As a sector, the tech industry offers something for everyone – technical and non-technical, experience within a tech company or not.
Today, we’re talking all things tech marketing and how to make the transition into the industry. To help us explore this, we’re joined by Jessica Jacobs, Global Director, Partnerships and Growth at Incubeta.
With over 8 years’ experience in the marketing industry, Jessica has a wide variety of experience and expertise within the tech industry, from AI and coding. Throughout her time in the industry, Jessica has worked with notable top-tier brands, such as L’Oreal.
hello everyone thank you for tuning in I am Katie batesman the content director at chican code and today we’re
discussing career transitions within the tech marketing sector the great thing about the tech sector is that it offers
something for everyone whether you’re technical or non-technical today we’re talking all things Tech marketing and
how to make the transition into the industry with the fabulous Jessica Jacobs Global director Partnerships and
growth at incubita welcome Jessica thank you great thank you so much for joining
us yes um can you kick off uh with a little bit of background about yourself please yeah
absolutely so um I’m I’m Jessica I’m originally from South Africa now in the Netherlands all
because of my career in Tech marketing so I think it’s great that we’re actually touching on the on the topic of transitioning into Tech marketing
um I started my career as a developer for about four and a half years I was pretty much stuck into the coding side
of everything and it was It was kind of through that Journey that I’ve transitioned into the marketing side and
it is because of my technical background that I’m able to actually speak Tech marketing today amazing so I I didn’t
know what you were going to say I didn’t know whether you were going to say um I you know didn’t have a technical
background and that’s why Tech marketing appealed to me and but it was actually one of the first questions I did think
was you know did you have a technical background and it was something that you had seen maybe from you know a company
that you’d worked in and you thought actually that would be a good career Direction
um for me I suppose you have to at least know how to as you said talk uh talk
techie I suppose it would be the correct term there um because it’s it’s not just um even
though it can be a non-technical roles because you have to understand how to um talk about a product I suppose yeah I
mean I feel like I kind of stumbled on it um now I can definitely say I kind of
speak to because I’ve had this Tech background but initially I actually started my career studying business
management which I would say is more kind of like the traditional what women would do is kind of go for the behind
the desk more paper driven roles and I was actually busy doing my practical
side of of my my studies and I ended up working at a university that had
actually offered a lot of courses around the Microsoft ecosystem and the Java
ecosystem and it all just happened to be development and I was actually surrounded by a lot of these instructors
that were women and they were all doing these Tech courses and it was very clear that there was there was a foundation
that was created for for men to kind of thrive in and I don’t think it was um explicitly said it just so kind of
happened that there’s the direction we went into and I remember the the kind of head of this institution came to me and
he was like wouldn’t you be interested in trying this out and I thought well
absolutely why why not give it a go and before I knew it I I was into it for about four and a half years and I was
only doing a lot of technical stuff and it was all development and I and at the same time I was doing these
instructor-led courses teaching other people how to develop I was also Bolding
and working on the in-house tools we were using um later on I decided that I didn’t
really want to stay in education and I kind of bridged over to the marketing side which again was a stumble
um I I bridged into a development role where I was one of the developers working on a crowdsourcing platform that
was built into Facebook so immediately my bridge was I was I was a developer building tech for Facebook
but at the same time I started getting exposure to the Facebook ecosystem which was essentially just ahead of the curve
before marketing was what it was today or digital marketing I would say and that’s how my pieces came together so it
was definitely kind of stumbling on it but I love it and I’m still here kind of 12 Years in amazing and uh and the fact
that you said that you were in um teaching and teaching other people how to you know learn uh the things that
you were building that must have really you know helped your skills in terms of instead of just building things and
that’s it you had to communicate about you know what they do and how other people
um Can can use uh can learn to use them so I mean you probably didn’t realize at
the time that was just gonna you know feed into your future marketing career and all of those skills kind of as she
said it all came came together um for good which is the great thing about the tech industry isn’t it it’s
just so flexible and what what you can do and where you can go yeah absolutely you frame it so nicely I mean at the
time I definitely didn’t realize it but that is definitely the foundation of of the Strategic side of what I’m able to
do today today I am able to take really complex um situations specifically for large
organizations where they are stuck and I’m able to actually translate those those complexities into Solutions and
it’s because I’ve had to take it from the approach of really kind of diving into the what is this how do you use
this where does it become beneficial that today I’m kind of transferring these skills in building more strategic
road maps for the future of marketing yes absolutely and in terms of skills
and what skills and qualifications do you think are important for a career in Tech marketing if any of our listeners
are considering that move what would you say yeah so a couple of years ago I
would say there were very little needed to kind of get started but the truth today is that it except generates so
quickly and I would say I would say definitely really depends which side you would want to sit on
um the skills you would need to be able to have certain level of conversations with clients if you’re sitting more on
the relational side of it simple you know know how to kind of dive into complex situations and break it
down into more understandable ones and now we’re just talking about communication skills but the more technical ones definitely requires you
to have a little bit of a of a technical understanding so things like SQL definitely I would say is a great
starting point being able to kind of dive into Data is an important factor
where we are becoming more data-led so your understanding of data is is definitely a good starting point
yes uh yeah I think um people tend to think don’t know of
um soft skills and and things like that I mean I was going to ask you about useful transferable skills
um you know for people uh coming into the industry and I suppose we do think of things like soft skills and and
communication and being organized and those types of things but as you said that it is it would be absolutely useful
for somebody to have those those few technical skills um under their belt just so you know they they really
understand how how something works so they can really communicate um about a particular product or whatever it may be
yeah absolutely I mean there’s there’s the opportunity to kind of go knee-deep into Solutions and being able to solve
them and for that you do require some level of technical understanding and skills but I I would say the ones that
are easily overlooked are those individuals that do focus on soft skills but not in the traditional way yes of
course soft skills from a communication perspective is important and how how to write an email those things are really
important but what I’ve learned is if you’re gonna if you want to be a standout the one thing you definitely
need to know how to do is avoid the tech jargon nobody understands that that is a
transferable skill that if you’re able to take that dick jargon and make it seem super simple I would say that’s the
transferable skill that’s the standout yes I love that okay how many of us have
been stuck in that meeting with the tech jargon and the acronyms and everybody’s
just kind of looking at each other very puzzled um and you’re absolutely right by the
time a product reaches marketing and and PR and comms it just you know are from
from my side I receive a lot of press releases when you see them and you’re like I have absolutely no idea what is
happening in here I just need somebody to say it you know nice and simple and clear
um but you’re you’re right I think um it’s easy to get lost in in that world
isn’t it I just Tech jargon which which doesn’t um help anybody and I suppose as we were
saying you know it is helpful to have that technical knowledge working in Tech marketing because I suppose you would
cut through that wouldn’t you would cut through the jargon if you understood um more of the technical side of
something you said it is relying on a couple of buzzwords to throw in you yeah absolutely and I mean I I don’t I don’t
I think we’re all kind of guilty of of having created this Tech jargon and we can’t help but write it it’s the way
that we kind of attach our success to it because we’re showcasing to the world that we understand the topic really well by being able to reference elements of
our knowledge however I I think what has really happened in the last couple of years we’ve seen that transformation
must happen fast however it’s not happening boss and that’s because these
these decision makers just don’t understand what we’re saying and you’re right A lot of these articles today
allude to some of the most technical topics to date and we’re expecting decision
makers to be able to understand them so that is definitely something I think that more and more will will find people
kind of simplifying it and and trying to kind of break through some of those technical topics and and that is what
that’s something that I’ve been focused on the last couple of years is really trying to kind of break down that Tech job and just don’t bring it to the
Forefront of the table the work is still good but you don’t have to reference the technical elements
doesn’t doesn’t help anybody and it’s amazing as well when that happens uh
especially in person in an in-person meeting and nobody really wants to say
that perhaps they don’t understand something but you know everybody’s thinking the same thing I have no idea
what you’re talking about um and you know I think people working from home are working remotely that that
can be harder sometimes um to be able to communicate and what what you actually want to to get across
um in a meeting so there there is a stereotype well I mean there’s a stereotype about the tech
industry in in general we have quite a PR problem um in the industry
um but there is a stereotype that Tech marketing can be a bit boring do you agree with that and also you know what
what can what makes it an interesting area to work do you think yeah yeah I
mean I I think it’s quite boring for people who don’t really understand what goes into it and quite often it’s not
that we’re never building case studies that speaks to the technicality of it everybody wants to see the the beautiful
creative side and that’s fine um I I think if the stereotype is slightly changing especially because we
have to become more Tech focused the world is becoming more Tech focused and therefore over time I think the
stereotype will change um for me personally what has made it so exciting is the fact that we’ve been
able to use technology to drive so much change and things that we used to traditionally do very labored
um and that’s an exciting thing for me to see and everybody is now starting to speak about it because consumers are
also using a lot more of the technologies that we and marketing have to use they’re also smarter so they also
appreciate and also demand a lot more from us so now all of a sudden it’s not boring in fact if you are not
technically driven in your marketing activities you’re seen as quite old school you’re now falling behind now
nobody is interested in what you have to offer so it’s a slow change but it’s definitely happening I suppose it’s
about working in the industry and from from what I’ve seen and the people
um you know if I’ve been away um to a conference or an exhibition and I find that a lot of the people that
I’ve been hanging out with that work in marketing there’s that kind of hidden secret that people don’t realize how
much you’ll get to travel in in marketing and you know all of the
um really exciting things that happen on on that side um of the fence so it’s kind of just
something that people don’t hear about do they as has that been your experience as well if you get to go to lots of
places because you have to you know get out there and meet people and and communicate um about about what you’re doing yeah
absolutely I mean I I would have definitely been one of those that a couple of years ago would have thought
that traveling is not really a ma in the marketing job description but it’s
completely incorrect it is 100 there there is such a big Community out there across so many different topics that you
either have the opportunity to kind of partner up with these external event organizers and you get to go on stage
and share what you’re doing and the beauty of is you’re sharing it with some of the biggest brands in the world then
on top of that you’re sharing it with with the consumers they engage with those Brands so you definitely have a
foot on both sides I would say of the ecosystem and it’s as a result of that
that you get to kind of travel the world and you get to share all of these things and of course now with these hybrid events you even have more exposure
because you could be doing an event at your home but you’re doing it to a whole different continent which I think is
what the marketing industry offers yes I I think as well that that
stereotype of the industry uh maybe being I don’t want to say boring maybe a
little dry but it’s probably the stereotype um but uh when I moved from
um I temporarily moved from journalism to an advertising agency and actually I found it so creative and it’s just
storytelling I mean we we tell stories in the news and and that’s absolutely
fine but when I found myself working for Brands and having to tell their stories I mean suddenly I just had to get
incredibly creative and it really stretched me as a person um but I think that’s something that you
probably don’t realize until you you you know you you’re in an environment like
that and suddenly you think actually why would somebody think that this industry is boring um because it’s just
storytelling right absolutely I mean I I think our idea of marketing is still
pretty one-dimensional and the reason why it is still one-dimensional is because universities are only now
starting to adopt digital marketing courses that kind of exposes the world to this whole new world of of what
marketing actually means and you’re 100 bright I think what I’ve definitely learned is that we originally kind of
type creativity to an actual output of a creative asset that is how one-dimensional we were but now what
makes it so interesting is how we get to actually transform what those creatives look like we’re using technology to
inform it and we’re diving into customer segmentations uh how do you speak to how
do you design content for a specific customer and that to me is definitely one of the most interesting things about
marketing is because we’re defining the story but at a much larger scale
yes yes I love that yes you’re designing you’re uh defining the story
um but I I love that um can we talk about projects what’s been the most important interesting
project you’ve worked on okay so there’s definitely been a few um
but if I have to take my standout ones where I really kind of saw the power of the tech side kind of bridge with the
marketing side um there’s there’s two different cases from an internal organizational perspective one of the most exciting
ones I’ve definitely kind of endeavored was working with some of the largest brands in the world like a L’Oreal in
this case which we know own so many sub Brands and I’ve just just covering so many different countries and their staff
complement is so so big and we needed to kind of come up with a solution that helps them see how their ecosystem for
marketing Tech is actually connected and why this was interesting to me is we don’t realize how complex these
organizations are how difficult it is to actually ask them to get this overview in place but but I enjoy those level of
challenges so from an internal perspective I would say that it’s great to see how Tech marketing is a corporate
enabler as well but from an external perspective um one of the ones I’ve done a couple of
years ago actually was in the financial sector now nobody wants to talk you know
finances and funeral policies but we found a really interesting way to bring
funeral policies to consumers in a very in a very engaging format and we
actually used WhatsApp at the time WhatsApp for business and we integrated what’s up for business into an automated
series which actually became the first um series that launched on a tech Channel such as WhatsApp where we were
essentially had Real cast members um populate their different lines and they would speak to each other about
what was going on in their life and how to actually cover how to how to handle something like planning for a funeral
and we just got so much exposure through it because we’ve got consumers that signed up to actually watch this watchup
series which was free and the entire idea was we were using a tech channel to help educate consumers on how to plan
how to use funeral cover what should you be doing if something happens to one of your family members so we took a really
boring topic which is also quite a sad topic but we turned it into something inspirational and something that they
can actually educate and learn from and something that people probably one don’t want to talk about but also
just kind of put off you know until it’s upon you and it’s something that you know people just don’t think of every
day um so actually it sounds really interesting actually because probably people don’t know a lot about the topic
um so yeah actually that that would have been a really good one to um to to think of to to put on even if
whoever suggested that you would have looked at and thought that’s a bit why would we want to go down that route
exactly but how do you kind of in how do you educate the youth right do you have to educate the youth in the channels
that they are in and it’s just not so traditional like it was a couple of years ago so it is important for us to
really start kind of thinking outside of the box and these were one of those moments um and and this is why I kind of feel
like Tech marketing is definitely going to be at the Forefront of how we can educate the youth moving forward and
this was this was just one of those cases that I just love to work on it was fantastic to kind of see it unfold yeah
and you mentioned there that you worked um uh fellorio you’ve worked you’ve
worked big companies smaller companies for our listeners if you’re transitioning would do you think it
would be better to to start to be you know baptism of fire instead of a bigger company or a smaller company
I suppose there’s challenges that that can we both really isn’t there definitely I mean actually there’s to me
it’s not really about the size of the company that you’re working on I I think for me the one the one piece of advice I
would give to someone that’s going to transition into this industry is really start with a topic and get to know that
topic really well the beauty of this industry is you can expand you can enhance what you know over time but it’s
it’s quite often a mistake as we fall into this broad specialism so somebody comes in and they go I know a lot about
a lot of things but I don’t know the depth of it and that’s we all get lost it is important to kind of start getting
to know the depth about one thing and then building on top of that and then you will you won’t struggle in any size
organization then yes yes because I I think um some people
when they they you know they’re starting in a new career um a new career area or
even when it’s their first job they they always think you know I’ll go for the big company it’s nice and safe
um I’ll get lots of opportunities and I think sometimes a lot of smaller companies get overlooked
um because you know people see might see them as a bit of a risk or they might not be as many opportunities and but
it’s lovely that actually you just said just focus on a specialty um and and build and build it out from
there and do you have any advice for our listeners on that on that note um you know those that are thinking
about starting a career in Tech marketing yeah so my advice would be
Tech marketing can be quite broad um really decide which side you want to kind of sit in and kind of hold on to
that first diversity right so on the tech side of things it would require you to kind of dive into more technical topics
um what do you want to do be on open and honest with yourself versus just saying I want to go into Tech marketing because
you’ll get lost you’ll get lost on where you’re kind of building your specialist specialism in on the marketing side of
things it can be more so what was known as the more media activation side and and get to know what are those skills
that you need in order to thrive in those environments we’re seeing a lot of specialists in the industry but we are
definitely struggling to find Specialists that we’ve got a deep rooted understanding of of everything end to
end yes and and being a specialist in that would it be worth any of our
listeners looking into you know training even if they’re not going to be the developer building something would it be
worth you know even just looking into those courses and kind of getting kind of a high level understanding of of how
things work um you know even if you don’t need that qualification to actually go into that
job and build that product would would it be worth doing some online courses perhaps just to kind of familiar
yourself with what these products you know how they work definitely
i i i i that’s probably one of the things I would put quite a big focus on if you’re not going to go into the
development side of it make sure you have a really good understanding of what it means because if we don’t we we often
won’t be able to actually facilitate the conversations that we need to be able to facilitate simply because we don’t understand the foundational requirements
uh one thing to also kind of call out is some I I kind of see this happen quite a
lot we we get a lot of these interns kind of joining the business and they have the CV that says I’ve worked in all
of these different languages and all of those development languages are just not adaptable today we we really have to
kind of focus on which are the ones that are most often used and and I would say if we’re going to go into the tech
industry look at some of those apis look at some of the Google apis what do they predominantly or what what are the
languages they are predominantly available in focus on some of those foundational elements of those languages and you will already be far ahead of
most of the people in the industry yes yes absolutely and it sounds like um I
mean the tech industry in general it seems to be full of people that have that mindset of continuous learning as
you said um it’s very fast paced things change incredibly fast in the industry
um I’m assuming that you have to still have that mindset in Tech marketing I
um when I used to work with a lot of um PR’s for example um on that side of the
fence I was always amazed as to how many details they knew about particular
products and the same in marketing like there are so many details that you know I would ask a question about a
particular story and that person would just know it off the top of their head and I used to look and think how do you
how do you know those details about that product and how do you keep up to date on that but it was just a mindset that
those those people had you know I could skim the surface of a product with a short story on what it was and what a
new feature might be but they they lived and breathed that that air is that
something you’d agree with that it takes a certain person doesn’t it to feel like they um want to continue to learn all
the time yes I mean spot on you if you’ve got to go into this
industry the baggage is you have to continue learning if you don’t if you
kind of fall behind there’s actually a really devastating consequences to that one you’ll you will not be able to work
on the most Progressive accounts we see in the world you will not be able to get the Forefront of this industry simply
just because you do not house the knowledge that that is needed so the requirement is definitely you have to be
a self-starter you have to tell yourself these are the type of websites I’m always going to keep my eye on and these
are the type of of courses I have to redo every year because that’s the other downfall our courses expire on a yearly
basis which means we have to be kicking our toes on a yearly basis in order to stay on top of what we are doing
yes yes exactly it’s not just uh okay I’ve done my my piece for the year and
and that’s it um yeah it’s uh as you said you would quickly fall behind
um in an industry which I suppose it would be okay if you’re happy to stay
where you are and and you know work at a company maybe that isn’t moving forward but that’s that’s no fun for anybody as
you said it’s it’s you know you want to be working on those um Progressive Technologies uh
um and to to continually be moving forward um we know the tech industry has a
shortage of women um but what more do you think can be done to encourage female uh Talent
through the pipeline yeah I I think that I would love to see a lot more
opportunities for women to kind of speak about the topics and I don’t think that it’s being consciously done and you know
it’s unfortunately still the case where there are just more men in in the industry and what we can definitely
promote is when we are doing events let’s first find some of those female speakers that can back themselves up to
be able to talk at an event um and I think it’s also our job to be able to say to women look I get we’re
busy but this event is also a focus for you and one of the things I’ve definitely seen is that there are
amazing women out there in the industry but quite often when it comes to exposure and doing events it’s one of
the things that they kind of Park and they go well I’m too busy with all of my work and I want to drop the balls yeah so this kind of takes a backseat and I
feel like men almost have the opposite effect they’re kind of balance it differently they’ll go to the Forefront first and they’ll go I’ll pick up these
balls in a bit and and I think we need to kind of educate women to find that delicate balance do the events you won’t
drop the balls that’s what that’s what we’re really good at we can manage quite a lot of things and we just need to create the awareness and kind of push
women to stand up be more assertive and say yes to those events yes I find uh in
the tech sector in particular there are always um events as well that they after the
event when they’ve had you know a male-dominated panel um and somebody’s picked up on that on
Twitter and said you know where where’s you know there’s uh your diversity within this event and normally the
conference will bite back and say oh you know we couldn’t find female speakers or and then obviously an argument will
start there are so many great female uh speakers within the industry I think
it’s just looking for them and making sure that that um that event really makes a conscious
effort to make sure that they have a balance of speakers because as you said you know there are great speakers out
there great great female speakers but also women might not always put themselves forward so you know just a a
an event making sure that they make the effort to reach out to to ladies and say
you know can you put aside some time um to come and speak at our event uh
instead of just you know taking whoever comes along and they happen to be another or male panel
um it’s so important yeah one of the things oh sorry one of the things I had to be also picked up on
was um we still have these traditional titles that we invite to these events and and that’s all right
um the the what we should just be a little bit more aware of is that these amazing women are often also hiding
behind different titles so we should probably look at expanding who we are inviting to these cpanel events because
quite often it’s not the CEOs that would hold the knowledge sometimes it is different titles in the organization
it’s only because our organization our industry is so different our titles do not necessarily follow the norm of of
big corporate structures and I think that’s probably what needs to be Unearthed and and rediscovered yes uh I
completely agree agree with you there especially if you’re a company that has all of those strange job titles I’ve
worked at an American company I find they throw in lots of job titles and kind of make them up on the spot and
you’re absolutely right I don’t think um eventual organizers in particular would realize that there is you know
somebody that they really should have on their panel just because they’ve got a very strange uh job title uh you know or
something was just kind of made up of the move through the ranks um I just wanted to ask you a bit about
when you worked in a male dominated environment you said that obviously and a lot of companies you found that
um it wasn’t done on purpose it was just the way that it that it came together and the men that you were training with
um it just happened to be a male dominated environment did you find any challenges there um or did you find you know actually
um uh that you you were still manage it managed to progress in that environment anyway
um but you know did you find any challenges that is there anything that you wish you had been told
um before you got into that that type of environment oh definitely there were so many things I wish I’ve been told
because I probably wouldn’t handle it so differently as well and I think um one
of the things I realized or come to real realize is that sometimes when I walk into a room or when you walk into a room
when you’re in you’re in this kind of space they do expect you to look different and there is still essentially
not just a stereotype of it being like more male driven there’s also stereotype
and what you need to look like when you’re in the stick space so immediately I kind of I walked in and some of the
challenges I definitely got exposed to was the fact that is this just another pretty face or are they essentially just
washing the title to make it look like you’ve got female representation and
that’s really tough to kind of break through that stereotype and immediately when I had I kind of always found myself
having to be on the back foot and say but I do come with these credentials and you kind of have to accept that that’s
really something that you’re gonna have to take on board and be diplomatic about it and keep pushing yourself forward and
don’t let that get you under um it’s something that will take a couple of years to change and we’re
still in this journey um there was one unfortunate case where I was when I was selling instructor and
they had asked for an instructor to come over to train a corporate business
um and train all of their developers specifically in Java and I I was the Java instructor and I had to go and then
when they had put my my CD forward to say this is the instructor that will come they’ve declined it they they
straight up responded to say that they do not want a female trainer and I was devastated and I was so young at the
time and I definitely realized that those are the setbacks that you should just not even take on board over time it
will become normal for us to kind of be in this space yes oh my gosh I can’t believe somebody would declare you know
what I hear it so often as well from from ladies that say to us I feel like I have to prove myself so much more than
than my male colleague sometimes and you’re right it’s that full of you know is it just a pretty face that’s come
through the door and I have to prove that actually I’m as good as you or probably better than you at some of
these things um yeah you hear that we hear that often um sadly enough and it’s it’s nice to
hear you you um share that advice of you know you just need to ignore that and move
forward because it could really knock somebody’s confidence couldn’t it and just think actually this really isn’t for me Yep they’re always going to kind
of say to you that this is going to go over your head and they’re going to expect you to to kind of feel broken
down by it and immediately you’re going to want to react then one of the things I’ve definitely learned is you will be
labeled as difficult you will be labeled as not likable and you will also be labeled as emotional and that’s actually
fine live with it and do not let that stop you from being assertive and kind of speaking up and sharing your
knowledge and having a voice at the table it’s part of the cycle and eventually you break through that cycle
and you earn people’s trust and credibility and that is at least and that will be behind you um as long as we all accept that
unfortunately it’s part of our journey it will be there yes well that is lovely advice to end it
on because we’re already out of time Jessica but thank you so much for for coming in and chatting with us this morning it’s been absolute pleasure
absolutely thanks for having me thank you and everybody listening as always thank you so much for joining us and we
hope to see you again next time
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
