My Tech Transition: How Bolaji Anifowose switched from Metallurgical Engineering to Marketing
Bolaji Anifowose is a product and growth marketing expert who is currently the Head of Partner Marketing at Distrobird. He shares with us how he switched from metallurgical engineering to marketing.
My Tech Transition is a monthly ConTech series that shines a spotlight on Africans who have successfully transitioned into tech.
Written by David Onugha
Bolaji Anifowose is a product and growth marketing expert who has spearheaded marketing for companies like Simpu, Rubystack, SalesRuby and more. He is currently the Head of Partner Marketing at Distrobird, where he leads the development and expansion of their partner and integration ecosystem. In this interview, he shares with us how he switched from metallurgical and materials engineering to leading marketing for global companies.
What’s your current role in tech and what does it entail?
I’m the Head of Partner Marketing at Distrobird. This role encompasses everything involving partnerships and identifying opportunities for partnerships across different verticals. One of my verticals is working with complementary businesses. We are an outbound sales platform, and marketing and sales agencies are complementary to our business. Part of my role is to identify key marketing agencies and work with them as a distribution channel and a source of customer feedback.
There's also the vertical of integrations which is one of the key aspects of my role. Everything related to the integration ecosystem at Distrobird falls under my responsibility. For example, since we are a sales outbound tool, we need to layer on a particular CRM tool. HubSpot, for example, is one of the key integrations for our platform. I handle everything around integrations, from launching them, getting them out in the marketplace, to getting people to discover the integration and adopt them.
I also work with startup ecosystem partners like VCs, accelerators, and incubators. Recently, we partnered with the Builders’ Summit on their startup innovation challenge.
So, my day-to-day pretty much involves identifying these partners, recruiting them, and managing the partnership to ensure it drives the partnership goal. The goal could be getting visibility into the partner's ecosystem, getting sign-ups, or co-hosting events.
You’ve held different roles in the marketing space and are now Head of Partner Marketing at Distrobird. What occasioned this move?
It wasn’t planned per se, but based on my experience, partner marketing is one of the things I've always done, even at Simpu, so I thought to zone in on that at Distrobird. At the end of the day, partner marketing is, in a sense, a subset of product marketing because the goal of partner marketing is to drive product growth.
What do you credit as the driving force behind your continuous growth as a marketer?
I would say my commitment to lifelong learning. Even though I have a core specialty, I can always fit into any aspect of marketing. I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty, and I think that is one of the things that has helped me.
One of the things I always did was to look at the job descriptions for the roles I wanted in tech. I would go to startup job boards and dissect the job descriptions. If a skill like product analytics was listed as a requirement, I’d go on and learn everything about it, discover the tools that are used for it, and take courses on it.
I also joined many communities early on, like ConTech Africa. There were a lot of communities back then, and when I’d see senior marketers having conversations mentioning things like ‘growth funnel’, I’d search these topics online and take courses on them.
I’ll credit my growth to my willingness to learn and pick up new skills.
Do you recall the moment you decided that a tech career was what you wanted?
I remember the moment vividly. I was in my second year of university in 2015 when I knew I wasn’t going to pursue a career in engineering. I got the opportunity to intern with Infinix in 2014 and with the marketing team at Tecno in 2015. The potential to work at these companies full-time after university, combined with the work experience I was gaining, made me think, ‘yeah, this is it’. I was involved in brand activation campaigns and social media campaigns which I found interesting and it made me realise that marketing was for me.
I also ran a blog on campus and managed social media pages for business brands. So, I knew early on that this was something I wanted to do.
What skills did you have to prioritise learning at the start of your marketing career?
I prioritised learning technical skills, especially data analysis. I learned how to use tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Amplitude. I also had to spend extra time on the technical side of SEO to ensure I was proficient.
Content is a fundamental part of marketing. I ran a blog and wrote copy for landing pages, but I wasn’t involved in other technical aspects. So, I had to learn how to build my own landing pages with software. While working at Simpu, for example, we made a switch from building our marketing pages with code to using a CMS platform. The CMS platform we chose was Webflow, and prior to this, I had zero experience with it. One of the things I did was visit Webflow University, and I spent days learning how to do SEO and design web pages on Webflow
So, I had to quickly learn the technical side of marketing.
What advice would you give to anyone looking to make a similar transition into the tech space?
Believe you can do it. People doing it do not have two heads. Be ready to learn. Have the drive to learn because marketing in tech is ever-evolving. With AI, there has been a massive shift in how marketing is approached. For example, Google just shipped their AI answers to search queries and this means that there will be a shift in SEO. So, you’ll need to learn and commit to lifelong learning.
Find your tribe as early as you can. Look for people on your level and people above you. I had friends who were also interested in marketing, and we held each other accountable, sharing things that we had learnt. I followed senior marketers on LinkedIn to see the skills I could learn, joined their webinars, and asked questions in their DMs.
So, join communities and find your tribe as early as you can.
How do you think marketers can effectively handle the AI revolution and stay ahead of the curve?
AI is not the enemy. Anyone who knows what they're doing as a marketer should not be scared of AI. Personally, I am happy AI is coming into play. As a marketer, AI makes you superpowered and increases your productivity.
What you need to do as a marketing professional is consider how you can take advantage of AI tools. Whenever a new AI tool is shipped, what I think is, 'how am I going to leverage this to make my work easier?’ For example, ChatGPT can critique images you upload and proofread your copy. If you want to do programmatic SEO, where you’re spilling out hundreds of web pages and writing dynamic copy for each, AI can make it faster. Imagine you’re a one-man marketing team and you need to create hundreds of web pages, it would have taken so much time before AI. Now, with AI tools, you can do that in days.
Leverage AI to improve your work because, with the way the world is going, you need to stay ahead of the curve. Personally, I use AI in my day-to-day work and it makes me more productive. Things that would typically take 10 hours are now completed in a few hours. At the end of the day, companies care about results. How you did the work comes after the result.
In your experience, what is one job search hack that has worked for you?
The biggest job search hack is investing in your network. This will plug you in faster. Imagine applying for a job thousands of people are also interested in; the chances are slimmer that way. Your chances are better if someone refers you or reaches out to you directly. It is better to have inbound requests or be referred by someone than to do outbound applications.
I never applied for my last 3 jobs, I got the job offers in less than 30 minutes after getting on a call with the recruiters. I built credibility online. For my current job, the CEO reached out to me, mentioned he liked my work, and asked if I was interested in a new role. I was also referred for my previous job at Simpu.