More about me
I am a Digital Marketing Specialist based in Munich, Germany. I was born in 1979 in Fuerth (a town close by Nuernburg, Germany) and was raised by my parents in Munich. By the way, there is are two simple reasons why I am publishing all my content in English instead of German, even so it’s not my mother’s tongue: REACH and MY GOAL to move to the States one day.
My passion besides Digital Marketing with a strong focus on SEO, Social Media and Analytics is Martial Arts and Photography. I am training Aikido and Iaido on (almost) a daily basis @KenBuKai Dojo and Photography is something I always try to do as far as my time allows me to.
My professional development
To keep things straight from the very beginning: I am a huge fan of “learning by doing” because this is the best way in my experience to really dig deeper into a specific topic. No matter if it comes to your profession or something you love to do. That’s the one and only explanation why I had some detours in my career.
- 1999: End of my “career” at school and beginning of my civil service (which is the only option you could choose instead of going to the army in Germany at that time).
- 2000 – 2002: Studying Graphic Design at a local marketing and advertising agency in Munich (if I had not decided to teach myself all the important stuff – I would not have learned half as much as I did).
- 2002 – 2004: I worked as a freelancer pretty much 24/7 until the financial crisis hit Germany and I had to do something about it because since companies stopped spending money on advertising and marketing first.
- 2004 – 2005: Worked at a smaller marketing agency as IT specialist.
- 2005 – 2008: I worked as an art director for one of Europes biggest electronic retailer – you know the red one ;-).
- 2008: I spent some time at a telephone company in Munich also as an Art Director, met my wife and decided to move to her home town Schwaebisch Hall.
- 2008 – 2010: I worked as an Online Marketing Specialist at a huge printing company that produced marketing materials in Schwaebisch Hall.
- 2010 – 2011: Moved back to Munich due to an interesting job offer that I received from an agency that cared about SEO and PPC (SEA).
- 2011 – 2013: Worked for a client of that agency as Director Online Marketing and cared about campaigns, SEO, content building, Social Media and all other Online Marketing activities.
- 2013 – 2014: I spent some time in a smaller marketing agency to build up their online business.
- 2014 – 2015: Had a great time at the international agency with the unicorn in their logo as a Senior SEO Consultant but moved on to Germanys biggest private held marketing agency due to an interesting offering from their side.
- 2015 – 2018: Worked as a Head of SEO and Director of SEO and Analytics for several clients under the name of the group of agencies united under the roof of ServicePlan and Plan.Net.
Now it’s 2019 and I am focusing on developing my own career while working for several clients and an international performance marketing agency from Canada. It’s the time for me to step up and take a whole new approach for my career.
Get your basics straight first – care about the fancy stuff second!
My personal goals and plans
According to my understanding, you have to change your mindset to be able to evolve. You have to stay curious and you should be on the giving side instead of the pure receiving side. The only chance you have as an individual to stay on top of the game and to acchieve the biggest goals you ever dreamed of, is to build your own personal brand.
Besides that I am training a lot for my 1st Dan (jap. 初段, Shodan) graduation in Aikido (On the left, you can see my name in Katakana – this is what will appear on my blackbelt in Aikido quite soon. ベン マイナー is how it’s written.) and my 1st Kyū (jap. 一級, Ikkyū) graduation in Iaido.