Learning Hub | Content Marketing

The Many Hats of a Modern Marketer

What is a Marketer?

The answer to that question is not cut and dry.

In the Mad Men days of advertising, there were several people, each responsible for a different job duty, occupying the office.

The secretaries were busy-bees typing correspondence, the copywriters were in a constant cycle of writing and erasing, the artists were drawing, the account execs were wining and dining the potential customers, and the ad men were sandwiching bouts of creative genius between too many cocktails and couch naps.

Though this grand imagery still exists in many large marketing corporations (maybe with a little less booze), the current landscape of the industry and the onslaught of technology has paved the way for smaller marketing companies (Hey, that’s us!) to establish themselves.

Compare the beehive office described above with our in-house workforce of three. Yes, three people.

This smaller number means that each person in our office is responsible for several duties – wearing many hats, if you will. Marketing is now a profession that proves that you will use that random Algebraic equation you learned in 9th grade even if your primary job description is filed under creative.

A Marketer is a Scientist

Believe it or not, marketers deal a lot with hypotheses, theories and trial-and-error.

Each client, campaign, email, tagline, website, etc. is different. Though a marketer can take what he or she learned from one and apply it to another, there will be a certain degree of guessing that goes into each.

Though they may be guessing, their ideas will be based on stats, experience, goals, type of business, etc. It’s really not much different in theory from how scientists make a hypothesis, test it, analyze the results, learn from them and apply them to the next experiment.

That’s not to say that marketers go willy-nilly on projects. Their hypotheses are based on years of experience and proven results. However, some of the best campaigns come from going against the grain and trying something new.

A Marketer is a Mathematician

Marketing deals a lot with numbers.

In order to successfully understand a business’ needs and how to accomplish them, a marketer has to delve into the analytics of its clients’ companies.

They’ll look at and work with stats like:

• Site visits
• Monthly revenue
• Quarterly and yearly growth
• Desired growth
• Conversion rates
• Ad dollars
• Budgets
• Customer demographics
  • Age
  • Years as a customer
  • Average expenditure

All of the stats that marketers collect help them draw an accurate picture of the landscape of the business, which allows them to accurately configure needed projects that fit the budget and will accomplish the goals.

The best marketers learn as much as they can about each client’s business. Becoming as much like an employee as possible makes for more successful campaigns and better client relationships.

A Marketer is a Writer

A ton of marketing revolves around words, and many agencies have copywriters that focus solely on the writing aspect of the job. However, most members on a marketing team have to write at some point, and even if they don’t write a ton, they have to understand proper marketing writing in order to create cohesive projects.

The designer and developer need to keep copy in mind when they are creating and building a website. The project manager needs to keep copy in mind when orchestrating and assigning tasks.

Where writing comes into play:

• Emails
• Blogs
• Articles
• White papers
• Pamphlets
• Business cards
• Websites
  • Taglines
  • Headlines
  • Captions
  • Subheadlines
  • Paragraphs
  • Bullets
• Social media posts
• Case studies

Writing and design go hand-in-hand because the company’s brand has to be consistent across all platforms. This is easily accomplished if everyone on the team works with design, development, copy, customer needs and image, and project goals in mind.

A Marketer is a Communicator

Communication is key in marketing. Marketers need to be able to communicate with one another and with their team members in order to be successful.

Under this umbrella, a marketer plays the role of a businessperson and a strategist.

Marketers must strategically plan out a project so that it marries the business needs/goals of the clients with the proper campaign timelines and budgets. In order to achieve this, the marketer must be able to communicate to all moving parts efficiently.

It’s not only what the marketer says, but also how he/she says it. Knowing your clients well helps tremendously when deciding how best to communicate with them.

This one is big because great communication is at the root of all successful projects.

A Marketer is an Artist

Though each of the roles above occupy a lot of time in a marketer’s life, the job is still full of creativity in many forms.

From being creative with how you handle each client to orchestrating unique branding, imagery and copy into successful campaigns, there is always a chance to use those skills they can’t teach in school.

The creative part of the job is the best part for those who chose the profession because of a love for writing or design. Seeing a beautiful, successful campaign that started from a seedling thought in your head come to life on screens and paper is one of the most rewarding parts of marketing.

The other most rewarding part is when your clients are happy with the work and see their end goals met because of your campaigns.

Whether you get into marketing because you like the business side of things or you want to see your art on screens across the world, you will be much happier and successful if you can learn to see how the creative and non-creative parts of the job rely on each other.

You may have been born wearing your hat of creativity, but those other hats need to be taken out of the closet and dusted off often if you plan on dressing for the part of the modern marketer.