The Marketer Day is an unofficial Ukrainian holiday of marketing specialists. Few people knew about this profession ten years ago, but now it is especially popular. Why? We thought about the secret of the profession’s popularity. Perhaps this is due to the awareness of marketers about new market trends. Another reason may be their ability to track our preferences with you and offer what we want (or think we want). Or simply because good marketers love their work. Katya Gazarova, a marketer, helped us find answers
“I used to be and I am now – two completely different people. The impetus for change was the transition to another area. I can’t say that it was a transition from discomfort to comfort, but circumstances have changed, so you start to think differently, to do differently”
“When you “join” a new project, there must be people who feed you. In my case, it was the first deputy director general. He generated ideas, and I pondered them. As it turned out, I delved into marketing. Of course, I attended a huge number of courses. At the moment, everything is changing rapidly, many new trends are being born. If you work with domestic and foreign markets, you need to keep up, follow everything. I am constantly studying in different schools and laboratories. Most often, these are Kyiv’s cool marketing stories”
“Yes, today it is fashionable to become a marketer, but I did not run for marketers – this is not my case. At first I wanted to become a journalist, I studied at our pedagogical university (editor’s note – now Zhytomyr State University named after Ivan Franko). But it was not exactly journalism: the main specialty – “teacher of Ukrainian language and literature.” The desire to be a journalist somehow disappeared, she began to look for herself. The experience of working in the City Council gave impetus to change, the desire for creativity. I will not say that I immediately realized the desire to become a marketer – it came with time: I started doing creative things, and then learned that it is called “marketing”
“I will not say that all marketers earn a lot. You can have a decent income if you pull not one, but many different projects. Then you can reach a certain financial level. However, I am sure that for this you need to give your all, to invest your soul. To come and say, “Hello, I’m a great marketer,” doesn’t work. Your cases work, your attitude, how you communicate with the customer and how you look at life in principle: are you interested in the project, or do you just need money; or you get excited about the project and then think about finances. I work, falling in love with the project. Yes, I get a normal salary, and it’s important, but in the first place I have a team, a product, the project itself, which I do. I can sit in the office until night, but not because I was told to do something, no. I have a certain level of freedom, but freedom is aimed at thinking, looking. It happens that I do not notice how the day ended at 10 p.m. This is because I found myself in this work and I live with it now”
“Analytics is a great thing, but I like working in the fields. Thanks to my huge circle of communication, I see, hear, ask and feel somewhere, so I rely less on analytics. The analyst does not always convey the mood of people at a certain moment. Mood, tastes change, and there is an extremely thin line: guess or not guess? We need to feel the change of trends”
“Over the past four years, I have gained tremendous experience working on various cases – small and large. Over the last two years, I have worked on about 10 different projects. This is not a small amount, because one case lasts a month or two, the other – much longer. Sometimes friends or acquaintances invite me to a project they are implementing, to help me get started and bring my vision… For a team that has been working on a case for some time, I bring something new, give tools, open paths. Then the whole system starts to work differently”
“I have two favorite cases: paper straws and a packaging project – Sam Ecopack. And I tell everyone about it because I live by it. These projects are related to environmental consumption, and it also inspires me… To be honest, at first I was not so completely committed to environmental values. Awareness came when work on the projects began. I heard from colleagues that they sort garbage at home, and thought: “Oh, wow!”. And then I realized that I also share eco-values, it’s important to me and I want to bring people such a philosophy”
“I have a rule: it is better to ask, hear the answer, think how to do it, and not be afraid to ask again than to pretend that you know everything. This is not my story. I’m lucky for people, and it’s true! They never tried to prove to me that I didn’t know something, there were always people around who were ready to support me. When I came to a new field, where the product was paper, cardboard, boxes, packaging, I was told: “Kateryna, read about trays. Cardboard is like this – study.” I went to the sales staff, who have been working for many years, and asked, “Explain these things to me.” And in all the time of my work, no one has ever said anything bad to me. My interest, on the other hand, was attractive, people had pleasure in their eyes at what I was asking, and I didn’t do as I thought, without taking into account anyone’s opinion. I was interested, learned, worried about the result. For half a year I knew the whole range, I understood everything, I knew what, where and how”
“There are really problems with the staff today. I don’t know why. Maybe people don’t want to work? We offer absolutely comfortable conditions, a social package, we teach, however it is difficult to find people. Not those who will live by the project, but at least those who will work normally. We have good teams that are not interested in a person running away in a month – ready to provide support. And in the end, our people stay with us… In fact, teams of different ages work, a kind of symbiosis, but people feed each other, share experiences”
“There is nothing more important than honesty. I don’t like when people are cunning, twisted. It is much more valuable when they tell the truth, whatever it may be. If this is a problem, we are looking for a common solution, then we grow as a team. To be a good marketer, you need not only sociability and efficiency, but also honesty. How information is communicated to people is also marketing. In our world today, honesty and sincerity are very rare, and for people this quality is sometimes strange. I know that I am also not perceived at once: am I really sincere and frank, or is it artificial. Then after a while people say, “Hmm, and you really are.” And I stand and think: “Am I being praised now or what?” That’s why I take great care of open, sincere people around me. Having such people around is extremely valuable, probably more expensive than anything else”
“The ability to admit your mistakes at work helps a lot. You can say a hundred times that someone else is to blame, but then it will still be uncomfortable. It is much better to come, admitting your mistakes, to say, “I know what can be done better.” First of all, you need to be honest with yourself”
“When you build communications correctly, Zhytomyr is perceived quite differently. People realize that we have cool people who know how to create a cool product. Sometimes people may not know about our product in Kyiv, but they know it well in the world. In two years, I noticed how the perception of Zhytomyr changed. That’s why we need marketers, brand managers: we communicate what we are, we are in Zhytomyr and we are cool”
“I won`t cheat: I thought about going somewhere to live abroad, but did not come to the conclusion that I really want it. I am probably a desperate romantic and believe that we will live better. It takes a little time, effort, changes in the head to transform the country, the people. I believe that everything will be fine, so I stay here and work here… I believe that Ukraine is cool, we have someone to be proud of, we have something to be proud of. It is important to show our cool people, cool projects, cool business. Marketers of various enterprises talk about it, but it is not enough. It is necessary to speak at the city level, on other platforms, it is necessary to work to journalism”
“Sometimes life needs to be tougher, and that comes with time. No matter how I look on the outside, inside I am the same naive Katya, who sees only the good and believes in the best in people. Although sometimes it can burn”
“The current conditions require us to work differently. Even if you give a customer a fitback like a “Thank you for choosing us” label, people appreciate it. Everyone lacks attention. In addition, it is easier to sell a dream that you yourself believe in – this is what you charge. There are a lot of people who sell just quality goods. Those who sell the dream they believe in are exclusive and unique. I can say with confidence that I am currently working on a project that sells a real dream. We all believe in what we do”
“My family jokes: ‘Okay, you would be so fond of some good shoes, but why be so happy with trays?’ But I really admire them. When we do a photo session of trays with apples and pears, I treat each tray as something humanized: I have fruit as if at home. In my refrigerator I put food in our trays – it’s convenient, always in order. And also carried out experiment on preservation of berries: folded in plastic packing and in our ecological. Everything is preserved in the eco-packaging, but in the plastic the berries are covered with mold”
“Yes, I am strong. At work, in relation to my relatives and friends when they need help. I am made stronger by the situations I managed to survive, although then, perhaps, I wanted to give up. I just realized that for some reason I couldn’t afford to do it. I analyze every situation in my life to learn from both positive and negative situations. Usually we are made stronger by difficult moments, but no matter how difficult it is, we can cope with every situation. It is difficult when you do not influence the situation when nothing depends on you. However, even in such cases you become stronger, because you still pass everything through yourself. I have been accumulating such difficult situations for some time, but all this made me the person I am now”
“I am not at all afraid that the world is changing rapidly. I’m even excited about it, because I’m not afraid to change: first I worked in a newspaper, I was a TV presenter for a morning show, I worked in a government agency, and now I’m a marketer. Probably, I am from a cohort of those who are not afraid of change. That’s why I wish everyone, not just marketers, not to be afraid to go beyond, to be bolder, to believe in yourself and to do as you feel”
