Over the years, I’ve watched digital marketing evolve from something only a small group of enthusiasts in Malaysia cared about, to a career more people now view as a viable and exciting opportunity.
I first started out as a blogger, writing articles and ebooks on digital marketing based on interviews with entrepreneurs. The insights they shared from their experiments fueled my interest in learning what this could achieve for businesses.
I liked how digital marketing wasn’t about opinions of what might work, but instead, used human behavior to come to data-driven conclusions and insights of what actually worked.
It’s still fascinating to me how the experimentation process takes two different, opposing ideas, tests them separately and concurrently, and tracks how each performs to accelerate learning and growth like never before. It can conclusively show you which idea works better in the real world.
I’ve always enjoyed learning new things—and at 2X, it’s been B2B digital marketing. Here’s what my time working here has taught me.
Lesson 1: Learn, Un-learn, and Relearn
Working with small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) has taught me a lot about marketing in general, but I’ve found that smaller companies aren’t always keen to explore the full potential of digital marketing. Often, this comes down to a lack of resources or not fully understanding how it works.
And so, what drew me initially to 2X was the sense that there would be so much room to grow as a digital marketer. I was looking for a company that would allow me to not only learn new things, but put those learnings to the test.
Starting out mid-pandemic and getting up to speed on B2B marketing was admittedly a challenge (my background up until that point was primarily in B2C marketing).
However, the whole process was made a lot easier by how open and generous 2X-ers are in sharing their knowledge and experiences with you.
I started reaching out to anyone and everyone I could across the organization to ask them questions. I didn’t know any of them personally yet, but when asking them for help, none of them said no. Whether or not they had the answer right away, they were always willing to help or recommend someone else who knew it.
The 2X Citadel training program was a massive help as well, a repository of video tutorials compiled and produced by past and present 2X employees who shared truly valuable how-to information on different processes specific to their roles.
With information across functions on this platform, from Marketing to Analytics, Campaigns to Content, there’s a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips from your very first day, which I found to be a treasure trove. I spent many hours those first few weeks diving deep into these materials, which helped me ask my colleagues better questions.
The continuous learning culture at 2X represents what I still enjoy most about digital marketing—that the only constant is change and the learning never stops.
What worked yesterday may not necessarily work today, and that’s the appeal for me. It’s an exciting, experimental field that is continuously evolving. Before you know it, you start to enjoy being in a constant state of adapting and relearning.
Lesson 2: Choose Impact Over Quick Results
The problem with a lot of digital agencies in Malaysia is that they over-promise to the point they can’t realistically deliver.
Clients may not always understand the amount of work involved in projects. Let’s say a developer is working on a website and is meant to deliver a few lines of code. While a realistic timeline to deliver high-quality work would be a week, clients may not realize this and ask you to send it within a day or less.
The trouble with promising quick deliverables is that they often don’t result in lasting impact or sustainable revenue growth. These results may not even be worth chasing if the direction was wrong in the first place or if they don’t make sense for the client’s business model.
Thankfully, this isn’t the case at 2X.
Rather than promising quick deliverables and acting solely as Yes Men, we provide clients with access to highly skilled and knowledgeable professionals who measure work based on business impact rather than KPIs.
As a result, a much more sustainable marketing model is created with realistic and effective resource management. You don’t see employees routinely pushed to burnout here and work-life balance is always prioritized.
Lesson 3: Mutual Respect and Trust Are Essential
2X primarily serves tech-based companies in the U.S, who are often familiar with marketing but want to scale their businesses to new heights using data.
A client I currently serve had grown significantly in the past few years but had not fully understood what had driven this growth nor what future potential growth could still be tapped.
That’s where 2X comes in. We help clients understand what works for them and what doesn’t, build a plan for them to reach their goals, scale, and eventually become an industry leader.
Building something together like this takes trust, and at 2X, there’s a sense of mutual respect between the clients and us that creates an impactful partnership for everyone.
We don’t just act as vendors; we act as partners to our clients, working hand-in-hand to achieve something great together.
There’s a thrill I get from taking a client’s business problem and helping them solve it by asking the right questions, testing new ideas, and building something better together each time, whether that’s a website, ad, or campaign.
Why opt for Google ads instead of Facebook ads? Why explore SEO? Why would it be good for your company? Why would it match your business model?
It’s a constant process of elimination, trial, and error. And through this experience, I’ve come to understand that digital marketing is less about focusing on how you should do something, and more about paying attention to what you shouldn’t do based on what the data tells you.
It’s not every day you find a company and clients that give you the freedom to test ideas this way, trusting the process as you go.
Joining 2X may have been a leap of faith, but it’s one I’d gladly take again.
Want to be a part of a high-impact B2B marketing agency that values both continuous learning and work-life balance?