Marketing - an industry for everyone?It is often said that marketing is a job for everyone. Each person associated with the company who has contact with a customer or potential customer performs a marketing function. It's not just about people from the marketing or promotion department.

Marketing is not only a new advertising campaign, a series of e-mails or the current promotion this month. Marketing often permeates every aspect of a company and is part of everyone's job description, from administration to management. That is why internal marketing and official marketing training are so important.

Internal marketing is basically promoting a company's goals, vision, products and services to your own employees. The feelings and attitudes of customers towards the company are based not only on the products or services they offer, but also on the overall experience they have with the company. The ultimate goal of internal marketing is to ensure that employees can deliver value to customers as they understand and believe in the brand, goals and vision of the company. For example, an administrative person who primarily answers calls may be instructed to pick up the phone and route the calls to the right person, but in the marketing world, that person's imperative is to pick up the phone and act as a first impression and brand representation. In this way, marketing permeates all positions in the company, not being limited to just one department.

A marketer… that is?

A marketer's key responsibilities may vary depending on the industry, team size, and seniority level. The person in this position can be an individual collaborator or a team leader who manages other marketers. He can be directly responsible for creating marketing content - in the form of a website, e-mails, social media and others, or delegate work to other employees. Marketing managers are often responsible for planning and tracking the budget and strategy of the entire department, one segment or individual campaigns.

Overall, the goal of a marketer is to help the company reach its target customers andincreasing involvement in the brand. Increasing engagement can range from encouraging customers to make a purchase, building a brand-focused community, to encouraging users to sign up on portals for more information. Marketers can focus on B2C or business-to-consumer, meaning their target audience is individual customers, or on B2B, business-to-business, where the target audience are other companies or organizations.

Someone who is a specialist in a particular department, such as a social media marketing manager, may have more specific requirements and job goals and be subject to a larger marketing department. Some of the most common marketing specializations are brand management, copywriting, product marketing, social media, email marketing, growth management, event marketing, search engine optimization or marketing (SEO or SEM), and e-commerce.

Originality or consequence

In marketing, you always work with data. Therefore, a professional in this field needs to know where to get the relevant statistics and how to interpret them. In addition, many factors influence your marketing campaigns, meaning there is a seemingly endless amount of data available. For this reason, it is important to know how to extract different variables and find the keys to optimizing each marketing action.

Marketers try to build relationships between brands and customers. Understanding your brand's target audience and knowing how to communicate convincingly with it is essential. The marketing department is also responsible for maintaining the brand image. Many reputational crises are nothing more than common communication problems. Whether you need to explain a new strategy, share campaign results, or make a presentation, talented marketers are usually good communicators.

Whether it's for social media posts, a blog post, or even simple emails, content marketers need to know creative writing techniques. This type of content is what a lot of marketers do, so writing clearly and effectively is a fundamental skill. It is also important for internal and corporate communication, especially when it comes to campaign planning and reporting.

Technical skills are essential but so is having the 'spark' that helps create memorable campaigns. Ultimately, most of your marketing success lies in distracting your audience from your competitors, especially now that users' attention is more split across platforms. For this reason, a good marketing specialist must be able to think outside the box and come up with creative and unique ways to communicate and solve problems.

Preparing...

When preparing to work in marketing, it is worth being up to date with what industry leaders are promoting and trying in their own marketing campaigns. You can follow them on social media, subscribe to their newsletters, or read articles. By watching the experts, you can learn from the trends they notice or the new campaigns they launch. Many experts also publish case studies based on real brands and real campaign results that can provide deep insight into marketing strategies and best practices. You can also use a training platform run by experts.

You can also immerse yourself in the practical world of marketing by learning online, creating your own content for distribution and promotion. You can start a blog to help you practice digital marketing skills and show potential employers that you have potential. It never hurts to have a creative, freelance project to talk about during interviews as a way to demonstrate your passion, hard work, and skills, especially if you don't have a lot of formal marketing experience.

Another productive way to spend your time is learning and strengthening the skills that make an attractive candidate for marketing positions, whether it's learning about Google Analytics, a course in the Webinar Universe, or understanding the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It's worth taking an hour or two each day to pursue online digital marketing courses to improve your skills and stand out among other applicants. The lessons from these courses can be implemented in your own projects, whether it's a blog, podcast, or any freelance job.

The first campaign

The standard outline of a marketing plan includes several key elements such as:

• Summary for for management: Overall summary of the marketing plan for senior management, which typically includes a mission statement and addresses factors that will influence the project.
• Challenge: Brief description of the strategic goals and challenges to be faced by the marketing campaign.
• Situation analysis: An in-depth report on the various factors influencing the project, such as target customers, competition, the technological overview, and even the socio-political climate. Often part of this is a SWOT analysis to help assess the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
• Target Market: Identifying those people most likely to engage in the campaign.
• Unique Selling Proposition: shows how the company will gain an advantage in the marketplace and is often done by providing customers with benefits such as low prices, excellent customer service, or designing a breakthrough / unique product.
• Budget: The amount of money needed to complete a marketing campaign.
• Monitoring and evaluation: Indicators used to track the effectiveness of a marketing campaign. As long as you consider key elements like your goal and budget, you can structure your marketing plan however you like. However, it is worth taking the above outline as a reference, when deciding what elements to include in your plan.

Working in marketing can be extremely interesting and profitable, but it requires knowledge and out-of-the-box thinking. It is a profession for those who like to have a clear goal, are able to deal with crises, and above all - like to work with people.