Choosing a Marketing Career Path

Choosing a Marketing Career Path33A career change begins with a questionWhat does a PR part actually do, I asked.Without knowing it at the time, this was the first step of my career in absatzwirtschaft. The idea came to me largely by chance and my personal career development was as haphazard as a balls journey in a pinball machine. Its crazy to think that 11 years later, Im leise pursuing the same passion for bringing brands and customers closer together.As the great Steve Jobs said, sometimes you can only connect the dots looking back. So Ill share with you how I got into absatzwirtschaft and how you (unlike me) can have a well thought out career journey.Make sure a absatzwirtschaft career path is right for youFor me, it all started with a random conversation. One of my friends, a high-school senior, was planning to do PR in university. It sounded cool Id be able to talk to interesting people, appear at events, put my writing skills to work. And I wouldnt have to deal with math bec ause yuck, math (That last one didnt turn out the way I planned.) So I decided Id study the same.In retrospect, basing such a decision on a single talk with someone who still doesnt even study the profession is leid smart. Today, Id do it differently. Id talk to people. Id try to find someone in the same field, buy them a coffee and talk. Hell, I might buy fifty coffees. (Id,too, be happy to answer what digital absatzwirtschaft looks like nowadays, so drop me a line.)Can you imagine yourself in the shoes of the person you talked to? And mora importantly, do you see yourself being happy in the shoes of the person youve talked to?To answer these questions, you need to be sure what are your values and your ideal career plan. Theres a long list of exercises about professional development planningthat will help you make sure the absatzwirtschaft field is something you want to get into.I wont go into the details of how to make the final decision youre fully equipped to do it on your own. But if marketing is your thing, its now time to double down on knowledge and experience building.Pinpoint your nicheI started off my communications career in event management. To be frank, this was the first offer I got when I was a junior in university, so I didnt really give it much thought hey, its experience, right?Several years later, I realized event management is not my field. The stress of it all, the constant phone calls and the lost weekends were not something that balances itself out with the thrill of an actual event gone well. At least for me I know great professionals who thrive in such an environment.Id say I couldve figured it out earlier. But you can only connect the dots yeah, you know My point is, marketing is a big-big country. Theres brand management, corporate communications, theres promotion development, theres content, theres community management, product marketing So much to tryTo get off to a flying start, think about your core interests and how they ove rlap with different marketing sub-fields. I really mean it Create a list of your strengths and interests and compare them against the different marketing domains. Once you have everything in writing, its easier to comparecousined off on that, pinpoint what niche you might be interested in and start there.Plan how to become a T-shaped professionalThinking about so many marketing domains is enough to get your head spinning. But fear not There are only 2 fields you really need to master.Which ones, you ask? Thats a harder question to answer. You have to define them on your own hopefully, through some value assessment and through some experience.The point is, nobody expects you to know everything. You should have a basic understanding of the core marketing skills, but you should excel only in a few. Thats what we call a T-shaped professional.The T-shaped marketing professional has three degrees of knowledgeBase knowledge you need to have at least a basic understanding of these fields. They will include the oldies and the goldies like storytelling and behavioral psychology, as well as the new and trendy stuff like UX and HTML.Marketing foundation you need to have a deeper understanding of these skills, which may include machine learning, analytics, copywriting or statistics. Were now getting closer to the core marketing skills, but still, are touching the surface.Channel expertise acquisition and user lifecycle the first part of skills here is related to tactics that fall squarely in the marketer role like SEO, performance advertising or social media. The second group of skills has to do with the new trend that lets marketers work on the full customer funnel activation techniques, customer lifecycle management and more.More than marketingAs you already noticed, marketing is more than a way to attract users to our product. Its also a way of retaining and delighting those users. With the rise of growth marketing, we are expected to work on all parts of the funnel. Thats why Growth Tribe put many different digital skills in the growth marketers skills roadmapA T or a P or an MMany people assume theres only one true way of developing your marketing skills. But theres a good point made by Buffer that marketing people will do deep specializations in different fields depending on their role or interests. Heres an example of what a PR Strategists skills framework would look likeAnd heres what my profile looks likeOf course, this histogram of skills doesnt come straight away. After all, you can only connect the dots you know that already, dont you? Becoming a T-shaped professional requires experience and time not only to get that deeper knowledge but also to get a feel for each domain and learn where you thrive and whats not your cup of tea.Find the right educationIn marketing, you need to learn constantly. The field is developing so fast its hardeven for experienced professionals to keep track. So education doesnt only happen at the start of your career anymore.The good news is there are much more options to learn.No matter if Im a recent grad or someone transitioning into marketing, Id always dedicate my time to two main directions.Old knowledge that still holds upSocial psychology, influence mechanisms, storytelling, copywriting All of this is old-old news. But that doesnt make it less impactful. It gives you a strong foundation. It can actually give you an edge against fancy growth hackers who only chase short-term success.As a podcast addict, Ive listened to hundreds of interviews with high profile marketing professionals. When asked about their favorite books, they always quote some old foundational reads. Examples include Cialdinis influence, Hopkinss Scientific Advertising, and Campbells The Heros Journey.Never forget the classics. Otherwise, you risk losing the strategic perspective in a vast sea of new channels, hacks, and experiments.Cutting-edge tacticsIts easy to see the digital landscape is developing with ligh tning speed. It might be harder to comprehend how hard it is to keep ahead of the curve.Ive been in marketing for more than 10 years now. And every day, my bung consists of listening to 2 marketing podcast shows on my daily commute and going through 50+ marketing articles on blogs, social media, news aggregators.Theres an increasing digital skills gap between what you know now and how quickly the technology landscape is evolving. Heres a slide from a Growth Tribe presentation that shows pretty clearly what we mean by thatThis clearly shows that even if youre good at traditional digital marketing domains like SEO, e-mail marketing, or social media, you now need to get more technical, go into development, machine learning, and more.If youre ready to learn, here are some of the places Id recommend starting withGoogles Digital GarageUdemys Marketing coursesGoogles Academy for AdsGoogles Analytics AcademyFacebook BlueprintHubSpot AcademyThese will give you a head start and also show a qu alifikation employer youre really serious about marketing.The good news is that the skills gap leaves a lot of room for new entrants in the job force what you know and what youve done is more important than what university you went to and how many years of experience you have.The bad news is once youre on the treadmill, you need to keep running. It doesnt stop and the pace is now getting even faster.Welcome to our robot overlordsYouve already seen I mentioned AI, machine learning, and automation. Lets first get this out of the way Im highly doubtful that the marketing profession will disappear any time soon.Still, as a marketer, youll need to familiarize yourself with some AI-specific topics. On the one hand, you need to know how all of this crazy AI stuff works at least on a general level. Then, you should make sure you have the right complementary skills. You cant beat AI, so why not work together with it, providing the skills that are still hard to masterSoft skills like custo mer empathy, semantic nuance, storytelling.Hard skills like data science, discerning between good insights and bad data.My favorite data person Avinash Kaushik has a great piece on marketing career development in the age of AI and automation that will give you additional perspective.Practice is a differentiatorMy early career mightve happened haphazardly, but the key benefit was that I started working as a marketer at age 19. This gives me a strong advantage there arent many 30-year-olds with 10+ years of professional experience.So the best advice I can give you is get stuff doneFind an internship even if its unpaid, youll gain valuable experience. Whats more, youll gain inside knowledge of what that specific marketing field looks like. Youll also forge some handy connections.Volunteer at a local organization they are surely understaffed and they will gladly accept help, even if its coming from a person with one completed online course behind their back. The best option is to fin d an organization that does something youre passionate about then work is not a chore, but a pleasure.Help friends in the age of startups, you surely know someone starting a business. Help them out Its not just good karma it will also guarantee you a lot of freedom of execution and breathing room to test new stuff.You may think only paid experience matters, but youre deeply mistaken. A potential employer will recognize your unpaid efforts as proof of your drive to learn and your proactivity. Those sometimes matter more than the right certificates.Above all else, find your callingIm keeping this as the last point, but its the most important one. Find something that truly makes you happy. We have only about 80,000 working hours in our lives, so youd better make them count.Make sure youre following your Workplan and your Lifeplan and youve found a fleck that corresponds with your values. Benefits and higher pay are easy to find, but doing something that matters is rare. To find out what really matters to you, follow the steps I outlined for creating a professional development plan.And dont forget to have funIf youre just starting your career in marketing, dont take it too seriously. If you mess up and take the wrong turn in your career, you will lose some time, but youll also learn an invaluable lesson.Ive been through 7 different positions in 11 years. Still, I dont think about any one of them as time lost. Theyve all helped me learn how to better follow my passion. But, if youre looking for advice on how to change careerswith a resume or just create the best marketing resume possible, weve got you covered.Share your journeyIts hard to travel alone. So Id love to hear your journey in marketing share it in the comments