Ing. Kristýna Jordánová is an economist with a creative soul and a passion to push both large companies and small entrepreneurs higher. She graduated from both Mendel and Masaryk Universities. Here she has formed the personality of an experienced professional complemented by experience in Czech and international companies. In the latter she held professions such as marketing manager, consultant in the field of marketing and business or lecturer in marketing training. In addition to the aforementioned, she transfers experience from personal practice through comprehensive courses. One such course will take place at the Telegraph in mid-March and will be dedicated to the topic of online marketing. You can sign up for it on the Jordan Up website
.
How did you get into online marketing in the first place? Why did you decide to go in this direction?
I have a degree in economics with a concentration in management and marketing and originally wanted to go into event management. I even got a job in an event agency, where I organized big events (for example, a New Year's party at Brno airport) and weddings in the centre of Brno. But when I found out that it was 24 hour shifts, mostly on weekends, I knew it wasn't for me. So, I chose to specialise in marketing during my further studies and it started to take off. I wrote my thesis for a company that offered me a job in marketing on a DPP. The owner started recommending me to friends and colleagues who wanted me to invoice them. So I set up a business and slowly got more and more interesting projects. It suited me that I wasn't tied down anywhere and could organize my time and work on my own. What attracted me most about marketing was the variety of activities. I did analyses, made marketing strategies, devised campaigns, arranged PR, worked with advertising agencies, went to meetings, prepared content for networks, as well as made videos and took photos. Over time, people started asking me for advice and training opportunities. So I started with one-on-one consultations, followed by group training at companies, until I got to larger courses for the public. This is also where I put a lot of my experience as an event manager to good use. During the covid, everything turned even more towards online promotion and many companies found that you just can't do it without the online world.
Online marketing has been transformed by a number of factors over the past year. I would like to ask you, how do you generally assess the past year in online marketing in the context of the Czech Republic?
In general, I rate 2023 as a very successful year in online marketing. A lot of companies moved to the online world because of covid and because they saw good results, they stayed there. Businesses have discovered that those who are not involved in online promotion are as if they are not. On the other hand, of course, some companies have cut marketing budgets because of the crisis.
Thus, the main factors that affected online marketing included covid, the economic crisis, the ongoing war in Ukraine, but also various trends such as:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) connectivity and integration
- .
- Emphasis on customer empathy and corporate sustainability
- Authentic content without filters and pretence
- Video formats like Instagram Reels and live streaming (Instagram Live)
- Influencer marketing that had great results
- Interactive content: Stories with interactive elements such as polls, questions and quizzes
- User-generated content (UGC): user-generated content
- Educational and informative content
Online marketing was influenced by, among other things, Elon Musk's purchase of the social network Twitter, which he renamed X as part of the transformation. The move drew criticism from many users, with some responding by unsubscribing from the network. In 2023, a new social network, BeReal, has gained momentum and popularity, allowing people to share highly authentic content with their friends in real time without filters. It supports the trend of authentic content.
New trends enter digital marketing every year and it is essential to keep up with them. What changes and trends are in store for us in 2024?
First and foremost will certainly be artificial intelligence (AI), which is already changing the world of copywriting, graphics, visuals, data analytics capabilities, information search and more. Other trends will include personalisation, sustainability or ethical marketing. Advertising will use new formats such as virtual reality or animation with spatial illusion, which was already used last year by Converse to introduce a new silhouette for the Chuck Taylor All Star Cruise sneakers. I expect other companies to start incorporating it in 2024. The trend of video content and influencer marketing won't stop, although the latter will be under more scrutiny in my opinion. Online marketing will certainly be influenced this year by the new social network Threads, launched last July in the US and UK, which gained around 30 million users in its first 24 hours. The app is only available in the EU from mid-December 2023.
Lenka Pľutová" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="04281d1d-827b-4b4f-9006-505fc8d0b17c" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/Snímek obrazovky 2024-01-24 152056_0.png" />
Can you pick out one theme that is increasingly resonating in the online/digital marketing field?
Artificial Intelligence.
How do you feel about AI? Do you see it as a potential or a threat to the marketing industry? How do you work with AI in your courses?
Momentarily I see it as a great help, although I often fear it. So far, I find AI to be a great helper but a bad master. Everything is moving forward at such a speed that I don't even want to imagine what jobs it will soon be able to fill. I think it will be up to us humans to decide how far we let AI go, what we let it do, how we react to the content it creates. I always think of this question and how, for example, the salaries of successful footballers are most resented by those who watch matches on TV 'every day', play the footage, buy expensive match tickets and bet on the games. We show various AI tools (paid and unpaid) on our odds. We mainly work with creating text content and generating visuals. We teach how to make AI as useful as possible in your everyday working life.
Since you mentioned your courses. What is important to you when choosing a venue for a course?
When choosing a venue, it is very important to us that the space is inspiring, energizing and committed. That it is an unusual place and the space itself is unique.
What philosophy do you base your courses on?
Not only on the courses, but also in practice, we are based on holistic marketing where everything is connected to everything and the customer/client is the focus. The cornerstone for successful marketing is a broad view of the entire company or project, vision, mission, goals, target groups and subsequent strategy. We want to offer people courses with a focus, deliver information in a human way and emphasize the benefits of face-to-face meetings. In addition to valuable information, we want participants to take away from the course an experience, contacts, new energy and a desire to get things done.
What are your plans for 2024?
In 2024, we want to use the space on the course during the lunch break to do a short yoga practice and to try visualizing our visions and goals. From mid-February to mid-March, we will be taking a family trip to the island of Bali, where we would like to offer short online sessions to supplement participants who have already taken our course because they have expressed interest. By having the online courses broadcast from such a magical place, we believe we can once again offer that overlap - an experience, new energy, inspiration and uniqueness.
As a bonus, we then want to host one offline course on the island of Bali. But we are talking about the end of 2024 or early 2025.
