We’re looking to add a Growth Marketer to our marketing team. As a subscription-based business journalism publication, a big driver of growth has been our ability to optimise and figure out innovative ways to get new users to The Ken and convince them to sign up, subscribe and to renew.
The Growth Marketer will own one or more stages along this funnel, and will lead all initiatives to increase conversion and growth for The Ken.
For the last six years, The Ken has spread through word-of-mouth, driven by our journalism, which helps users discover us, sign up and to eventually purchase a subscription. Starting from just one longform story a day, we’re rapidly transitioning to a full-stack media company — we’ve expanded to Southeast Asia, created widely-read specialized newsletters on topics like FinTech, Retail, Green Energy etc. and developed a collection of acclaimed, original podcasts. We’ve also launched visual stories last year so readers can understand business by using the primary medium how business has always been understood—through charts. All of this has led to our journalism and our products being consumed by nearly half a million registered subscribers across India and Southeast Asia. These are our assets. It’s what leads curious, ambitious people across Asia to discover us, then try us out and eventually to purchase a subscription.
We’re looking for a Growth Marketer who can leverage these assets to increase conversions at specific points in our funnel. You’ll own this from the beginning to the end — from defining the strategy to its execution, and measurement of outcomes. To do this, you’ll work closely with talented Product Managers, Growth Marketers, developers and analysts in the organisation. You’ll be expected to have a “portfolio approach” — and create a mix of quick wins, big bets, experiments and moonshots, and track progress across all of these. This is a role that will test the limits of your creativity, analytical thinking and ambition, and will set you up for a career as a growth marketer who has demonstrably moved the needle to create meaningful business outcomes.
What you need to have
You embrace bottom-up, first principles thinking — since we are pioneers, there are few replicable templates or strategies anywhere in the world that we can readily copy. The path to build a sustainable subscription media business is long and hard and you need to understand our core strengths and levers, operate within our constraints and deliver on outcomes. This requires deep, foundational thinking and understanding of growth marketing principles and sound judgement about what is applicable for us and what isn’t.
You are excellent at sharp written communication and storytelling — the most significant lever to increase conversions is directly related to your ability to convince readers and users to take an action through persuasive written communication on our website, app and emails. Our readers love and appreciate communication that gets to the point quickly and clearly, so you’ll need this to succeed.
You are analytical with a clear eye on outcomes — a lot of what we do is based on constant iteration and experiments, and we choose to double down on things that work. To do this, you’ll need to be less focused on the inputs and have a sharp idea of which activity led to what outcomes.
You are self-driven and ambitious — the success of this role is driven by what the owner makes of it. The charter is limitless and there are few obstacles (except time and bandwidth). You’ll receive guidance and direction, but it’s your responsibility to figure out a path to outcomes.
You have an independent point of view and strong beliefs, but are open to it being challenged and proven wrong. If you rely on others to get convictions of your own, chances of success are low.
Lastly, you appreciate great writing and journalism because it helps you constantly evolve as a human being and a professional.
Your team
You’ll work closely with other Growth Marketers at The Ken, who will be your peers. All Growth Marketers have their core areas of responsibility. In some situations there may be some overlap across verticals or products, you’re expected to figure out and create ownership structures collaboratively.
In addition, you’ll be giving and receiving feedback on product features, creating and maintaining a growth experiments calendar, and driving execution and alignment with other members in the marketing team. Over time, though, it will be up to you to decide and make a case for how the Growth Marketing function at The Ken ought to grow.
It’s important to note that we take pride in hands-on execution across all levels, from founders to interns.
Other teams you will work with
The Growth Marketer will work cross-functionally with practically every team at The Ken. This includes editorial, product, engineering, design, sales and the leadership teams. Most teams will see you as the owner for our growth, and often you’ll need their buy-in and investment of time, so it’s up to you to build a rapport with them and figure out how to get this done.
In addition, you’ll also be expected to provide regular updates about successes and failures to the leadership team, and solicit feedback in return.
You’ll report to the Chief Operating Officer of The Ken
What a typical week may look like
The week will start with a marketing review meeting where you share progress and impact for the previous week and what experiments and milestones you intend to achieve in subsequent weeks. You may be required to do a deep-dive on things that didn’t work, and you’ll receive feedback. You’ll also get a sense of the organisational priorities so you can make informed growth marketing decisions.
You’ll also be expected to attend a weekly sync with the product and engineering teams where you’ll pitch requirements and justify why it needs to be a part of the roadmap. We follow an agile system of execution, and our sprint runs for two weeks, so you’ll be expected to plan your tasks and execution, so you won’t be completely blocked on the product and engineering team.
Once a fortnight, you’ll setup and run a business review meeting where we’ll run through growth and marketing metrics across the board and track progress against our goals.
In addition, you’ll have to set up a predictable cadence for generating and sharpening ideas with your team members and to solicit feedback from your manager and peers.
Once a quarter, you’ll have a performance review against your OKR progress, along with senior leadership, and you’ll receive both praise for progress and suggested tweaks for improvement.
Towards the end of the week, you might be preparing a brief session for the weekly All-Hands, talking about some upcoming experiment or drawing attention to the performance of a key feature.
What you are responsible for
The impact delivered by the Growth Marketer can be looked at across four broad areas:
- Outcome : Own the building, iteration and results of experiments and bets that drive conversion for specific funnel stages.
- Execution : Create a regular cadence of execution and planning that balances quick wins and long-term bets.
- Tracking : Deeply understand what’s working and what needs attention in order to meet your goals.
- Communication : Constantly and proactively inform the rest of the organisation and influence stakeholders to make decisions on your proposed plan of action.
Experience
You have at least 2+ years of experience as a Growth Marketer at innovative and dynamic organisations, preferably at a start-up. To succeed in this role, you’ll need to have a combination of analytical thinking and execution and crisp written communication, so we’ll expect you to have demonstrated the same in your previous role.
Other desirable traits
- Bias for action. It’s important to think and strategize. It’s even more important to do things, even when we don’t have enough time to analyse everything. We prioritise execution and work in short, quick turnaround cycles.
- Independent minded. Having strong points of view, which can be backed by intuition, observation and data, and the ability to communicate this persuasively.
- A feedback mentality, backed by the belief and practice of faster and better feedback loops in ideas, processes, and relationships
- Adaptability in the face of evolving goals and changing subscriber patterns. And tenacity and perseverance with respect to goals, metrics and plans.
- High standards of excellence, both at a personal and team level. Blended with leading-edge thinking, this creates a virtuous cycle of innovation and improvement for others too.
What you’ll get
One of our tenets is to offer the most competitive salaries and meaningful benefits we can to our colleagues.
- Great salaries
- The latest Apple MacBooks
- A flat, non-hierarchical and open culture
- A universal ESOP plan
- Health insurance for you and your family
- Cutting-edge learning opportunities, whether it be on journalism or subscriptions products
- Unlimited leaves
- Company-sponsored therapy
