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[bloggingmarketer]

My Final Thoughts

Over this semester I had the pleasure of hearing from a variety of professionals who either work, or have worked in the marketing sphere. Each guest speaker had a lot of different insights to provide and highlighted important things in marketing and our careers overall. It was great to hear about their experiences and I REALLY took in their advice. Overall, there are 2 things I want to highlight in this final blog post:

Data Data Data

You’re Never Stuck

                                             Data Data Data

So I want to start by speaking about data and how it plays a role in marketing, and especially marketing automation. Times are changing, and marketers are trying to keep up! With the latest advances in technology, marketing has begun to change for the better. 

Firstly, there is a lot more data collection occurring in marketing now. Marketers have access to a wealth of knowledge about their customers and target audiences. But it is also important to understand how to legally acquire this information, best data storage practices, and other data privacy related laws. Since data is so important to the modern marketer, it is equally important to be knowledgeable about the impact of data privacy, and how consumers feel about their data being used. A lot of consumers are willing to give data as long as they also get something in return. However, consumers still want best practices to be used when gathering, storing, and using this data. So I realized how important it actually is to understand data privacy laws. Though a lot of this may be more relevant to IT or software development, it’s still important to have an understanding of privacy laws. 

Another important element of data is understanding what it means, and how you can use it. AI is an important aspect of marketing, and can really help change the way marketers do their job. For example, AI allows us to personalize content to customers. Whether this is a personalized email, personalized offers, or even personalized website experiences. Customers want every piece of information they interact with to be personalized and relevant to their needs and wants, and it’s crucial for companies to be on top of this. AI can see past purchase behaviours and predict what kinds of items or deals a certain type of customer would be interested in. Then using that information, personalized content can be created and sent. 

Finally, marketing automation also allows marketers to focus their time on other important things. This is because marketing automation helps remove redundant tasks that a computer can complete with ease. For example, setting up a workflow in HubSpot cuts down on the amount of time allocated to sorting, sending, and analyzing emails sent. Plus, as AI matures, so does marketing automation. This means that the role of a marketer is ever changing and it’s important to stay on top of new trends! 

                                          You’re Never Stuck

There was one question that our class asked almost every single guest speaker. And that question was “If I start my career in a specific role, am I stuck there for the rest of my career?”. 

This is a loaded question, and you could always hear the slight fear in the asker’s voice. The idea of having to choose the perfect position the very first time is… extremely daunting! With very little hands-on skills, and being at the start of a new career, how could we possibly pick the best option for ourselves? 

But, every single time, we were reassured and reminded we always had the opportunity to change things up, pursue a different role in marketing. Just because you start in social media marketing doesn’t mean you’ll work in social media for the rest of your career (unless you love it)! 

In fact, we were encouraged to explore our careers, and find what we like and don’t like. The guest speakers would talk about how they went from company to company, and highlighted how with almost each company change, came a career role change. Over time you’ll begin to understand what you like and don’t like and can start looking for a role that suits your needs.

Another key element to ensuring ‘You’re Never Stuck’ is to network like a pro. Many of our guest speakers landed new jobs through networking. Either they followed a colleague or boss to their new company, or they were asked by previous colleagues or bosses to join them for the new company they work for. Essentially, having strong connections with people in your industry can help your career change. 

Finally, keep your LinkedIn up to date, and use it to your advantage! Having a good LinkedIn profile is crucial when job hunting. If you have a solid page, you may have recruiters try and recruit you for a valuable position at their company. Can also connect with key people on LinkedIn, which you can leverage when job hunting. We were also told to reach out to the HR of a company through LinkedIn and let them know you applied to a certain position. This helps ensure that the HR rep is keeping an eye out for you application!

So essentially, what I am trying to convey is that you’re never truly stuck when it comes to your career. Look for different opportunities to switch if that’s what you’re looking for. And never forget to network. 

With that said, feel free to follow my blog for more marketing related content. And maybe send me a message so we can connect!

[bloggingmarketer]

Sean Claessen

My class had the pleasure of welcoming Sean Claessen to speak to us about his experience in the marketing world.

Something that shocked me from the beginning is that Sean did not one, but two art degrees. He started off working in advertisement because he felt drawn to it. However, he soon realized that in advertisement, there was no clear way to track success. Meaning, there was no way to say that spending x amount of money resulted in y results. He didn’t like this approach and realized he wanted to work on something that had clear results. This helped move Sean towards CRM tools and working on loyalty programs. He currently works for a company called Bond Brand Loyalty. The company helps create loyalty programs for different companies. His company actually worked on helping Tim Horton’s redesign “Roll-up the Rim” due to the changes caused by Covid-19. When working on loyalty programs, Sean said he was working in a closed ecosystem, and he could really see the effects of every action taken. When creating loyalty programs you can see what worked, to what degree, and what should be changed. It also allows for learning, you realize that certain techniques do or don’t work and help you in the future. Sean emphasized how important data is to his job and that they needed to look to the data for guidance. The data would act as a signal of whether to do more or less or maybe even move in a different direction. I found it interesting that Sean had taken an interest in results and wanted to move towards techniques that had clear results. Typically, this is something that a company emphasizes and employees try to accommodate. However, we do know that marketing and related industries had begun to shift their focus to result-based practices. This does lead us to another point Sean was trying to drive home- adjusting to new trends in your industry.

Sean highlighted the fact that we all need to be lifelong learners. There is no class that we can take that will cover all the information we need, especially because things change constantly. It’s important to stay on top of various trends and understanding how they might impact your career and job roles. A clear example for marketers is the trend of ‘Data Wokeness’. People are more aware than ever of how much of their personal information is collected by companies, and as such, consumers are more concerned about privacy issues. Marketers need to understand how this trend would impact various marketing efforts, and how to still collect data while respecting consumer privacy. Sean also highlighted the importance of digital analytics, and how the way we use analytics is changing. Sean believes that as marketing advances, it will rely more on AI and also help remove some of the labor-intensive components that analysts had to take on. Overall, Sean emphasized that we need to stay on top of these trends. When new trends emerge, we can know as much as someone who has been in the field for 30 years. Since it’s a new trend, and you’re on top of it you can stand out, and help your company stand out.

Overall, it was great to hear from Sean as he provided great insights into how the industry is constantly changing and that we can continue to progress our careers’ by staying on top of new trends.

[bloggingmarketer]

Nicole Hutzul

Recently, my class had the pleasure of welcoming Nicole Hutzul as a guest speaker. Nicole works as the Head of Sales at a company called Yext.

Nicole has an interesting job history and she made a point to tell us that she changed jobs often. Something that struck me was how much she valued networking and how networking is what helped her move from one job to the next. I always knew the importance of networking, but Nicole really helped lay down the foundations of how networking can truly help you succeed. The most alluring aspect of networking to me was that I could ‘follow’ coworkers or bosses that I worked with in the past, into their new jobs! This means that you could continue working with coworkers that you had positive experiences with, while also gaining new work experience. This really helped me realize the value of networking and helped me get that extra push I needed to move out of my comfort zone.

From a marketing perspective, Nicole really helped me understand the importance of AI and machine learning. She shared with us an interesting story that she likes to call “The Underwear Story”. Essentially, Nicole needed to buy her mother some underwear. So, Nicole goes online to her company of choice and picks out the perfect set of underwear for her mother. Interestingly, Nicole later started getting offers for the kind of underwear her mom liked, not the type of underwear Nicole typically bought from this company. The company was focusing their marketing efforts on Nicole’s latest purchase, rather than seeing Nicole’s buying behaviour as a whole. This is where AI comes in because AI can help with pattern recognition. If this company had leveraged AI, they would have realized that the most recent purchase from Nicole was an outlier and that they should focus on her previous purchases when creating personalized offers. Overall, this story helps illustrate the importance of advanced technology in marketing, and to use the technology correctly. This company was using data to personalize the offering, BUT they focused on the wrong data, resulting in ineffective marketing. This is definitely a story I will remember in the future when working with data!

Another interesting concept that Nicole brought to my attention is about the way we view weaknesses and strengths. She pointed out how growing up we’re often told to identify and work on our weaknesses. If you’re not good at something you work hard and try to get better, maybe even master that task. But she proposed a different idea, that instead of trying to improve on our weaknesses, we should focus on highlighting our strengths. I believe this framework would be especially useful in the field of marketing. Since we are in a collaborative field, it’s actually beneficial to take on this view. We have coworkers, or group members, who have strengths that happen to be our weaknesses. So if my weakness is in creating eye-catching presentations, but my colleague excels in this, their strengths help support my weakness. Ideally, my strengths would support their weaknesses. This allows everyone to play to their strengths resulting in a much better team dynamic and improve the quality of work, rather than asking everyone to work equally on every aspect.

Overall, Nicole had some very interesting personal stories and career advice that made me rethink how I used to approach various topics. In particular, I plan on focusing on networking with my classmates a lot more and playing to my own strengths.

[bloggingmarketer]

Rob Tyrie

Today my class had the honor of hearing Rob Tyrie speak on his career path and how it was related to marketing. Rob has a degree in computer science and focused primarily on this during his early career days. But, he learned about the importance of marketing over his career.

Rob began by drawing our attention to the different ways companies approach business. Some companies are sales-lead, these companies primarily focus on sales. I always thought that this was the only type of focus a company would really have. But I learned that quite a few companies are actually marketing-lead, meaning they focus a lot on marketing. Coke, Pepsi, and Salesforce are examples of market-lead companies. Now these companies seem like ‘obvious’ choices to be market-lead, but it is possible to market-lead in a more surprising industry. Progressive Insurance is an example of one such company.

Progressive insurance has marketing at the heart of their company, and they actually have an interesting story. Progressive began to focus on consumer marketing, and thus put effort into their segmentation and advertising. They actually used persona based marketing to help focus on the consumers. And here’s the important part- all company employees were taught about the personas, not just the marketers! In fact, Rob, who was hired as a third party, was also taught their 4 main personas, and he actually remembers them till this day! Rob highlighted how crucial these personas were to the success of Progressive. As another interesting twist, Progressive used bundling and online sales to help prompt their business. They created an omnichannel shopping experience which helped them secure more customers. Overall, Progressive used various marketing techniques to better understand their customers, which subsequently helped their company grow and retain more customers.

It’s super interesting to see that the things I am learning are in fact used in marketing, and definitely made me appreciate the time and effort my profs put in to ensure I learn all this content. When taking courses that focused on persona based marketing, it was something I enjoyed but I wasn't sure if companies really used them. I had learned that these personas are really only effective if all employees and departments understood them, and that this might actually be a barrier to success. But, progressive insurance showed me that it is possible to do this in a large company- and to do it well.

Something that was surprising is that Rob showed the class how technology is changing. He presented a case study that focused on a virtual reality gallery, and we were tasked with coming up with some ideas on how to market this new experience. This really highlighted how things are changing in this world, and that we need to keep up. Something that stuck with me was how Rob mentioned that the technology we’re seeing right now won’t be around in 10-15 years. The marketplace changes, and demands change but what will stay the same is that there will be products, there will be consumers and we’ll need marketing to reach these consumers. This really made me think about the future of marketing and how things will change, and that I’ll need to continue growing and learning as a marketer. If I’m honest, this actually makes me more excited about my future career.

Overall, I believe this lecture made me feel that the world is my oyster. Rob came from a background in computer science and then eventually gained experience in marketing. This made me realize that whatever career path I choose today isn't the be all and end all. But, his experience in marketing had definitely made me feel more excited about entering the world of marketing. I’ve wanted to approach marketing through a data analyst lens, and based on today's lecture I feel that that is more possible than ever. Overall, it was a great experience being able to listen to Rob tell us about his career path and the application of marketing throughout his career.