Digital Disruptors

Imagine a salesman who doesn't need to sleep, doesn't need to eat, and will work for you 24-7-365. This isn't a mythical creature, mind you. And it's entirely possible for you to employ this salesman. Want to know how? I'm joined by Nabeel Azeez, direct response copywriter and marketing consultant. He co-owns a boutique content marketing agency, Dropkick Copy, with his brother. And he's the author of a soon-to-be-published book on personal branding called, Dragon Energy: The Tao Of Personal Branding. (Links are at the bottom of this post.) Nabeel and I haven't known each other that long. My business partner - co-owner of Ubrik, Sheyaf Hashim - and him go way back. Here are a few interesting facts about Nabeel. He's been consulting full-time for just 2 years. And he's completely self-taught! Guess what he was doing before that? Procurement at a shipping company! The crazy thing is he doesn't just know how to write copy, even though that's his specialty. He has a working understanding of every branch of digital

Dr. Corrie Block has an impressive resume. He's been a consultant and coach to business owners for nearly 20 years. MBA. PhD in Arab and Islamic Studies. Business School Professor. Published in media and academic journals. International speaker. But to me, here's the most impressive thing about him: He's joined the best of both Western and Middle Eastern business culture, to help his customers in a truly unique way. I honestly can't think of any other local consultant with his skillset, academic credentials, and vast experience. Dr. Corrie and I had a wide-ranging conversation at the Ubrik Media office recently. I had a bit of trouble coming up with a title for this episode. We covered so much ground. The best, and most important, insight I got was the importance of thinking of business in terms of human relationships. Employer and employee. Client and vendor. Board members. Tribes. When you start to think and behave this way, according to Corrie, you activate the brain chemicals of happiness, trust, and fulf

If you live in the UAE and you spend any time on Instagram at all, Briar Prestidge has shown up in your feed at some point. She's a PR strategist who's been successful in joining both old-school (traditional media) and new-school (digital media) techniques for her clients and for herself. What impressed me most is that she walks the talk. All marketers should, this is a given. But some of us tend to neglect our own marketing because we're so busy serving our clients. I sat down with Briar to discover what's new in PR, and to find out whether or not traditional PR is dead. Click here to read the full show notes: https://blog.ubrik.com/briar-prestidge

A lot of people in the U.A.E. love to talk about entrepreneurship and innovation. Very few have actually done it. Of the few who have done it, fewer still are in a position to speak about it with authority. Some "entrepreneurs" are just in the right place at the right time. Nassim Taleb talks about "Skin in the Game." That's how you figure out who's "Legit" (legitimate) and who's a fraud. Naaz Noor is LEGIT. U.A.E. born-and-raised. Lawyer by training. Private-banker for 10 years before starting her own business, a legal consultancy. From there, Aseel Consultancy grew into F&B consulting, a co-working space, business incorporation, startup incubation, business services, and more. For complete show notes, visit our website: https://blog.ubrik.com/naaz-noor

When I asked Karl Feilder what tips he can give me to run my business in a more sustainable, energy-conscious way, he didn't pull any punches. As it turns out, we're being incredibly wasteful and we didn't even know it! From the lights we had on unnecessarily, to the room being too cold, to not carpooling to work, Karl wasted no time rattling off what we could be doing better. And the funny thing is, these are such easy fixes to implement. That's the problem with the status quo. Nobody cares. It gets to a point where it doesn't even cross your mind there's a better way to do things. Karl is the founder and CEO of the Neutral Group. To put what they do in layman's terms, Karl and his team work with companies to make their entire supply chain eco-friendly and energy efficient. Since founding his first start-up in 1990, which was sold to Microsoft in 1995, Karl has overseen the growth of technology companies resulting in three personal trade sale exits, two trade sale exits on behalf of external investors, and t

Danish Farhan and I share very similar journeys. We’ve lived all our lives in the U.A.E. and have seen its transformation before our eyes. There’s a certain kind of understanding we share when I talk about this country to someone like Danish. One that doesn’t exist when I talk to an expat. Danish is a serial entrepreneur. Started his first business at 19. Had an exit that made him a millionaire overnight. Went bankrupt over the next year. Then built back up gradually to one of the most prominent businessmen in the U.A.E. His flagship business, Xische, started off as a marketing consultancy. Today, the Xische brand is an umbrella for a number of initiatives - marketing, strategy, innovation, education, entrepreneurship, and more - working together for a singular purpose. I sat down with Danish to find out what that purpose is. Here is our conversation. For complete show notes and links to any resources discussed during the episode, visit our blog: https://blog.ubrik.com/danish-farhan

Welcome to season 2 of the Digital Disruptors podcast! In this episode, I’m joined by food blogger, influencer, public speaker, and media personality Naomi D’Souza. (@naomidsouza) Naomi is a full-time digital strategy consultant at IBM while juggling her “side gig” as one of UAE’s top influencers. As you listen to the interview, though, you’ll realize it’s not a “side gig” - she’s got 2 full-time jobs pretty much. Naomi and I have one thing in common (other than being Indian and loving to eat.) We both studied engineering (she has a MSc in Mechanical Engineering) but our professions have nothing to do with our academic degrees. She’s spoken on a TEDx stage. She’s one of Ahlan!’s ‘Hot 100’ most influential Asians and influencers in UAE. She’s been featured in so many print and digital publications it’d take me several minutes to list them all. She has a black belt in Karate. Oh, and she’s only 25 years old. I sat down with Naomi to interrogate her on how she managed to accomplish so much and how she continues

With so many startup’s emerging from the UAE, it’s no easy affair to pick something that stands out. Insydo.com has done just that, and we were here to interview the digital disruptor behind it. In case you’re interested to make best of the local startup scene, Tenaz Disadji has a few takeaways to benefit from. Click through to read more. Insydo is a platform that helps Dubai residents make decisions easier. The website recently won for Best Design & User Experience at the Seamless Awards 2017. The project launched with a campaign aimed to differentiate itself. This was entitled ‘Save Steve’s Job’. Instead of focusing on what Insydo can do for the people, they decided to focus more on the team & the character behind the brand identity. The campaign was effective in terms of leaving online users curious to know more. The challenge after brand awareness was ‘how to get people to understand the brand’ + sell the benefits. Being in the UAE, one of the biggest challenges that startups face is recruitmen

Our topic for this podcast is Branding. In the Middle East, people tend to think of 'logo design' when they hear the word branding. In a nutshell, Branding is strategy made visible through design. It is an enabler of 'your strategy' and 'how you must position your company'.   Branding has shifted over the decades. It's more 'inside-out' than the reverse. It comprises both sides of an entity. People often confuse branding with advertising. Advertising is tactical whereas branding is more strategic. Due to digital trends, in this day and time, a mere logo has changed into a living identity instead of being a static 'single form' restricted by rules. Thus, traditional marketing has come to terms with digital. [Vipul & Sheyaf exchange a few ideas & examples indicating this evolution] Next comes the Colors aspect. Vipul mentions how Careem & Meeras Holding set their identity apart in the UAE. Eventually, design keeps returning back to basics, ie. flat design. This is more or so because flat designs are

Meet the Snapchat marketing superstar in UAE’s higher education scene: Osaid Azeem. A pivotal figure at Canadian University Dubai’s marketing & communications team. Originally taken from our interview notes on http://blog.Ubrik.com , here’s how Osaid has turned an informal app such as Snapchat into a Generation Z (the demographic cohort after the Millennials) crowd puller.   How did the Snapchat ‘story’ begin for CUD? I have to be honest, when Snapchat began gaining popularity, it did not appeal to me at first sight. I immediately compared it to Instagram and found the poorer image quality and limited text off-putting. I first really experienced Snapchat through 'CUDSnaps'. It all started when I was covering our graduation event; I noticed all the students with their phones out snapchatting the event live! It became obvious to me this was a gold mine. If Snapchat is what our target demographic wanted, Snapchat is what they would get!   Did you run any activity to announce the launch? Although we did annou

Marketers need to keep optimizing their search ads for max results. Since we’ve observed a lot of UAE-targeted search ads falling behind these simple best practices, here are 11 tips to take things to the next level. Why is it necessary to enhance your Search Ads? Improve your Click-Through Rate (CTR) Increase Quality Score (for higher Ad Raking) Lower your Cost per Click / Cost Per Action There's two ways how search marketers can go about this: Enhance campaign infrastructure. In this session, we focus more on ‘text ads’. Optimize your campaign towards ROI, setup conversion tracking (we will be covering this soon) With regards to text Ads, we recommend you to focus on using Ad Extensions along with additional best practices which we have picked up over the years. Ad extensions Ad extensions help by occupying more room within the search engine results page. Who wouldn't be excited if they were offered free additional real estate? Here are a few selected ad extensions for first timers to bank upon: 1. Loca

Show Notes [00:21] Thank you to all the listeners who sent us feedback. [01:00] Today's topic - tools for digital marketers [01:40] We're going to give the top 9 tools we use at Ubrik to make our jobs easier [01:55] Ghostery is a tool created to give users an ad-free, more private, faster-browsing experience but we use it to understand what apps, plugins, and scripts running on a website. It tells you everything that's running in the background. We use this so we don't have to waste our client's time by asking them questions like "are you running Google analytics," especially since they sometimes don't know the answer and have to check with their IT/web developer. [03:45] Google Tag Manager (GTM) helps marketers do things like add analytics and tracking scripts to a website without having to get an IT/web developer to update the website manually. All you need is a one-time effort from your developer to install the GTM code snippet on your website. After that, you can do everything yourself via the GTM interfa

This episode we're joined by Ubrik's Digital Marketing Manager, Azhad Ali. He usually spearheads our performance marketing campaigns. He's been in digital marketing since 2008, when he was employee #3 at Ubrik. Now, Ubrik has handled over 100 accounts and AED 30 million in digital media spend. Time-Stamped Show Notes [02:30] Today's topic - a practical breakdown of how to execute your first Google Adwords campaign. [03:15] Specifically, we will focus on the Search Marketing Cycle (SMC.) [04:00] The SMC is a 4-step process of research and planning, execution, measurement, and optimization. [04:45] At the planning stage you figure out what your objectives are and develop keywords you want to associate with your brand, using the information you have about your business. [05:55] The difference between "search term" and "keyword." A search term is what the user types into Google Search, while a keyword is what the digital marketer configures in an Adwords account. [06:25] For example, "where can i get a part-time

Our guests today are Abdul Rahman Risilia and Muhamman Aly from Simply Digital, a Dubai-based recruitment agency specializing in hiring for the digital and tech spaces. Simply Digital is a subsidiary of the well-known Mackenzie Jones. Topics Covered What is the state of the digital and tech job market in 2017? What are the main differences with regards to hiring in this region as opposed to more mature markets? What are the main challenges faced by employers and candidates? How do local candidates compare to international? Who do you look for when hiring for digital and tech? Shady recruiting agencies and deceptive practicies Which industries are doing the most hiring in this region for digital and tech jobs? Hot roles in the digital and tech spaces in 2017 The unrealistic expectations of employers Why employers need to look at recruiting agencies as partners and trusted advisors How to get a recruiter's attention when applying for jobs The role of recruitment agencies in educating the market on trends in th

Our guest this episode is Hussein Dajani. Hussein is the COO of Hug Digital, where he's been for 2 years. He has a background in traditional advertising, made the switch to client side, then decided to try his hand at digital. Hug Digital has been in business for 7 years, with 122 employees spread out across Dubai, Cairo, and Trivendrum. If you're in the agency game in Dubai you've probably seen Hussein around.  He's a go-to expert in social media marketing and a sought-after speaker at industry events.  Topics Covered How has social media marketing changed in the past decade? The importance of agencies being transparent with clients about kpis and analytics How well are businesses leveraging changes in social media? Case study - new initiatives can backfire if not managed well Don't focus on sales. Focus on brand building Which trends are worth paying attention to? What is Hussein's approach to dealing with algorithm changes? Who are some of Hug Digital's clients? Which tools does Hug Digital use to manage

In this episode we talk about the pillars of online marketing and you need to make them all work together to achieve marketing success. Topics Covered Paid Search Search Engine Optimization Content Marketing Social Media Marketing Email Marketing Mobile Marketing Marketing Automation For complete show notes, visit our website: The 7 Pillars of Online Marketing Don't forget to subscribe to the show and leave us a rating and review on iTunes.

I love the online fitness niche. There are a ton of colorful characters and more than enough drama to keep you entertained. As a marketer, it's one of the best niches to pay close attention to. It's so saturated the marketing needs to be very sophisticated if you're going to be successful. These guys and girls are amazing at content marketing, creating a personal brand, growing an audience, and selling to their audience. Recently I came across a marketing tactic I haven't seen before - a strength coach taking email marketing and dialing it up to over 9000. His name is Alexander Juan Antonio Cortes. He's a bodybuilder, personal trainer, fitness writer, and published author. He's written for prestigious publications like EliteFTS and Ironman magazine. A few months ago he transitioned to online business full-time (he used to have a day job as a personal trainer.) After coming across email copywriting maestro Ben Settle, Alex decided to start emailing his list 3 times a day, 7 days a week. I've heard of people ma

In our 2nd episode, we introduce you to the fundamentals of digital marketing.  Topics covered: What is digital marketing? Problems facing digital marketers in Dubai Offline and online components of digital marketing The currency of digital marketing is attention Digital marketing contextualized: the marcomm framework The marketing mix Consumer psychology and digital marketing The importance of setting KPIs Our focus: online marketing Resources to understand digital marketing Complete show notes are available on our website - What is Digital Marketing? Please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on iTunes. How to leave an iTunes rating and review.

The Digital Disruptors Podcast brings you the latest in disruptive trends, tech, tools, and hacks in the digital marketing space. All packaged in easy-to-digest episodes featuring unfiltered, no-holds-barred banter between old friends. We'll also be featuring some of the growth-hackiest fresh-take-havers from the hottest businesses in Dubai. We live and breathe digital marketing. And we've over 100 businesses in the U.A.E. along the way. We are going to change the way Dubai does business. One episode at a time. Links from the show Exclusive Interview: How Jared Kushner Won Trump The White House PRServe - PR for Startups This show is brought to you by Ubrik Media - http://ubrik.com Dropkick Copy - http://dropkickcopy.com Please subscribe and leave us a rating and review iTunes - [Coming Soon] Stitcher - [Coming Soon]