Your essential guide to building a career in Marketing
Believe it or not, marketing is all around us.
From driving down highways and seeing billboards, to television or radio commercials and company ads on vehicles, walls and magazines, marketing is everywhere.
Even online, there are web banners, websites and emails coming straight to your inbox. Virtually all companies now have social media platforms posting text, images and video content.
All this information stems from the marketing industry’s attempt to plan, strategise and execute all to capture one very important thing – our attention!
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What is the marketing industry?
This industry competing for our attention, include organisations influencing the buying and selling process. Marketing professionals, departments, and firms influence the process to promote products for consumers to purchase, enjoy and purchase again.
The marketing industry is governed by 8Ps that describe what, how, when and why activities will be performed. These activities aim to convince consumers that they ‘need’ this product. Purchasing the product will bring personal value, comfort or benefit. These Ps of the marketing mix include:
- Product – What good or service is being featured for sale?
- Price – The monetary value attached to the product which you pay to enjoy the benefits
- Place – How, where and when this product can be purchased?
- Promotion – How do you become aware of this product and added benefits – discounts, package deals etc?
- Process – The process of getting the product from production into the consumer’s hands
- People – The people involved in producing, promoting and purchasing the product.
- Principle – The values of the company selling the product
- Performance – How well does the product perform on the market after the other Ps are performed?
Drivers of the marketing industry
The marketing industry, is influenced by factors that motivate professionals and companies to embrace changes, capitalize on emerging opportunities and refine the ways in which they persuade customers.
Technology
In marketing, there is now a distinction between traditional and digital marketing. Traditional marketing methods involved use of flyers, billboards, personal selling, direct mail marketing and press or magazine advertisements. Over time, traditional marketing has come to include television and radio commercials.
Advances in the internet and social media have driven marketing towards a new medium – digital. Digital refers to online, where companies can create social media ads, video content, infographics, websites and e-commerce platforms.
Creativity & Innovation
Marketing thrives on consistent innovation because consumer tastes, buying patterns and expectations are always changing. Attention spans are noticeable shorter.
Therefore, creative marketing and innovative thinking drives the marketing industry to develop new content, messages and strategies. Reason being, campaigns and commercials a decade or even a few years ago most likely would not have the same appeal today.
Market leadership
All marketers strive to have the number one brand in the market. This quest for market leadership drives professionals and companies to brainstorm new ideas, craft compelling messages and experiment with different media to reach their target audience.
Revenue Generation
Success for marketers means generating revenue from whatever product they’re selling. Profitable revenue figures and feedback would indicate whether consumers approve of the product and are purchasing as anticipated or beyond.
Growth of the marketing industry
Traditional to digital
Traditional marketing is still largely employed to acquire market leadership and generate revenue. However, many companies, particularly millennial start-ups are turning towards digital. Advertising has shifted from television and radio to social media platforms, podcasts and websites.
Social media has proven more cost-effective than traditional media. Organisations can also narrow their target audience based on demographics and measure engagement using a concept called Neuro Marketing. This discipline borrows principles from neuroscience to look at the emotional engagement consumers have with marketing content.
Neuro marketing also evaluates the number of shares, comments and length of time consumers typically spend looking at an advertisement. This determines if they were successful in capturing consumers’ attention and interest.
Web Analytics/Marketing Rate of Interest (ROI)
Apart from capturing attention and interest, marketers also want to know if their campaigns were successful in stimulating desire for the product and leading to a purchase. Digital media enables marketers to use social media metrics and identify how campaigns perform.
How many likes and clicks to the website were performed? How long did consumers stay on the website? How many of them ended up buying the product? The growth of marketing enables access to this information.
Content marketing & data-driven insights
Given the focus now is on marketing data and metrics, companies are constantly searching for new insights, ideas, articles and content to share with audiences.
Creating content enables businesses to educate, entertain and position themselves as market experts. Doing so, builds credibility with consumers who are more likely to purchase from companies they trust.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Companies are seeking ways to promote their content to rank high on search engines. As consumers typically only view the first page of results on search engines, companies develop a list of keywords, which customers typically use in their search to include in their content and place their organisation as the top option.
Multi-cultural marketing
Marketing has grown in that Caribbean businesses can advertise and sell internationally on online platforms such as Amazon and penetrate new markets.
Top-paying jobs in marketing
Unlike engineering and other professions, the level of compensation in marketing increases with the more skills and experience acquired.
A key strategy is, to adopt a learning approach. Consistent learning and research keeps you flexible and adaptable. As you adapt, you can be promoted to higher paying roles.
These include:
- Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
- Marketing Directors/Managers
- Marketing Consultants
- Social media strategists
- Public Relations Managers/Publicists
- Graphic Designers
- Copywriters
- Media Planners
- Market Research Officers/Marketing Analysts
- Account Executives
- Product Managers
- E-commerce entrepreneurs
Marketing Skills for CV
People usually associate marketing positions as creative in nature. However, marketing is diverse in that effective marketing requires analytical principles, technical abilities, customer service personalities, psychological perspectives and project management skills.
The skills that enhance the value of your marketing CV are:
- Interpersonal Communication – Writing, editing, public speaking
- Research & analysis skills – Gathering, analyzing and presenting market research, Google analytics and social media metrics into useful information
- Basic design skills and knowledge – Adobe Creative Suite
- Lead generation – Identifying target audiences, demographics and potential markets
- Content creation – Copywriting, video editing or graphic design
- Customer Relationship Management software
- Project Management – Managing timelines, schedules, delegating tasks and teamwork
- Basic coding skills
- SEO proficiency
- Knowledge of Social Media Publishing tools– Hootsuite, CoSchedule or Buffer
- Customer service
What should I do next?
- Read more about the New career opportunities in Jamaica
- Read more about Exciting career oportunities in Trinidad and Tobago
- Read about Top careers in Barbados
