One of the best ways to evolve as a marketing professional is to generate, collaborate, and nurture ideas among like-minded peers. This post is part of a blog series called “Marketing Minds,” where I solicit thoughts and ideas from cutting-edge marketing leaders and post them on PuzzleMarketer.com. Below is an interview with a true marketing thought leader.

Kasey Kaat

Digital Marketing Manager[email protected]

I am one of those lucky individuals who gets to use both the analytical and creative sides of my brain each and every day. My professional career began very heavily on the creative side, however that wasn’t enough for me. I needed to know why I was creating and how it made an impact.

At Zapproved I’ve brought my passion for visual beautification together with cold hard numbers to back up every decision our team makes. I know the ins and out of marketing automation and have combined that with my curiosity about what makes a marketing campaign truly successful to become a rockstar in B2B Lead Gen Creation and Development. Every day I aspire to learn more and be better.

What brought you into the field of marketing (tell your story) and what makes you feel so passionately about it?:

My marketing career started with my love for design. Even in high school I knew I wanted to be a creative, what I didn’t know was that my time as a designer wouldn’t last very long. After 5 years in the field I couldn’t hide behind a computer anymore constantly being pushed projects and ask to “jazz things up a bit”. I needed to know what impact my designs were making. Since then I live the data driven creative life.

As marketers, we’re constantly seeking for the right tactics or channels to propel our organizations forward. Which tactics or channels have recently surprised you as a viable source of qualified leads?:

Another often untapped outlet I’m excited to roll out at Zapproved is through our email signatures. Think about how many emails your sales and customer success teams send a year directly to your target prospect. That’s a lot of contact left untracked and underutilized. Check out Sigster, it’s a great way for marketing to not only control the branding of all company signatures, but to also run and track campaigns all without bothering your sales and cs teams to update anything.

We’ve all seen the influx of marketing technology that has been created over the last decade. Which technology has been most impactful to you as you plan, launch, or measure your marketing campaigns?:

Companies like Marketo are leaders in marketing automation and help me do my job better than I ever thought I could. I’m always excited to attend the Marketing Nation Summit every spring to find out what’s next, they are definitely a leader in spearheading new ways of thinking and doing marketing. This year it was all about ABM and the tactics and tools to make this new and exciting process impact how we think about and track interaction with our prospects at key accounts. At Zapproved, we’ve recently implemented Engagio, a lead to account matching tool to help us track our marketing impact for our ABM initiatives. Super exciting stuff!

Looking forward… What forces (social,economic, political, or cultural) do you see having the biggest effect on your marketing in 2017 and what are your plans to address them?:

AR(augmented reality) - it feels like it’s been a long time coming, but I feel like it’s becoming something us as marketers have to start taking seriously. As of right now I’m not sure what my plans are, but it’s something on my mind.

If you could give one piece of advice to a college graduate who just took their first job in marketing, what would you say to them?:

Learn everything. Don’t stop and focus on one thing. Marketing as a whole has so much to offer, do it all.

Connect with Kasey on LinkedIn, she’s a digital marketing rockstar and does design work in her free time!