Various brands usually rely on experienced marketers to help them build brand awareness and name recognition to generate more sales. Anyone can claim to be a marketer, but it takes experience and expertise to deliver excellent work to a client. As Ali Ahmed Almohannadi, an award-winning marketing expert, knows only too well, marketing requires hard work, dedication, and lots of research.
Almohannadi, who was born in Al Khor, Qatar, in 1992, did not initially start in marketing. After high school, he pursued a degree in Analytic Chemistry and Forensic Science at Coventry University in the United Kingdom, graduating in 2017. Soon after, he decided to change his career from a science-oriented one to a business one. His dedication to marketing and management saw him go back to school to gain the requisite knowledge. He got a Higher National Diploma in Business Management from Wolverhampton University in the UK in 2017, and later pursued an MS in Marketing from the University of Sussex, graduating this year. Switching from science to marketing was a liberating decision for him, as he was finally doing what he loved, and even enjoyed going to work.
Doing marketing was not a random decision for Almohannadi—the seeds had been planted in him as a 15-year-old boy helping at his uncle’s company. He gained the experience and communication skills that were instrumental years later when he was building his business. As an adult, he realized his passion for marketing and management when he was helping his friends by managing their social media accounts and increasing their target audience.
Eventually, Almohannadi founded Kinfolks Co, a marketing and management firm that works to deliver solutions to create a connection between a brand and its clients. Kinfolks Co is involved in both online and offline marketing, branding and strategy, web and mobile app development, among others. The company has worked with magazines, such as Fact magazine and Oh La La magazine, growing their readership exponentially. The company has also worked with global and well-known brands, such as the Mondrian, Rotana, and Alrayyan (Hilton brand) hotels in Doha. Working with such global hotels requires an in-depth knowledge of the hotel’s brand requirements and insights into the purchasing power and habits of their current and potential customers to tailor a marketing strategy that suits them.
Once you know the brand’s requirements and the target market, Almohannadi advises any marketer to research into the type of marketing that they will do. They can choose to do online marketing via advertisements on various websites, via social media, billboards, amongst others. All this is dependent on the target market of the brand. According to Almohannadi, working closely with and getting feedback from the brand is necessary throughout all the stages of marketing, starting from understanding their needs to customizing a strategy plan to the design stage. This way, any changes can be done immediately.
As someone who has several awards for his work in the marketing industry and who has even appeared on Alrayyen TV and Qatar TV, Almohannadi is a fountain of knowledge for anyone who wants to be an expert in marketing.