On a path fraught with loss and dilemma, Lini Reghunath refused to lay down her armour. The seasoned digital marketing consultant tells Behnaz Sanjana how she met with freedom on the other side of fear.
The year 2015 brought an already worn-out Lini to a career crossroads. The company at which she had been general manager for eight years, had to shut down due to unwarranted trouble.
“This was another blow in my life; I’d lost my husband just a few years before this, and then I’d lost years of hard work and savings,” says Lini, who felt caught up in life’s tempest “My son was only thirteen at that time. I needed my work to allow me the flexibility to be there for him.”
And so, she took the path to starting her own venture in Bahrain. “Digital Marketing, which had created a buzz in the US, had caught my attention. My gut feeling was that I should further explore and pursue it,” says Lini, of what was still an alien concept in Bahrain. “Everyone I approached said social media was for personal use, and weren’t interested.”
The first two years were an uphill task, not having a mentor on the subject. But she persevered, reading up and partaking in online discussions and forums to satiate her thirst for knowledge.
Her diligence paid off in the third year when the region got curious about digital marketing. “Even though businesses did not understand it, they knew it was where their customers were.”
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Lini believes that the best way to learn something is to do it. She started experimenting with her own social media accounts, designing posts on Canva, which was unheard of back then.
A marketer at heart, more than social media management, it was running online ad campaigns that caught Lini’s fancy.
“So initially, I did the setu up of Facebook ad campaigns for free, to show clients what it could do for them.” A successful campaign for a renowned international brand in Bahrain opened the doors for Lini’s startup, when companies looked to her to navigate and optimise their digital presence.
The eye for design and content that she’d gained while heading the marketing and production for the print publications at Red House Marketing for a decade, held her in good stead while dabbling in the digital side of things, something Lini is extremely grateful for.
A subsequent opportunity to teach digital marketing further broadened her horizons. “In fact, I’d started out in Bahrain in 1994 as a marketing trainer,” she reveals. “It gave me more clarity on the fundamentals of digital marketing and equipped me with the latest tools, techniques and trends in the field.”
In 2019, Lini helped set up SOS Marketing in Bahrain which offers a 360° omnichannel digital marketing strategy to clients requiring content creation and the latest digital marketing and data-driven digital conversion and automation technologies.
In addition to the above, she guided projects in website optimisation, SEO, programmatic advertising, email marketing as well as analytics showing ROI.
Lini teaches the Certified Digital Marketing Professional Programme to date, alongside helping organisations forge a presence in the ‘digiverse’. “People tend to focus on social media management, which is only part of digital marketing,” she says.
“What I do for clients is first perform a digital audit for them to assess their online presence. A big-picture digital strategy and optimising their digital marketing budget is where I can help them to see multiplied returns on their investment.”
Working with clients receptive to the ever-changing face of digital marketing and keeping abreast with the newest updates excites Lini the most. “There’s never a dull moment because there’s always something new to learn within the vast scope of this field!”
So, what kept Lini going on a road strewn with obstacles? “Not allowing others to influence my judgement,” she says. “Believing in myself, my skills, and the quality of work I deliver allowed me to never give up.”
Want to spark a conversation with the inspirational Lini Reghunath? Reach out to her on LinkedIn.
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