Pakuma’s Career Story; Lessons from a Seasoned Executive

We recently interviewed Princewill Akuma, widely known as thepakuma, to explore his journey as a seasoned B2B marketer. Princewill began his career as a DJ, fueled by his passion for great music, before transitioning into digital marketing when he recognized his desire to pursue more fulfilling opportunities in his professional life.

Tell Us About Yourself, Pakuma

Hi, my name is Princewill. I’m a B2B digital marketer, and I’ve been in the field for almost a decade now. About 9 years ago, I made the transition from DJing to digital marketing, and it’s been an amazing journey. I’ve had the opportunity to work with tech startups, traditional companies, and several industries, including payments.

I’ve also gained experience in tech recruitment, business consulting, media, and entertainment. In my current role, I serve as a B2B marketing executive for a payment service provider.

I love to mentor marketers and anyone building their careers. I also enjoy helping early-stage founders figure out hiring for their marketing teams, looking at their strategies, and basically advising them on how to optimize their marketing approach to help build their passions.

What Led You to Marketing? Was It Your Love for Marketing?

Um, I’m not sure if I had a love for marketing when I started, but I knew I had skills—transferable skills from different things I had done. Back in uni, I kind of stumbled upon various opportunities. First, I stumbled into working at the school radio station, then co-owning a magazine, then doing a project, and eventually becoming a DJ. These experiences aligned with the digital aspect of marketing, even though that wasn’t my original focus.

As I went through life, I found myself helping friends and family figure out how to leverage social media because of my experience in radio. I had seen how social media could be used to spark conversations. Eventually, I got tired of DJing. I felt frustrated and wanted something new, something that would prove to myself that I could do more.

So, I started researching the skills I already had. Over the years, I had read a lot of Harvard Business Review and realized there was a transition happening in marketing toward digital.

Personal research became crucial, and I saw a lot of opportunities in the digital marketing space in Nigeria at that time. I optimized myself by taking online courses and watching countless YouTube videos. From there, I began creating social media strategies for the local church I was worshipping at and managing social media pages for artists as a freelancer.

Eventually, I landed my first role at a media company—one of the top radio stations in Lagos.

What Industry Do You Enjoy Marketing in the Most?

I really can’t pick or choose a favorite industry because each one has its own challenges and rewards. Every role I’ve had gave me different experiences and shaped me in unique ways. For example, when I started my career at a media company, my role was technically 8 to 5, but in reality, I had to do much more. I was responsible for growing social media pages to over a million followers, ensuring news was timely, managing interviews, and creating shows on YouTube to elevate the brand. We also sparked viral conversations on social media. I couldn’t achieve that by just doing the bare minimum.

Even now, in my current role, I was still handling tasks before this conversation, even though the workday had officially ended. Each role taught me something new. When I moved into recruitment, I had to understand both the B2B and B2C sides of business, and I learned the difference between marketing for likes and marketing for actual leads—marketing that educates customers throughout their journey. In media, for example, if I had the right story and the right spin, it could trend as the #1 topic on Twitter. If I worked with the right partner, had the right visuals, and edited videos strategically for platforms like Instagram, they would become trending content.

I remember when Skiibii’s incident happened. He came into the studio for an interview, and that story trended in Nigeria for one or two weeks because of how we crafted it. The brand I managed was the first in Nigeria’s media industry to reach 1 million followers on both Facebook and Twitter. We even threw a huge party with the fans and OAPs in Ikeja to celebrate that milestone.

In recruitment, I had to understand the challenges students face as they transition into the workforce. By the time they get to NYSC or graduate-level jobs, they’re more prepared. I remember the first time I wrote an article about CVs—I didn’t really know what I was talking about! But I did my research and, thankfully, had mentors to guide me.

Each industry has taught me something valuable, and I wouldn’t trade those experiences. If I had to work in those industries again to grow, I would absolutely do it.

Is There a Common Marketing Tactic You Have Used in All These Industries That Worked?

A common marketing tactic starts with understanding the brand, its products, and the brand’s DNA. That’s one side of it. The other side is understanding the target audience—your ideal customers and the users of the brand. If you don’t fully understand the brand’s DNA, what they stand for, what the product is, and its value proposition, you won’t be able to create strategies that align with business goals. This is why there’s often friction between marketing and business leaders who question things like clicks and likes.

You need to clearly understand your brand’s DNA to know if your campaigns will drive the bottom line and ensure business health or if they are meant to build brand thought leadership and maintain customer loyalty. Some businesses are at a point in their lifecycle where they’re not necessarily seeking new customers but are focused on maintaining relationships and staying visible in the industry as thought leaders.

Similarly, if you don’t fully understand your products, services, or solutions and how they’re positioned, your communication will miss the mark. You won’t be able to sell the benefits. Often, there’s too much focus on features, but no one cares about features unless they meet a specific need. For example, if your expense management solution doesn’t solve the headache of a CEO or CFO who needs automated payment tracking without manual input from the finance team, all the fancy tools and landing pages won’t matter. If your product doesn’t solve their problem, you’re just talking fluff.

Understanding the features-to-benefits conversion and solving the problems of your ideal customer profile is crucial. From the user-centric perspective, you also need to deeply understand the problem your users have. Without this, you can’t craft effective strategies, run successful campaigns, or properly A/B tests. I often see messages on LinkedIn when I change jobs, with people pitching without any real understanding of my company or our challenges. It’s clear they haven’t done any research to match their solution to our needs, and that’s why most of those messages have declined.

I pride myself on being user-centric in my approach. I focus on understanding who my users are, what challenges they face, and what problems I’m trying to solve. I’ve run campaigns that weren’t as user-centric and failed, and I’ve also done campaigns where I focused on being user-centric at a granular level, and they succeeded. Over time, as I received feedback, I continued refining my approach.

One example is when I was trying to grow the social media pages for a media company. I experimented with posting times and discovered that even though the company was Nigeria-based, they had a large global audience of Nigerians relying on them for news and entertainment. I adjusted the timing of posts, scheduling engagement-driven content when people in Nigeria were heading to bed, so that the audience in the U.S., who were just waking up, could engage with it. This strategy helped increase engagement and optimized content reach across time zones.

So, from a strategic standpoint, across all my roles, I’ve always tried to understand the brand, the audience, and how to bridge the gap between them.

What Industry Challenged You the Most?

Over the years, I’ve learned that if something no longer works, I’ll gladly step away from it. Early in my career, I was always trying to make things work. But if factors like lack of resources or industry conditions make something unworkable, I believe it’s wise to move on.

The first time I transitioned from media to recruitment, it was a major leap. I started as a digital marketing executive in the media industry—my first real 9-to-5 job. There were strict rules: you had to be on time, you were constantly monitored during probation, and performance reviews were an annual event. My role demanded late nights, especially as I worked to grow social media pages to over a million followers on platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

I remember my colleague, Blessing, who would handle creating much of the content while I managed fieldwork. Our work was relentless—events on Friday nights, Saturday nights, and even Sundays, reporting back on time for a full week of work by Monday morning. It was an industry that operated under unique rules, requiring a constant grind.

Transitioning into recruitment was a significant change. Over time, I noticed I was no longer creating strategies at the level I wanted. I had evolved into a community manager who oversaw content creation. The environment was different—no longer strictly B2C but also B2B. My role now involved ensuring that when sales teams brought in projects, we had platforms in place to generate numbers and results for our clients. I took the initiative, alongside a social media manager, to create these platforms—something that didn’t exist in the company before. We worked to ensure sales efforts translated into valuable social media promotions, which in turn generated revenue.

In recruitment, the KPIs were drastically different from the media industry. In the media, virality and engagement were key. If a post went viral, attracted views, or boosted a show’s reach, you met your goals. But in recruitment, it wasn’t about views alone. You could report thousands of visits to a website, but if there were no leads, conversions, or business results, it didn’t matter. There was a different kind of pressure here—clicks and views weren’t enough without retention or conversions. If an ad didn’t generate warm leads, or if the sales team failed to engage quickly enough, we were held accountable.

I had to learn new concepts like inbound marketing, how to engage with people through funnels, and how to educate HR managers, CFOs, and candidates alike. I went from attending physical events to reviewing CVs and interacting with candidates. It was a steep learning curve, and although there were times when the metrics felt overwhelming, I saw it as an opportunity to grow.

I made mistakes along the way, but I also achieved results. Each role, each challenge, has shaped me into who I am today.

Related: Why Local SEO is Important for New Businesses: A Guide to Attracting Customers in Your Area

What Do You Think Is the Most Important Skill in Marketing?

I strongly believe that writing is at the core of the entire marketing value chain. It’s not just about crafting words; it’s about understanding, listening, researching deeply, and translating that knowledge into clear, impactful communication. Without a strong foundation in writing, you can’t effectively strategize, present ideas, or create compelling messages that drive marketing forward.

Writing forms the backbone of so many elements in marketing, whether it’s content creation, crafting brand messaging, or shaping the customer journey. If you have that figured out, you can excel in various aspects of marketing. For instance:

• Data-driven marketing: Even in the analytical side of marketing, writing helps you tell stories with data. It’s not just about presenting numbers—it’s about transforming those insights into narratives that influence decisions and strategies. If you can articulate the meaning behind the numbers, it can drive better business projections and outcomes.
• Ad campaigns: If you don’t understand how to communicate with your customer avatar, your ads won’t be effective. Understanding writing and communication styles helps you tailor the message for specific audiences. You need to know how to structure language and content that speaks directly to the psychological triggers of decision-making, whether on a landing page or in a social media ad. It can determine whether or not your campaign resonates with the audience.
• Audience-specific communication: Writing helps you adapt your message depending on the target. For example, the way you communicate with a B2B CEO or CFO differs from how you address an HR manager at a startup. Even within the same role, an HR manager in a fintech startup will respond to different styles of communication compared to an HR manager at a large, traditional company. Writing enables you to craft the right tone, language, and approach that suits these diverse contexts.

Mastering the skill of writing positions you to excel across all marketing facets. It shapes everything from ideation to execution, making it a central competency in the marketing world.

If You Were to Start Your Marketing Journey All Over Again, Would You Repeat How You Started or Would You Do It Differently?

I would obviously work in the industries that I have worked in because they actually provided me with invaluable education. I really appreciate the lessons and blessings from those experiences. However, I would value myself more; I would have walked away from certain roles earlier. Even after understanding that businesses are in a difficult place and trying to manage expectations while requesting better pay and working conditions, I would have walked away from some of those roles earlier.

I thank God for a couple of roles I’ve had in the later part of my career that showed me that giving your best self to people isn’t always a bad thing. If you’ve experienced a negative situation, it doesn’t make it the norm. But, like I said, I would have valued myself more. I think I would have also stumbled into B2B marketing earlier; B2B marketing has so much more opportunity and is a bit more structured. I wish I had thought about that earlier.

That being said, I think I would have still gone through the industries I did. They taught me ownership, how to grind, and the importance of continuous self-improvement. You learn to own your mistakes and be accountable, but also enjoy your results. And don’t stop—ever. Don’t stop learning. One thing about working in marketing, especially with the advent of digital marketing, is that things are always changing. There are new demands and new technologies. Luckily, I found out early on not to follow what everyone else is doing, so I focused on my own journey because it has its own blessings.