about the work we are doing at Digital Vidya?

Soumyajit:  

Digital Vidya has been a great ambassador of training students, professionals, business professionals etc through its digital marketing courses. Digital Vidya is truly taking the next leap by churning out batches of professionals who are being equipped with right skill sets to make an impact in the market, in online advertising. What I like most about Digital Vidya is the simplistic approach towards training and providing industry relevant information. In short – great work being done.

Are you inspired by the opportunity of Digital Marketing? Start your journey by attending our upcoming orientation session on Digital Marketing for Career & Business Growth. It’s online and Free :).

Avatar of jasleen kaur
Jasleen Kaur
[Sr. Associate - Content Marketing] A content passionate, Jasleen handles content writing & marketing activities. Also, she leads Digital Marketing Internship Program. She is in the content writing and marketing fraternity for 10+ years now & is proficient in writing content for blogs, articles, books, brochures and social media. She embraces practical knowledge of WordPress CMS.

1 thought on “An Interview With Soumyajit Dey – Digital Lead Cloud Performance Marketing, IBM”

  1. Thanks Soumyajit for your contribution to our community through this interview. Really happy to know your feedback about the work we are doing in spreading digital (marketing) vidya :).

Leave a Reply to Jasleen Kaur Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

In-Demand Courses

4-7 months Instructor Led Live Online Training
Starts March 30, 31, 1, 2, 2024
  • Covers all Digital Marketing Techniques

4 months Online
New Batch Dates are not Open
  • Digital Media Mastery (with Paid Media Expertise)
Digital Marketing Webinars
Mar 30
Upcoming
Raj Sharma, Digital Vidya Team 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (IST)
Apr 28
Completed
Marketing Leaders from Paytm Insider, Cognizant and Digital Vidya 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM (IST)
Mar 24
Completed
Marketing Leaders from Merkle Sokrati, 3M, Uber India and VIP Industries Limited 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM (IST)

Discuss With A Career Advisor

Not Sure, What to learn and how it will help you?

Call Us Live Chat Free MasterClass
Scroll to Top