“What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s a question we ask children, and — more often than not — we get answers like firefighter, doctor, or police officer.
Why? Because children choose jobs they think are important and exciting — jobs they believe will make a real difference.
But as we get older, we begin to reconsider our childhood career aspirations. While being an astronaut, firebreather, or wild horse tamer are all exciting options, with age comes perspective.
So where does that leave many people? Well, for those who enjoy creativity, have a flair for brands, people, products, and communication — a decent answer to the above question might be: “I want to work in marketing.”
Many of us will remember the moment we first decided to work in marketing. And at the beginning of our careers, we may have even harbored some of the same thoughts and dreams — visions of great success, creativity, and exciting challenges.
But after a few years of hands-on experience, what’s left of a young professional’s (somewhat) naïve ideas of what working on a marketing team would be like? One thing’s for certain — marketing has delivered on many of the dreams we had for ourselves back then.
And we’d be willing to go a step further by saying it’s actually getting better over time. If you enjoy consistently developing your skills and if you’re open to new technologies, markets, and challenges — you’re sure to have found your place in the marketing world.
Since we love connecting with fellow brand managers and marketers, we thought it would be nice to share some of their thoughts and experiences with you. So, we asked: “What do you love about your job in marketing?”
In this edition of our #WorkAdvice series, ten industry professionals accepted our challenge and shared their reasons why they would choose a job in marketing over and over again.
Their inspiring answers are a small tribute to our line of work — after all, brand managers are responsible for a great deal of marketing’s success! We hope they resonate with you as well!
Reason 1: “The variety of tasks is unique — and it’s always evolving.”
“I’m a marketing manager with 7+ years of experience. I like the diversity of tasks and areas in which you can choose to develop yourself. For example, you can focus on a more communicational part related to brand promotion or a more commercial side related to sales and customer relations. In addition, there are different branches within the discipline — such as International, Social, or Institutional Marketing. “Why? The study of marketing implies opening up to new views and perspectives on the world since it requires getting involved and understanding different types of audiences and consumers. In addition, it promotes creativity, and due to constant innovations in its field, it forces professionals to always remain informed and updated.” “Some of my responsibilities include posting on social media, working on blogs, creating ads for Facebook, working on the newsletter, and helping in the creation of various projects. The number one thing I love about these tasks is the creativity, freedom, and autonomy involved. What I mean by this is I can create and write about whatever I deem appropriate as there’s no overly strict template for me to follow. “This is because my boss trusts me to make the right decision, so there’s a lot of self-governing on my behalf. She doesn’t watch over my shoulder as I write every single word because she knows that I understand our audience. I’m someone who works at my very best without a person breathing down my neck, so a business relationship that’s built on faith in my abilities is absolutely perfect.”
Reason 2: “If you like working with and for people, this is the place to be.”
“It’s a bit of a love/hate relationship, but the changing digital landscape is always so fascinating. What new platform is coming out to shake up the old tried and tested ways? “Working in marketing always keeps you on your toes. When you break it down, marketing is all about people and what drives and motivates them. So while there is a misconception that marketing is completely driven by analytics and data, there is a human element that a lot of people underestimate which brings out a diverse and creative side to the role which I love.”
“I chose to work in marketing because it benefits customers by helping them deal with their problems in a smarter way and brands by creating stronger connections with customers.
“Before I started to work in marketing, I worked in PR because I liked to dive deep into problems and discuss high values. Marketing lured me in when I saw that it helps people understand how to cope with problems.
“Previously, marketing was emotional, like Kotler preaches in his works, so a marketer could attract a person using knowledge of his/her emotions. Now the global trend in marketing is educating this person to make him/her smarter. And that is an idea I love. You give your customer all the necessary information to make a decision on his/her own.”
Reason 3: “I love the challenge and enjoy the open competition between brands.”
“Why do I love my job? First of all, I love the brands I work for. I believe this is important to truly succeed in marketing. You have to promote a brand, and if you fully love and live the brand, it’s much easier to transmit these feelings to potential customers through various marketing channels.
“But besides my love for brands, I also love marketing. I’m a competitive person, and I see marketing as a big game that I have to win. How can I get more followers, better rankings, more website visitors, and of course, more sales, than my competition?
“I love doing “Working in SEO marketing & branding, there is nothing I enjoy more than building up a brand’s presence in Google search. Watching the monthly search volume of a unique company name increase as we run marketing initiatives (both traditional and digitally) offers a real sense of accomplishment. “I feel achievement in taking the unknown and making it heard throughout the web. The marketing campaigns based on this allow me to mix my own creativity, with a healthy dose of data and research. There’s really nothing quite like anticipating results and then discovering that your hard work has paid off!” in-depth competitor research to analyze our current strategies and improve if needed. It’s all one big game between you and the competitors, and the one with the most customers wins! I love a good game with a great prize, and that’s why I love marketing.” “We’ll take care of creating the best content mediums to maximize and amplify their brand message. I believe that a holistic approach to a business’s digital marketing strategy is integral to creating an ecosystem of content to drive brand awareness”Your brand isn’t just a logo and pretty graphics, there is a whole strategy that sits behind creating a brand and that extends to workplace culture, knowing your customer persona and finding your unique place in the market.” and sales and realizing that our campaigns brought success to their businesses is unmatched.”
Reason 4: “With the right marketing strategy, I create real ‘wow’ moments for my customers.”
“It’s the challenge and fulfillment of seeing a company grow and be recognized in their own industry. Say in the case of brand strategy, we help with the research and ideation to carefully craft topics and messages for our client’s industry to grow their audience.
“For example, our products are impacted by seasonality and certain months do perform better than others — I enjoy figuring out how best to use that data to not only increase sales during the good months but also reduce the dip during slower periods.”
“What I love the most about working in branding and marketing is when we educate clients on branding and marketing being more than a visual medium, and you have that exciting light bulb moment with them.
“I find that the best thing about being a marketing manager is that no two days are the same, with some focused on crafting unique content or engaging copy and others centering around optimizing our website for search engines. “Having started in the marketing space prior to the rise of Google, I was lucky enough to have gotten in on the ground floor of numerous innovations in the marketing space. I fully expect this to continue throughout my career, with new and exciting technologies related to AI and machine learning poised to once again change the face of marketing.”
Reason 5: “There are always new tools and technologies being developed that help me optimize my work even more.”
“I personally love learning more about the buying habits of our customers and using that data to increase conversions.
“As a veteran marketing professional with over 20 years of experience in the digital sphere, I have seen the role of marketing manager evolve drastically — something which has been both exciting and challenging.
Your turn! What do you love about your job?
In an industry as stressful and pressure-filled as marketing, it’s important to take a step back from your everyday work and try to remember what motivates you. Ask yourself: What do you love about your job? What excites you?
Often, it’s difficult to maintain a fully positive outlook and we can take little things for granted. Whether you’re senior management or an entry-level member of your marketing department, we hope this article helps you put some of your problems into perspective and remember what it is you love about marketing.
So, now it’s your turn: Take some time to write down 2–3 reasons that you enjoy your job in marketing — be it mastering product marketing, improving the relationship between sales and marketing, or relishing in your creativity, the results might surprise you!
Once you’re done, place the note next to your computer and when you’re met with a stressful day or trouble with a colleague — let your note serve as a reminder of all the positive aspects of your job.
Because working in marketing is awesome, I think we can all agree on that! And if you want to share your thoughts, feel free to do so here — we’d love to hear from you!
Originally published at https://latana.com.
