Miguel Alejandro Morales is an experienced marketer, who has turned his personal passion into his main professional project: innovation and digitization through SaaS.
He has 9 years of experience in the field and is currently in charge with B2B SaaS Marketing & Digital Transformation at SaaS Rank – a company that is helping companies to digitize their businesses, adopting tools that allow them to be more productive and efficient in their operations.
Why did you choose a career in marketing, how did you start?
I have a natural love for business and technology. After my first serious professional experience in a civil engineering company, I witnessed a critical problem: how the lack of tech and marketing hurt sales. It was evident that the implementation of the right technologies alongside well-though marketing actions would create big opportunities for this company in particular.
Here and then, I began my career in marketing. This was in Venezuela. Now I live in Spain and I witness the same problem: a lack of awareness of all the tools and marketing tactics that businesses have at their disposal.
Tell us a bit about your professional path until now.
In the last few years, I offered marketing solutions as a freelance and also was the marketing director for a Dutch-Spanish company for three years. A year ago, I launched a new project with a friend and business partner: SaaS Rank. We are working to promote the implementation of tech in business, especially among small and medium organizations in Spanish-speaking markets. At the same time, we help tech companies with exciting SaaS products to have a presence in these markets and connect with end-users.
What advice do you wish you got when you started your career in marketing?
To dig into the true meaning and impact of the work I was doing then and am doing now. When I began, I could see the problem to be solved but didn’t truly believe in the value of my efforts. I was lacking faith somehow. Analyzing the available data and taking the time for interpretation can do a lot in terms of inner direction and to find the meaning in what I was doing.
Top 3 learnings in your marketing career that brought the most value?
1. Proper use of the available technologies is essential for marketing success.
2. Yet, not even the best SaaS tools in marketing will get you positive results if you don’t do the very hard work that’s demanded.
3. To be patient and get out of my own head when dedicating too much time to see results (or the lack of them).
One result you are really proud of as a marketeer
When working for the Dutch-Spanish company, we got a very large client thanks to our exposure on LinkedIn. This was after a months-long conflict against the old-school sales team who didn’t believe in what we were doing on marketing. It isn’t about proving that we were right but showing honest evidence that digital efforts have their impact and promote this kind of culture.
What’s one important B2B marketing trend that will gain popularity in 2021, in your opinion?
For me, it would be a combination of high-quality content marketing (which is lacking in B2B) and voice search. We are still craving high-quality content in B2B and voice search is exponentially more present, so I believe the combination will benefit many organizations doing the right things.
Which is the strongest social media channel in 2021, and why?
Instagram. It continues to be appealing and attractive to consume without being too much.
What would you recommend to businesses that want to grow in 2021? What about the tactics they should avoid?
I would recommend to take their brands and the way they present themselves seriously. Stunning websites, perfectly usable on mobile devices, with a strong social media game that includes high-quality design. Tactics they should avoid? Cold emails and calls.
Can you name one digital marketing tactic that you find overrated?
Email marketing. It’s way beyond abuse and we, in our daily busy lives, hardly stop to read emails except for the essentials (in my case, I can only read Morning Brew).
