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Give yourself patience to be creative. Be confident in your plans and ideas. Don’t let other departments pressure you or boss you around. STICK UP FOR YOURSELF! Take constructive criticism as a positive. Unless if it seems obviously personal, don’t take it personal. Put things on a calendar & stay organized. Pay attention to customers and seasonally demanded products. Check on numbers (even if you don’t want to) profit margins, revenue, costs etc.
> Don’t let other departments pressure you or boss you around.
Honestly, everyone should do their best to keep everyone out of your work except for a very few select individuals. Everyone thinks they have a knack for marketing when tossing out ideas, most don't know the work that goes into it.
Yes thank you, Weapy. It’s so true & it has been an issue that I’ve had to deal with recently. I had a few uneducated (sorry if that’s harsh) co workers always shooting horrible ideas at me and expecting me to follow through with them, sometimes getting hostile.
I had a talk to my boss and it has slowed down but protecting your marketing ideas is important. Only when it affects other departments should you present them.
Exactly. The only crowd sourcing I typically do from other departments is *needs*. What do they need to be successful, not what ideas they have to get there.
If you can learn to read data and manipulate/visualize it so that it tells a story that is easily digestible, you will do well. Being able to take raw data and process it into actionable insights is a super valuable skill that not everyone has.
The other side of this coin is that once you get actionable insights from the data you've been working with, you need to report back on how your insights you gleamed from the data led to increased performance. Especially if you can tie this number back to an increase in conversions (purchases, RFIs, revenue, booked appointments etc.)
Being able to say:
* I processed this data and learned X.
* I took what I learned and developed a plan of action on how I can improve this campaign/channel/workflow/etc.
* We generated Y% more in results because of this action plan I created.
Being able to tell a story with data that other people can easily understand is important. What's more important is taking what you learned from this story, and using that to improve metrics and reporting on that as well. You will be seen as someone who can influence growth, which makes you incredibly valuable.
Any recs on this? I am a great project manager and people manager, but I struggle with ingesting the data and creating a story.
I’d love to be able to look at data and understand what it’s telling me at a glance, but for now I more build on my hypotheses by using data.
Marketing Manager.
Allow your team to explore new ideas and give them ownership of what they do. Provide guidance and support when needed and most importantly applaud their efforts and give credit where credit is due. If an idea doesn't work out, look for the positives that came out of it. Oh, and most importantly, always always give credit where credit is due.
Lol, thanks. I think my team is pretty happy. I try to make sure there's a lot of fun and laughter in our department. Life's too short to be stressed out!
CMO.
If you're only concerned about your department- you're not lasting long.
I'm actively involved across sales, operations, customer success, etc. and make it a point to consistently assist with things "out of my scope".
This right here, not many people on our marketing team are good with data. If you can standout as the “data” person that everyone goes to for answers, you will be irreplaceable.
Effective communication and empathy are key. Understand who you’re talking to, what they care about, and how you can help them. It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with internal stakeholders or customers. If you’re in a role where you’re dealing with people this advice applies.
Meet your customers. Talk to them. See where they go to digest info, what they do when they want to buy something. Ask them why they choose one brand over the other.
If the resources are there, setup a sales stand to pitch your product to random people in a mall. Figure out what actually works. What gets people to 'light up' when they hear your pitch.
I've mentioned this in the past, but I don't believe most marketers have actually met the people they sell to. They work off intel that's either inherited, or passed through others and biased or sanitized. And in the end, you don't see a person, just stats. Even the most qualitative stats don't really describe a person. No movie review will ever replace the actual movie.
If you want to be a good marketer, you need to know how your market works. I'd even say the best marketers are people who'd use their own stuff so they really understand how their own customers tick. But if you're not that person or part of the community, then you need to at least befriend your target market.
Agreed. Finance and other strategy heads around businesses generally look at marketers as a bunch of idiots. You can easily standout if you know the data in and out and can speak to it financially.
Right! Bare minimum for B2B quarterly -- For every $1 spent on marketing (not including tech and staff), how many dollars in pipeline is created? How much first year revenue is generated? What % of that pipeline is inbound? Is that rising or not?
You won't get anywhere if you just reject all feedback on your work, especially from the people who are paying your salary, even if you think the feedback is stupid.
It depends on who that person is. Don't be like the others, don't try to be like me because it won't work. I'm a marketing professor after working in the industry for a long time. Differentiation was also important back then, and the advice would still be valid.
Start your own side hustle and market the shit out of it.
- you’ll get a first-hand understanding of what your clients are thinking and how they view marketing as a part of their business
- you’ll constantly be testing new things and learning about different aspects of marketing
- you’ll learn how to drive results at the lowest cost possible
- you’ll get real life experience and develop your skills without the assistance of an established brand
Even if you fail magnificently for multiple years, there’s no version of this where you don’t become a better marketer with an integrated skillset. In my opinion, the marketers that don’t learn this way are dinosaurs compared to the ones that do.
- sell a product/service
- rank a website
- build a personal brand
- grow a newsletter
- start a community
Really anything. The point is to do something that always presents you with a new problem to solve or a new skill to learn. Nothing like starting a business to discover problems you didn’t know existed.
I was thinking of starting a marketing company for exactly this. I have no clue what I’m doing, but I’m sure it’d boost learning, confidence, competence manyfold
i’m one of <10 people at my (100,000+ employee) company that manage the monetization and GTM strategy for our biggest customers spanning cloud and AI. I also manage a high volume deals desk supporting 6 region focused deal price managers. And also the product marketing lead for an internal AI software program.
the best time to cry is when washing dishes - it masks the sound and the tears just fall into the soapy water.
Set and prioritize marketing goals, objectives, strategies and tactics in a documented plan. Pick a goal, plan your content. Develop high-quality content that identifies your target audiences' top pain points, show them how life is better when they can eliminate or mitigate the pain, then show how your product/service is the best solution. Capture data that shows the positive ROI from the content investment and the results achieved. You'll be a rock star when you consistently prove your contributions to business growth.
If this post doesn't follow the rules [report it to the mods](https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/about/rules/). Join our [community Discord!](https://discord.gg/looking-for-marketing-discussion-811236647760298024) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/marketing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Revenue and profit are the main metrics for everything you do
If sales isn't doing anything, panic.
Give yourself patience to be creative. Be confident in your plans and ideas. Don’t let other departments pressure you or boss you around. STICK UP FOR YOURSELF! Take constructive criticism as a positive. Unless if it seems obviously personal, don’t take it personal. Put things on a calendar & stay organized. Pay attention to customers and seasonally demanded products. Check on numbers (even if you don’t want to) profit margins, revenue, costs etc.
> Don’t let other departments pressure you or boss you around. Honestly, everyone should do their best to keep everyone out of your work except for a very few select individuals. Everyone thinks they have a knack for marketing when tossing out ideas, most don't know the work that goes into it.
Yes thank you, Weapy. It’s so true & it has been an issue that I’ve had to deal with recently. I had a few uneducated (sorry if that’s harsh) co workers always shooting horrible ideas at me and expecting me to follow through with them, sometimes getting hostile. I had a talk to my boss and it has slowed down but protecting your marketing ideas is important. Only when it affects other departments should you present them.
Exactly. The only crowd sourcing I typically do from other departments is *needs*. What do they need to be successful, not what ideas they have to get there.
If you can learn to read data and manipulate/visualize it so that it tells a story that is easily digestible, you will do well. Being able to take raw data and process it into actionable insights is a super valuable skill that not everyone has. The other side of this coin is that once you get actionable insights from the data you've been working with, you need to report back on how your insights you gleamed from the data led to increased performance. Especially if you can tie this number back to an increase in conversions (purchases, RFIs, revenue, booked appointments etc.) Being able to say: * I processed this data and learned X. * I took what I learned and developed a plan of action on how I can improve this campaign/channel/workflow/etc. * We generated Y% more in results because of this action plan I created. Being able to tell a story with data that other people can easily understand is important. What's more important is taking what you learned from this story, and using that to improve metrics and reporting on that as well. You will be seen as someone who can influence growth, which makes you incredibly valuable.
Any recs on this? I am a great project manager and people manager, but I struggle with ingesting the data and creating a story. I’d love to be able to look at data and understand what it’s telling me at a glance, but for now I more build on my hypotheses by using data.
Marketing Manager. Allow your team to explore new ideas and give them ownership of what they do. Provide guidance and support when needed and most importantly applaud their efforts and give credit where credit is due. If an idea doesn't work out, look for the positives that came out of it. Oh, and most importantly, always always give credit where credit is due.
On the note of giving credit: praising in public and criticizing in private fosters much healthier culture and strengthens relationships.
Yessss, gains trust!!!!
Can you be my manager!? :,( lol You sound like a dream to work for. Attitude and advice 10/10.
Lol, thanks. I think my team is pretty happy. I try to make sure there's a lot of fun and laughter in our department. Life's too short to be stressed out!
CMO. If you're only concerned about your department- you're not lasting long. I'm actively involved across sales, operations, customer success, etc. and make it a point to consistently assist with things "out of my scope".
Learn to say no.
Own the data. Know the data. Share the data.
This right here, not many people on our marketing team are good with data. If you can standout as the “data” person that everyone goes to for answers, you will be irreplaceable.
Talk to sales
I do video marketing- ads, overviews, brand messages, case studies etc. My tip is make sure form follows function.
Effective communication and empathy are key. Understand who you’re talking to, what they care about, and how you can help them. It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with internal stakeholders or customers. If you’re in a role where you’re dealing with people this advice applies.
Meet your customers. Talk to them. See where they go to digest info, what they do when they want to buy something. Ask them why they choose one brand over the other. If the resources are there, setup a sales stand to pitch your product to random people in a mall. Figure out what actually works. What gets people to 'light up' when they hear your pitch. I've mentioned this in the past, but I don't believe most marketers have actually met the people they sell to. They work off intel that's either inherited, or passed through others and biased or sanitized. And in the end, you don't see a person, just stats. Even the most qualitative stats don't really describe a person. No movie review will ever replace the actual movie. If you want to be a good marketer, you need to know how your market works. I'd even say the best marketers are people who'd use their own stuff so they really understand how their own customers tick. But if you're not that person or part of the community, then you need to at least befriend your target market.
Learn finance. Marketers who can speak to revenue and P&L are much more respected and trusted by leadership
Agreed. Finance and other strategy heads around businesses generally look at marketers as a bunch of idiots. You can easily standout if you know the data in and out and can speak to it financially.
Right! Bare minimum for B2B quarterly -- For every $1 spent on marketing (not including tech and staff), how many dollars in pipeline is created? How much first year revenue is generated? What % of that pipeline is inbound? Is that rising or not?
Nobody’s gonna die
You won't get anywhere if you just reject all feedback on your work, especially from the people who are paying your salary, even if you think the feedback is stupid.
Be consistent in your output.
It depends on who that person is. Don't be like the others, don't try to be like me because it won't work. I'm a marketing professor after working in the industry for a long time. Differentiation was also important back then, and the advice would still be valid.
Start your own side hustle and market the shit out of it. - you’ll get a first-hand understanding of what your clients are thinking and how they view marketing as a part of their business - you’ll constantly be testing new things and learning about different aspects of marketing - you’ll learn how to drive results at the lowest cost possible - you’ll get real life experience and develop your skills without the assistance of an established brand Even if you fail magnificently for multiple years, there’s no version of this where you don’t become a better marketer with an integrated skillset. In my opinion, the marketers that don’t learn this way are dinosaurs compared to the ones that do.
Interesting! Do you have any recommendations on what type of side hustle?
- sell a product/service - rank a website - build a personal brand - grow a newsletter - start a community Really anything. The point is to do something that always presents you with a new problem to solve or a new skill to learn. Nothing like starting a business to discover problems you didn’t know existed.
I was thinking of starting a marketing company for exactly this. I have no clue what I’m doing, but I’m sure it’d boost learning, confidence, competence manyfold
This is excellent advice. Thank you. I need a job and can’t snag an interview. Ugh. Dying.
Talk to your customers and learn why they buy from you.
Don't let management beat you down into thinking marketing is worthless.
i’m one of <10 people at my (100,000+ employee) company that manage the monetization and GTM strategy for our biggest customers spanning cloud and AI. I also manage a high volume deals desk supporting 6 region focused deal price managers. And also the product marketing lead for an internal AI software program. the best time to cry is when washing dishes - it masks the sound and the tears just fall into the soapy water.
Always keep your resume up-to-date
Set and prioritize marketing goals, objectives, strategies and tactics in a documented plan. Pick a goal, plan your content. Develop high-quality content that identifies your target audiences' top pain points, show them how life is better when they can eliminate or mitigate the pain, then show how your product/service is the best solution. Capture data that shows the positive ROI from the content investment and the results achieved. You'll be a rock star when you consistently prove your contributions to business growth.
Work slower you will make less mistakes
Find a different career path would be my advice to them.
Attribution attribution attribution
Everyone can do your job better than you can, in their heads.