Navigating a career in marketing is incredibly hard. You need to stay up on the latest trends, understand consumer habits, and constantly evolve with the market. As a millennial, it may be in your nature to keep your finger on the pulse, but in order to be a successful marketing professional, it takes a lot more than that.
Marketing has taken various forms over the years and has evolved specifically in terms of how we can analyze and understand consumer habits. Instead of surveys or yearly or quarterly reports, we can use digital analytic tools to better understand the consumer.
Instead of becoming overwhelmed by the data you should embrace new methods and take this marketing career advice.
Evolve in your Space
If you’re already working in marketing, there’s a good chance that your organization has a pretty specific role for you. If you’re aspiring to move into another industry or want to change your role in an organization, it’s important not to stagnate because of what you are currently doing. Christine DeYoung, Executive Vice President of Consumer, Private Equity, and Marketing Practices at DHR International says, “Too often when we speak to candidates they are ‘ready and interested’ in another CMO or General Management role, but they really don’t yet have or haven’t recently exercised the skills to be considered as a relevant candidate. For instance, if you want to be a CMO in a primarily omni-channel or online business, you have to ensure you are on the cutting edge of thought leadership and technologies. If you aren’t and aspire to be, take action–go to digital and ecommerce conferences and workshops, meet with agencies that a CMO wouldn’t typically go to and dive deep into the subject matter.” Don’t let your current job get in the way of your future goals. If you want to move inside of marketing, whether it be at the same organization or at a new company, make sure that you are doing what you need to in order to get there.
Evaluate and Understand Raw Data
In 2015 digital marketing has become a crucial tool for marketers in terms of evaluating consumer habits and desires. In a Thinkvine survey 1/4th of 200 senior level marketing executives said that their digital marketing budget is already higher than their traditional marketing budget. 31% also said that they believed that digital marketing would surpass traditional in this year.
It’s important as a marketing professional you use all the tools at your disposal in order to gather data on the consumer. This can come in various methods like e-mail, digital surveys, and social media but make sure that you are appropriately evaluating it. There’s so much data that is received and recorded, but only a fraction of it is actually useful. When using data to project finances or buying habits, make sure that you are using the right set of data. Lastly, it’s important to jump on trends before they begin trending, or your strategy could become outdated before it is even implemented.
Market your Own Brand
It’s more important to promote yourself now than it ever has been in the past. By using social media and being aware of your online fingerprint you can ensure that you have your own faithful network.This will make transitioning to another position much easier, and will also give you unique insights on trends and give you a good sense of the market.
Brand the Consumer Interaction
Consumers care about the interaction they have with a company or organization. For that reason, marketing often permeates into other parts of a business. The way that the customer interacts with an employee is as important as how you market your product or service to them. Keep that in mind and work cross-department in order to expand your abilities and experience. Increasingly marketers will be given the task to create strategies around customer service and interaction.
There are more aspects of managing and improving your marketing career. I highly recommend attending an eMetrics summit, or XChange Conference. Additionally you can visit the KissMetrics blog to get more information on digital marketing. Use these tips to maintain and improve your marketing career, and always remember to keep a finger on the pulse of the market.
