Marketing
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Faculty Stories: Dominik Berger, Content Strategist

Written by Talent Garden Talent Garden
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Dominik Berger is the Founder and Content Strategist at Attention Fox. Besides that, he will be sharing his knowledge and experience in the Growth & Digital Marketing Online Program at Talent Garden Innovation School as our Scientific Coordinator. 

Describe your job:

As a content strategist, I often find myself in the role of a consultant. Nevertheless, I also support our clients tactically or work on specific project tasks within my team. Our digital agency focuses on content marketing and content strategy, so typical projects or ongoing support can range from user-centric website concepts and implementation, marketing automation, performance marketing, lead generation, and nurturing to starting inbound sales and marketing from scratch. Our team is working remotely, so every day we can choose whether we would like to work from a coworking space, a cafe, or our kitchen table. Although we are working from different locations, we use Slack and other tools to stay in constant contact with each other (as we would like while sitting in the same room). Besides client work, as a founder, I’m also responsible for the business development of our agency. That’s why I spend about ¼ of my working hours calling new prospects, working on our own channels, or outlining proposals. Additionally, I really enjoy sharing my knowledge during workshops and lectures.

How did you get into this job?

I’ve started working in the field of search engine optimization (SEO) in 2008 while running my first website since 2004. After earning my first pocket money with affiliate marketing, I was keen on learning more about traffic generation. Before enrolling at the Vienna University of Economics and Business in Information Systems, I’ve always thought of a career as a software developer. Contrastingly, I’ve always felt a curiosity for digital marketing and that’s why I’ve worked as an intern in various positions related to digital marketing skills. My first major position was in-app marketing for an Austrian startup. From 2014 on, I’ve worked as a project manager in the digital marketing space. Before founding Attention Fox, I was a research & teaching assistant at my alma mater in the field of interruption management and ethical computing. Since 2017 I’m working self-employed – in the beginning, I’ve started on my own as a freelancer with project-based work, and now our interdisciplinary team is growing in a sustainable manner.

Which are the top 5 hard skills that someone in your industry should have?

  • Branding & Storytelling
  • Analytics & Statistics
  • UX & Service Design
  • Copywriting
  • SEO

Which are the top 5 soft skills that someone in your industry should have?

  • Comfortable with working in uncertain environments
  • Empathy
  • Project Management
  • Analytical & Creative Thinking
  • Curiosity

When you start a new project, what are the steps you take?

Usually, each new prospect takes our free and non-committal (content) marketing assessment, where we ask a lot of questions and try to find out if we are a good fit for the needs of the prospect. This assessment takes about one hour and should also provide an insight into our methods. If the client is interested in working with us, we usually start with a kick-off workshop where we assess the current state and work on the client’s goals for the next weeks, months, and year. Based on that we define the scope of our collaboration. In this phase, we like to use design thinking methods and get the client out of their daily routines. All subsequent steps depend heavily on the needs of the client. There might be more creative workshops where we work together with the client on specific topics such as branding, personas, prototypes, or content models. In general, we work in sprints of one to two weeks. Although we’ve not implemented agile project management methods like SCRUM, we like to orientate ourselves on the agile manifesto. I think transparency is crucial to the success of a project and that’s why we stay in constant contact with our clients.

What are the reasons you wanted to become part of the faculty of Talent Garden Innovation School and share your knowledge?

In my mind, there is a huge demand for a practice-oriented, multi-disciplinary high-quality education in the field of growth & digital marketing. During my studies at the university, I would have preferred to gain state-of-the-art knowledge with a hands-on mentality instead of purely theoretical concepts. I think the Talent Garden Innovation School is the best place to learn the soft and hard skills that are demanded in the job market. I also like the international network and the flipped classroom approach. This enables students to solve problems on their own and to learn how to stay up to date in a fast-paced digital world.

How do you keep up with the latest trends?

In the digital marketing space, there are a ton of blogs you could follow if you want to keep up with the latest trends. I really enjoy learning new things from others, but I also think that’s important to focus and be aware of the noise generated by the information overload we are confronted with. However, in our industry, it’s crucial to continuously learn and grow. I prefer trying new things out by myself – in that case, I use one of our own internal projects as they are a safe space to learn. With these learnings, we are able to transfer the knowledge to our clients' work. If you are interested in the topic of content strategy I can recommend the following blogs and websites: Additionally, I can encourage everybody to read books on subject areas close to one’s knowledge domain. If you are working in the field of content marketing or content strategy it definitely is also a good idea to read evergreen books on topics such as marketing, writing, tech, or psychology.

In your opinion: Which trends will change the future of business for good?

In my mind, content strategy and its value are still not fully understood by companies. While most companies already think of content marketing, they are still not aware of the central role content plays for their business. Especially for SMEs, it will take some more time to acknowledge this fact. However, I think that a lot of companies are looking for talent in the field of content (marketing) to join their teams. In my opinion, there is a huge trend of bringing work that was done by (digital) agencies in the past years in-house. This will be a tough challenge for companies. But it’s also time for agencies to rethink their role as a reliable partner. In terms of work, I think that ContentOps (repeatable processes to create effective content) might be the solution to combine the power and knowledge of internal and external teams within an organization. When I think of technologies, I believe that most of the terms which you will find daily in newspapers (such as blockchain and AI) are amazingly innovative approaches, but no miracle cure for any (business) problem. In terms of content production, I guess AI will shape content marketing in the next year noticeably. However, I don’t think that people working in digital marketing will be replaced by some kind of AI any time soon.

Which are your future work challenges?

For us, as an agency, it’s still a challenge to convince customers of the value of content strategy while content marketing is somehow accepted as an activity that companies should invest in. Additionally, we will have to think about sustainably implementing ContentOps with our clients since more content-related work will be done in-house. We are also working hard on producing valuable, educational content that is accessible to anyone interested in our area of business. And we are determined to establish content strategy as a professional discipline in the DACH-region. My goal is to grow our agency sustainably and not too fast. I really enjoy working with a small but highly skilled and motivated team that is ready to produce a positive impact for our clients. However, I’m afraid that if we would grow beyond 15 team members, we as a digital agency will become quite slow and too bureaucratic organization. Nevertheless, I'm curious about what the future will bring.

Coming to an end: What is the best advice you can give to people that are interested in taking a career in your industry?

Stay curious and open-minded! But I think it's also important to develop a deep understanding of the basics. Devices and tools change, but the core principles of (digital) marketing will stay the same for a long time. In a world full of self-appointed experts, it will help you to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Meet more Faculty Members of our Growth & Digital Marketing Online Program:

You want to learn more about our Growth & Digital Marketing?

This intensive and immersive Growth & Digital Marketing Online Program gets you ready for your future job as Growth & Digital Marketing Specialist. From a solid foundation in digital marketing strategy, we deep dive into topics such as social media, content marketing, SEO, programmatic advertising, e-commerce, and growth hacking. We’ll introduce you to all the necessary tools and you’ll learn from expert practitioners. We combine hands-on workshops, informal fireside chats, and project work where you work in groups and on your own. When finishing this course you will have a state-of-the-art skill set to work in growth & digital marketing. Classes will be held in English and are 100% online, preparing students for an international career. In addition, the course is limited to a maximum of 20 people, which allows responding individually to the needs of students.
Article updated on: 09 August 2023
Talent Garden
Written by
Talent Garden, Digital Skills Academy

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