If you want a reliable career path without several extra years of training, consider a career in marketing. At its core, marketing is about connecting businesses with customers.
This field is traditionally associated with designing advertisements, but it also involves creating brochures, writing press releases, organizing events and managing social media accounts as well. Marketing boils down to creating a positive identity for a business.
Ultimately, you must have the ability to understand the needs of your target audience and the capabilities of the business you are working with if you want to build a career in marketing. How you develop the knowledge and skills for this career can vary. Pursuing a marketing degree helps, but it is not technically required to get you started in the field. Find out more about the path to a marketing degree below.
You are Always Learning
Marketing is unique compared to other careers, because it is nearly impossible to become an industry master. Marketing trends are not static. In fact, your marketing techniques may drastically change over the course of a few years. In order to build a successful career in this field, you must learn to be adaptable.
Identifying which trends are successful at any one time is the key to marketing success. This may sound intimidating at first, but it is important to remember not every aspect of marketing changes. For example, press releases have been used in marketing for years. The content you use in a press release may change, but the general format often remains the same.
An important example of shifts in the industry is social media, which is one of the newest marketing tools. Social media has existed for many years, but companies are still finding new ways to use this platform to reach wider audiences. Many businesses are only now starting to use social media professionally, but those with savvy marketing teams have utilized this marketing tool for years.
When you are on top of industry trends in this way, you can easily take advantage of new tools and techniques before the competition catches up. Some of the most common ways to learn marketing techniques include:
- Going through industry reports.
- Reaching out to past clients or potential customers for feedback on previous or ongoing marketing campaigns.
- Studying analytics and past marketing campaigns.
Avoid Being Idle
When you are not actively learning new marketing techniques, you also need to build your presence. To succeed at marketing, it helps to have a strong social network. Thanks to the internet and the development of social networking sites, making connections has never been simpler.
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You can easily reach out to both professionals and customers alike through these platforms. If you are not actively working with a client, you can begin to build your own brand. This is marketing in and of itself, as your brand helps market your skills to new clients.
If you are unsure where to start, consider making a blog or a podcast. Remember, your goal is not to go viral. What matters is building a social network. When you reach out to clients, one of the first things they often do is search for information about you. It looks much better for potential clients if they see you have an active presence on social media. This is especially important if you are just getting started and do not have many references to use.
Build your Cover Letter
Doing research and following marketing trends is important, but having all the marketing knowledge in the world does not help you if you have no clients. No matter how you approach marketing, building a cover letter is important. In fact, a marketing cover letter plays a much larger role in determining whether you secure a job than you might think. If you want a job in marketing, you need to sell yourself to your company. If you present a weak cover letter, the company has no reason to believe in your marketing skills.
When you approach a business, you want to show that you did your research. To do so, personalize your cover letter as much as possible with information you learned about the business, rather than relying on a generic cover letter. For example, you can mention which audiences the business currently reaches and explain how you can run a marketing campaign to reach even more customers.
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The hardest part about writing a cover letter is including details without the letter becoming overly lengthy. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources available where you can view successful cover letters to use as examples. It helps to take the time to look through a few to get a feel for what goes into a successful letter, but do not simply emulate the style. Learn the formula, but give it your own twist to personalize your letters.
Start Broad
Many marketing professionals specialize in a specific area, such as working in an advertising or public relations firm. If you are still building your personal brand, do not be afraid to generalize and focus on several areas of marketing. Even when you specialize, it is important to have a basic understanding of the other marketing fields.
Working in public relations often means recommending advertising campaigns or writing press releases. Even if you do not perform all of these duties, you need to recognize when and how to utilize different kinds of tools and marketing techniques.
Starting broad gives you a chance to learn about all aspects of marketing and can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses. If you find there is an aspect of marketing you dislike, you can move into other marketing paths.
Failure Happens
Even the most successful marketing geniuses have the occasional bad project. If you want to build a marketing career, you must learn not only how to work through failure, but how to learn from your failed projects. Reflecting on these mistakes is an important part of personal and professional growth. As such, take the time to find out why your project did not work, and identify what you can do in the future to make your project succeed.
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