“I’m unconventional. Nothing I’ve done so far has been something I’ve learnt at school,” says Saheli Chatterjee, who calls herself “your marketing girl”. Even though she is still in her early 20s, Saheli is already a successful digital freelancer and entrepreneur with close to five years of experience and more than 1.5 lakh followers across social media platforms.
Saheli is the founder of AmbiFem, a digital media agency, dedicated to launch management, social media marketing and consulting for growing brands and businesses. She also runs a virtual training centre called Freelance 101 Academy, where she helps freelancers scale up and achieve predefined targets with the help of pre-recorded sessions, live interactions as well as set modules on skill-building.
My Kolkata caught up with this “quintessential Bong girl” to understand the nitty-gritties of digital marketing, how she manages working 12 to 14 hours a day, dealing with trolls, her love of walking and more.
Edited excerpts from the conversation follow.
Curiosity led me to digital marketing
My Kolkata: How did you get drawn into digital marketing and strategy? Was it by accident or design?
Saheli Chatterjee: I think curiosity led me to digital marketing, more than anything else. I’ve always been very curious about the internet in general. I started off by having a YouTube channel where I used to make book-related videos. Working on the channel’s growth led me to explore social media marketing and other aspects of digital marketing and strategy.
Saheli started out as a YouTube content creator before shifting to digital marketing
Courtesy: Saheli ChatterjeeWhen I started off with digital marketing, I only worked with Indian clients. Gradually, I expanded to include clients from across the world. Currently, I’m working with both Indian and overseas clients, all of them in the e-learning space.
Content writing is lucrative in sectors like B2B, health and finance
Before digital marketing, you also worked for three years as a freelance content writer. What was that experience like?
Content writing was the very first freelance thing I did. Honestly, and this goes against what people generally perceive, content writing is actually a highly paying field, though I myself was never a very highly paid content writer. That’s because I shifted my expertise to digital marketing quite early on since I liked it better. When I was working exclusively as a content writer, I was very young and had no guidance on how to make it lucrative. But that doesn’t mean content writing doesn’t pay. It pays quite well, especially in sectors such as B2B, health and finance. As a content writer, if you can join a growing industry, you’ll be well compensated. Having said that, be it content writing or digital marketing or something else, it’s not so much the specialisation as the industry that makes more money on a relative scale.
What sort of training or courses did you take before delving into social media strategy and digital marketing?
I started marketing without any professional training and by relying solely on free YouTube content. But I eventually took a course by Marketing Accelerator Academy, which cost me almost the entirety of my monthly income back then. I decided to make that expenditure because I knew the course would help me get international clients. The course helped me a lot, and I was able to scale my monthly income to over Rs 1 lakh within three months. That’s largely because the international clients I started working with, from the US, the UK, Australia and Canada, simply have more purchasing power than clients back home.
Word of mouth marketing is the most important kind of marketing
Your agency AmbiFem is dedicated to providing organic growth for brands. Tell us why you chose the name and can you also define organic growth for us in the context of today’s digital media?
AmbiFem has two meanings. The first is that it’s a portmanteau of “ambitious” and “female”. At some point, I want my company to be involved in ventures exclusively for women, probably in the capacity of a non-profit organisation. But the second meaning, which is more pertinent to what AmbiFem does right now, comes from another extension of the name that stands for “Ambitious Freelancer, Entrepreneur and Marketer”.
As for organic growth, I’ve never actually Googled what it means! But to me, organic growth means you’re doing something that’s attracting people to you. And why is organic growth important? Because an organic audience, which cares about your work, gives you the love that a paid audience can’t. In organic growth, the feeling of community growth propels the creator further. Some prominent examples are Rachana Ranade (chartered accountant) or Aman Dhattarwal (influencer) who have developed really popular personal brands through organic growth. In the long run, organic growth also matters because it facilitates word of mouth marketing, which is the most important kind of marketing in my opinion.
Saheli explains that creators like Aman Dhattarwal are so popular because of organic growth
YouTubeI also take inspiration from the comments section on my posts
Apart from your strategy and marketing work, you also create content on your social media, especially for Instagram through reels and videos. How difficult is it to keep coming up with new ideas for content? Do you feel zapped or jaded at times?
Once in a while, I do feel jaded or uninspired. That’s when I pause creating content for some time. But I’ve never really given myself the pressure of creating content everyday or being extremely consistent with my frequency, which is also why I’m able to stay creative when I do post. Sometimes I also take my inspiration from the comments section on my posts, even the nasty comments. For example, there was a post I had made about how to grow your income just by Googling efficiently, and some people made comments suggesting that I’m earning by using things like OnlyFans (an adult content subscription service). While I found this really disrespectful, I decided to make content out of it, instead of getting mad. So I made a reel that said “it’s not OnlyFans, it’s OnlyFreelancing.”
By not putting pressure on herself to create constantly, Saheli is able to come up with newer ideas for her content
Courtesy: Saheli ChatterjeeThere’s a lot of unnecessary sexualisation of female creators
In what seems to be a growing problem, content creators are having to contend with persistent trolling. This seems to be worse for female creators, something that was also evident in the case of the OnlyFans comments. How do you cope with such misogynistic trolling?
I’m someone who takes criticism very seriously, but baseless criticism, or trolling, angers me. On most days, I try not to pay too much heed to trolling, but sometimes it does get to me because trolling can be quite disturbing.
As for the misogynistic trolling, there’s definitely a lot of unnecessary sexualisation of female creators, which I don’t think is something male creators face. This is more so when a female creator posts something about their personal life. If a man and a woman make similar posts, the man would be seen as “living his life” while the woman would be asked about why she’s wearing a certain kind of dress or having a drink. Over time, I’ve stopped caring about these things because unless social mindsets shift rapidly, such things are always going to be there.
I chose freelancing and entrepreneurship because I get to work on my own terms
What does an average work day look like for you? How do you keep yourself motivated when you are working 12 to 14 hours on some days?
I chose freelancing and entrepreneurship because I get to work on my own terms and take breaks when I need to. I generally wake up at around eight in the morning, look at my to-do list and go on a walk with my dog. With a couple of hours of break in between, I work from 9am to 11pm. Sometimes it can be longer, especially if I have a call scheduled with international clients.
Lately, most of my work days have been 12 to 14 hours. That’s because I’ve been working on some really interesting projects, which should do well over the next few months. The last time I put in so much work I was able to grow my annual income from Rs 20 lakh to 1 crore. So I know that if I’m working hard right now, it’ll pay off in the time to come. But even when I’m working for so long, I make sure I get adequate sleep, which includes taking short one-hour naps during the day whenever I feel tired.
Which social media platform has been the most challenging for you and why?
YouTube. It’s because YouTube is mostly about long-form content, which I find challenging to do or maintain due to shortage of time.
Transformational stories work on LinkedIn, shoutouts on Instagram
Can you tell us one secret to better growth on each of the following social media platforms:
i) LinkedIn: It’s all about a transformational story, how you went from here to there. Also, the first line of your post, or the hook, matters a lot on LinkedIn.
ii) Instagram: Give a lot of shoutouts to people as they’ll reshare your content and you’ll get access to their audience as well.
iii) YouTube: Talk about your favourite YouTubers so that you can engage their followers.
iv) Facebook: If you need to scale with ads, then Facebook is the perfect platform. But it’s quite bad when it comes to organic growth.
Kolkata is the city of love
Saheli feels she will always belong to Kolkata no matter where she goes on to work in the future
Courtesy: Saheli ChatterjeeTime to learn about Saheli, the person, and your connection to Kolkata. Were you born and brought up here?
I was born in Nadia, but went to live in Bhubaneswar with my parents for six years, until my father got transferred to Kolkata. I’ve been in Kolkata ever since, which is roughly the last 15 years.
What does Kolkata mean to you? What are the things you like and dislike about the city?
I love Kolkata. It’s the city of love for me. It’s the place where you can fall in love with walks, with streets, with yourself. But Kolkata isn’t the best place to grow for someone with a start-up or an entrepreneurial mindset as it’s a laidback city. More so for a single girl, because people can be quite judgemental.
I feel at peace in Dakshineswar; love eating at Patisserie by Franziska
What are your favourite things to do or places to eat in Kolkata?
I really like going to Dakshineswar Mandir, it’s somewhere I feel at peace.
I really love this bakery called Patisserie by Franziska (on Russell Street). Otherwise, I don’t enjoy going out a lot. Even when I’m hanging out with my friends, I prefer them to come over to my house.
My parents are very understanding of the fact that I want to live alone
How important has support from family and friends been on your journey?
My family was quite sceptical when I started off, because they didn’t think it was going to work out. While they never actively discouraged me, they weren’t very enthusiastic either. Even today, they’d rather I shift to a government job. But they never stopped me from doing anything, for which I’m grateful. I also think that they’re very understanding of the fact that I want to live alone, it takes a lot of maturity for parents to get to grips with that.
As for friends, I didn’t have many for a long time, probably because I’m an introvert. But once I started working, I started making more friends, who’ve definitely been and will remain a vital part of my life.
I don’t let the imposter syndrome stop me
Even though you are quite successful right now, there must be moments when you second guess yourself, given that freelance digital marketing is not the most conventional career choice. What do you tell yourself at such moments?
I cried a few days ago because a proposal of mine got rejected. It was my first rejection in a long time and it suddenly made me doubt everything about myself. But then, I gradually regrouped and carried on with my work. All I tell myself is that it happens with everyone and I just have to focus on making sure the next thing I do works out. To sum it up, the imposter syndrome is there within, but I don’t let it stop me.
Your social media activity indicates you are an avid reader. What are some of the books you are reading right now that you would like to recommend to our readers?
I recently finished The Lost Soul by Olga Tokarczuk, definitely a book I’d recommend for fiction readers. I also loved reading The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. Anyone who wants to get better at managing their finances must read it. Another favourite of mine is The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman.
Saheli strongly recommends reading ‘The Psychology of Money’
I want to lead a movement advocating for unconventional careers
Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
Five years from now, I see myself as a successful businesswoman in India, as an easily recognisable face in the world of digital entrepreneurship. Most importantly, I’d like to see myself as an agent of change, someone leading a movement advocating for unconventional careers.
Saheli wants to create change by advocating for unconventional careers
Courtesy: Saheli ChatterjeeFinally, if you could tell something to a young woman out there wanting to be like Saheli Chatterjee, what would it be?
The future belongs to the curious. If you want to be successful in life, keep finding out how to make things work. Every time you make an unconventional decision, you’ll get an unconventional result.
