Setting The Stage
My first day in marketing was not exactly what I expected.
It was messy, it was confusing, and I had no idea where to start. So, now that I think about it... it was pretty much exactly what I expected. But let me take a step back.
Welcome to The Road to CMO. An auto-biographical account of my experiences in marketing and views on various marketing-related topics. The gimmick here being that I'm in no way an expert on the subject. A more accurate description is that this here is a beginner's guide to marketing written by an actual beginner.
Full disclosure: this isn't my first day on the job. Nor is it my 365th day. But I consider myself green enough in a lot of areas that I thought this would be a fairly interesting exercise. And, should I ever make it to the C-level position right there in the title, this will serve as a nice little account of all I've learned over the years.
So let's start with how I got into marketing in the first place. Like any good marketer, I talked my way in.
Humble Beginnings
I started my career as a Project Admin for an internal development and BI team, helping them organize and run their projects, gather requirements, and essentially develop a process. I had no experience, and a completely unrelated degree (Music), but was given a chance and made the most of it. I worked with some amazing people on some really cool projects, and when the opportunity came to take on more responsibility I made my case and dove in.
Our team was evolving and our company had a need for someone to take over some digital marketing responsibilities. We had access to powerful tools and automation software, but were severely underutilizing them and didn't have dedicated resources to learn the craft. I stepped in, along with a few members of our team, and convinced the higher-ups that I knew what I was doing and asked them to give me a chance.
Looking back, I knew absolutely nothing. I spouted off every buzzword I had heard, lecturing our VP on 'earned media' and 'omni-channel marketing' and 'conversion rate optimization.' I didn't actually know what I was saying, or how to actually succeed in getting any of that done.
Somebody took pity on me and gave me more responsibility, and I set about reading everything I possibly could to beef up on my marketing knowledge (I'll talk about exactly where I went for information in a later post) and started building some extremely rudimentary campaigns out in our automation system. That first email send was nerve-wracking - double, triple, quadruple checking every filter and token before I hit send.
Lesson Learned
Frustration is a strong motivator. It took a long time until I felt established and even then that was because I didn't know what I didn't know. I stumbled through online resources, trying to work every new tidbit of information or actionable insight into my "process," and continued to make it work despite a clear lack of insight. But who needs training when you have sheer force of will, right?
I did apparently.
Nevertheless I'm still in marketing, and for all I've learned I'm still discovering how deep this line of work can go. It wasn't until I really took a step back to evaluate how we were doing on a larger scale that I realized how scattered our strategy had become. Oh, and that strategy? It's not like it was some documented plan, but more of a gut feeling on what needed to be tackled and in what order. Not exactly a roadmap to success.
Lesson learned.
Back To Basics
There are definitely things I wish I could have done differently, and if I knew then what I know now I would have saved myself a lot of headaches. I know they're basic, and for many these will seem like "No duh" comments, but for anyone just beginning their journey, hopefully these tips can help you start off on the right foot. Let my struggle be your guide.
So, to kick things off, here are my three basic tips for succeeding in marketing:
1. Know who you work for
It seems like a no brainer, somebody hired you for this job and there's a new company name on your LinkedIn. But this goes a little deeper than that. Yes, you should absolutely, on a superficial level, know the important facts about the company you're working for. How long have they been in business? What's the CEO's name? What are you selling? If you're working for a company and don't know those things... you should probably do some Googling. Beyond the basic information, dig deeper into the structure of the organization. How do sales and marketing interact? Who reports to whom? Who deals with the customers? Who needs to sign off on marketing-related items before they go live? Finally, get to know everything you can about your direct boss, and their boss, and their boss's boss. Find out what's important to them by really listening when they ask you to do something.
2. Pick a problem and solve it
It's important to recognize early on that there are a lot of problems you'll be faced with when working in marketing. High churn? Horrible customer experience? No organic presence? All of these are things that need to be fixed. The main issue is that (especially if you're on a small team, or a team of one) you simply can't do it all at the same time. My advice: pick one thing and focus on that. You need to build up momentum in your role and adding a mark in the 'win' column goes a long way in buying you some trust. Just make sure the problem you pick will have a measurable impact on a metric your bosses actually care about.
3. Don't try to master everything at once
There are a dizzying amount of marketing tactics and channels for you to familiarize yourself with, and the list grows every day. Don't make the same mistake I made trying to figure out every channel simultaneously and never really spending enough time getting good at one. You're likely in one of two situations at the beginning:
- You inherited a marketing ecosystem that (poorly) used a lot of different channels and you have to untangle the existing web
- You're starting (relatively) from scratch and get to build from the ground up
In either situation, it's important to keep it simple. Yes, maybe your boss is super into social media and wants to see funny cat GIFs as soon as possible. You'll likely get better results, however, if you focus on email first, let's say, and really nail your follow-up strategy to convert more leads. Then you can take the time to really nail your cat GIF delivery mechanism.
THE ROAD FORWARD
I hope you've found something useful in these first stories.
My journey is far from over, and I'll be spending some time in the posts to come covering the ground between day one and where I am today. From there it's all uncharted territory and I'm looking forward to seeing where the road takes me. I hope you'll come along for the ride. Road trips are always more fun with a friend.
Until then, keep driving.
tl;dr
Marketing is tough. Don't be a hero and try to do everything all at once. Start simple and slowly grow from there and you'll have a much better chance at succeeding. Solve the problems that matter to the people that matter. And, above all else, never stop learning.