This week we feature Paul Jitta, CFO at DPDK. DPDK is a creative digital agency based in Rotterdam which delivers creative strategy and digital production for a wide range of engaging projects and products. They are designers, technologist, producers and thinkers with a shared passion for innovation and creative ideas.

In this interview, you can read more about his work at DPDK, favorite marketing tools, productivity tips as well as his advice for budding marketers.

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Your location: New York.

Your favorite gadget: My remote lights.

You start your day with: Coffee.

Your favorite time-saving trick: Combine commute/sports.

Your top 3 blogs you read daily: AdAage, Adweek and my strava feed.

A picture of your workstation or the view outside your window if that inspires you.

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Describe an average day at DPDK?

The average day is diverse, energizing and usually doesn’t work out the way I planned.

As a Founder/CEO what are some of your favorite productivity hacks?

Combine commute and sports. I’m Dutch, so like to ride a bike. Raised that way. It takes me 60 minutes to get from home to the office on an e-bike (22 miles). This saves me over 5 hours a week, I would normally need to exercise.

As a person who is well-versed with online marketing/ inbound, I’m sure you rely on a few marketing tools to automate your efforts. What are the top 3–5 tools you use?

A custom DPDK toolSalesforceMailChimp

Your company has a growing community of users. How do you use this treasure trove of customer insight to power your marketing efforts?

We use it to build relations that last. How we do that is our trick of the trade ;)

What is your strategy for getting people to your site and then converting them to a customer?

We create a lot of quality content, directed towards our website dpdk.com. Once they are there make you practice what you preach. Be consistent and pay as much attention to your own brand as you would to theirs. We want to build exceptional digital products. Our website needs to represent that. That’s how we convert to leads.

Converting them to a customer is another thing. We prefer the word partner over customer by the way. What we are looking for are mutually beneficial partnerships. Organizations willing to make a long term commitment. To build a competitive relationship.

We created a set of criteria we use to qualify potential customers. If they meet 80% of these criteria, we’ll start a conversation and take it from there.

Is there any advice you’d like to give to budding marketers to help them work smart and stay productive?

Two things. Take the time to think and balance work/life. We’re not robots.

How do teams at DPDK have fun at work/ make work fun?

Work should be fun. We’re in this business because we love it. This month are actively involved in Codevember. Creating fun stuff: https://codepen.io/dpdknl/

We also have an innovation lab. Within it we develop concepts, tools and test new innovations. Not for any client in particular, but for the fun of it.

A big thanks to Paul for taking the time out to answer these questions! If you haven’t already, we highly recommend that you check out DPDK.

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