In conversation with Pieter Vijgeboom - Growth Marketer

What exactly is a growth marketer? 

To be able to understand better what is growth marketing and what a growth marketer is doing exactly, we have had a chat with Pieter Vijgeboom about his journey as a growth marketer interacting with a lot of different professionals in the field. 

Pieter is a digital marketing expert from Amsterdam. He helps brands, agencies & companies to grow by improving their digital story to engage with more people. Pieter believes in solid customer-centred marketing strategy with refined tech. Growth hacking for him is like a toolkit where the focus on the goals is leading. It is also a system to validate growth ideas and prioritize for the most result with the least effort. Like Hotmail’s “Get Your Free Email at Hotmail” Tagline.

1. Pieter, when did you first realize that you were going to be a growth marketer?

During my time at NL Uitburo begin 2000 I was a junior marketer and I was lucky to have a very strategic marketing manager, Anatal Perlin. She told me to always put the end customer first, listen to them and empathize with them to help them solve their problems. By doing this with focus, the traffic and brand awareness started to grow. This inspired me to learn more about growth marketing. 

2. Which achievement are you most proud of as a growth marketer?

When I worked at I amsterdam, a few cool guys stepped in and one of them, Elian Wils, told me they were just back from a South East Asia trip they financed making road movies. They called themselves BigShots and had a bunch of video ideas for I amsterdam. With one of these ideas a viral video The Truth About Amsterdam, we reached more than 10 million people. Mainly target group in the U.S. for a very little budget, around 6 or 7k. Growth hack! 

3. What makes a good growth marketer?

The ability to listen to your clients and help them to tell their own story to the world and engage with their target group(s). In that process focus on company goals and data is very important, Keep your eye on the North Star metric as they say at the GrowthTribe. To become a growth marketer you need a bit of an experimental mindset. You will work with a lot of different programs and digital & data insight tools. It helps if you’re a bit social media savvy so you can run a few social media campaigns to broaden the circle for your clients and get the wheel of brand awareness, trust and love for the brand in motion. 

Just don’t be afraid to share insights and tell your company that the product could use a revision instead of only pushing sales with ads. ‘The balance in push and pull the most effective is’ (baby yoda voice) ??

4. What is your ambition as a growth marketer? 

Since I didn’t want to have a steady office job ‘kantoorjob’ anymore I joined Youlynq last summer and they helped me set up talks with around 100 tech-savvy internet and creative, agency owners. With some of them immediate cooperation started like Michael /Revitalize, one of the latest SAN New Kids on the Block, communication, SEO guru Vladimir / Searchboost. Helene /SPARK who helps companies / ceo’s find their WHY with Serious Lego. Copywriters Tamar /EdenFrost, Virginie /LENNDL & Raphael. And Inspiring influencers like Machiel /Lightnation who designs his own sunglasses and organises retreats to make the World a Better Place. 

Learnings

• Many companies forget to tell their own story and what motivated them to start a business in the first place (the WHY!)
• Companies in general, burn an awful lot of money on search ads and pushy social posts where better content and seo would be far more effective
• Companies miss out on specific channels like Instagram, Google Business or Pinterest
• Content-wise you see a lot of one size fits all approach where they miss out on the opportunity to engage and convert with specific target groups
• Digital growth takes time and money so in most cases monthly marketing packs for 6-12 months works best
• A lot of companies choose to totally outsource their digital marketing to agencies
• Activities are a mix of technical seo, digital strategy, seo content, social posts & targeted ads, campaign tracking & data analysis
• A few, cool growth hacks are valuable as icing on the cake 

With a group of likeminded local freelancers - marketers, influencers, designers, copywriters and programmers - we are now working a virtual Lab, a sort of cooperation platform and business strategy. The goal is to connect to companies that need a growth marketing strategy and effective flexible use of in-house marketers to work within the company if needed. 

5. What do you think of your recent Linkedin ranking (SSI)?

Hahaha, funny question! Of course, this is great but I want everyone to know it was Maarten and you that did most of the work, arranged my agenda, helped me with the blogs and sent me alerts. So this is actually more your achievement than mine. Congrats and continue the great work!

Thank you so much, Pieter, for the great conversation & collaboration!

Want to know more about Growth Marketing or Social Selling Indexes (SSI)? 

Please contact us via [email protected] or send a LinkedIn Message to Pieter directly and visit his website waterproofmedia.com. ??