How to Get a Job or Score a Raise in Online Marketing

Brand manager? Direct marketer? PR professional? Web marketing manager? Search marketer?  Logistics manager? Which of these are you? If you’re in marketing today, you’re all of these people and more. And you probably want a new job or a raise.  So what to do? How can you best position yourself and the brand(s) you work for? By specializing less.

I recently sat down with my colleague Rok Hrastnik, web director for Studio Moderna, to talk about these issues. And we came up with an interesting answer: In a world dominated by specialists the only reasonable thing to do is become a generalist.

Let’s talk. All of us. Game? I’ll start.

This is a hot topic. Hotly contested too. Content marketing evangelist, Joe Pulizzi, and I don’t see eye to eye. You’ll see others in comments here that disagree too. And a recent New York Times piece reminds us that generalists are the wealthiest among us.

Marketing without boarders

The new marketing ecosystem is forcing most of us to look beyond our specific marketing disciplines. This is my premise. We’re being forced to look outside our specialty areas like affiliate, email or search marketing. Indeed, digital itself is forcing us to embrace a world of “marketing without borders” that spans business disciplines.

Again, this is true if you want to get hired or get a raise this year.  If you’re just showing up and punching a clock in Web marketing (hey, nothing wrong with that) perhaps you’re not seeing the world this way.

Now… marketing gurus are quick to proclaim the “death of that, the rise of this, and the convergence of everything around us.” So let’s be careful. There is no radical marketing revolution afoot.  There is only a slow, deliberate evolution. Advances in technology are amplifying human behavior that’s already there — not re-inventing it.

Behaviors have, in many cases, been there for decades and sometimes centuries.

So has technology changed fundamental consumer behavior? Not really. Rather, it’s making their interaction with the world (including marketers) easier and more fluid. So it follows that marketing professionals should change, adapt. A reasonable idea.

But making a change requires a new perspective.  It requires us distancing ourselves from our specialty for a moment.

Marketing spans business functions — do you?

What Rok and I discovered in our discourse was our perception of marketing is changing. Fundamentally. We were starting to realize that marketing channels we think of as individual campaigns do not standalone. They interact with one another. And that realization is not only relevant but powerful.

Above all, we started realizing that harnessing and controlling how marketing disciplines interact is creating tremendous opportunity.  Rather, it could — for us as individuals.  Of course, it also creates risk.

For instance, Angel Djambazov (our beloved managing editor) won the praise of his past employer and the industry when he picked his head up one day and noticed the way search and affiliate marketing programs were interacting. Did he take a risk? Absolutely. Not everyone is willing to do what he did.

But what Angel did, before anything else, was distance himself from his own selfish specialty interest.  He looked around and noticed how the bottom line of the entire business (not just the affiliate channel that he managed) could be positively impacted — if he acted.

Get smart, get general, get rewarded

What I’m getting at is the path toward getting hired and/or earning that big raise.  It’s paved by critical thinking.  And thinking critically requires a change in perspective… followed by a change in your habits.  So how to get there?

The view I’m describing is one available only to those who step outside of their specialty long enough to look around. Those who are curious enough to wonder… and then wander. And who hunger for, well, more money! But actually it’s a hunger for truth. And an appetite to confront it.  Even when it’s dangerous.

I can’t help but say, “welcome back, Carolyn!” to Carolyn Tang this week.  But I also need to say how passionate Carolyn is about this stuff.  Carolyn is passionate about critical thinking in her own life but also in fostering it among others… as a way to help improve their careers.  She even donates her time to major universities that seek to find ways to crank out critical-thinking, “primed-for-success” graduates.

Generalists who can “go deep” as specialists too.  Web marketing professionals who ask better questions as a means to improve their career and the bottom line of the company they work for. Heck, these aren’t Web marketing pros.  These are business people.

Back to basics

So how can we use the evolution of marketing to our advantage? Specifically, the convergence of marketing channels. I say by not calling it a revolution anymore. And by telling our bosses and clients that things like social media aren’t revolutionary at all. They’re evolutionary. Reward yourself by showing the Chief you can “talk business” too.

Are customers interacting via personal online spaces like blogs, social networks and everything else that Web 2.0 gurus want to put claim to? Yes.  They are. But is this a revolution? Not really… unless you’ve forgotten “Letters to the Editor”, the average conversation in the local pub, or what successful mom and pop restaurant owners have always known… the key to success is treating customers like people.

By being honest and practical with the people we work for we can achieve our goals.

“The Internet isn’t creating consumer interaction; it’s simply amplifying it and bringing it closer to everyone that’s interested in it.”

It’s refreshing. And I think we should say things like this out loud more often. In meetings and such.

What do you see out there?

What do you think? It’s important to furthering one’s career in any capacity — management or practitioner. Because there are a lot of crazy things happening out there. And there’s a lot of opportunity for more rational thinking. For instance, recently Kevin Hillstrom reminds us (via Twitter):

“Here’s what people often do. Customer spends $200/yr. Customer becomes Facebook Fan. Now $200/yr attributed to Facebook… Here’s reality. $200/yr prior to Facebook becomes $205/yr after Facebook. Facebook incremental value is $5, not $200, not $205.”

So he says marketers should…

“Find a way to create a flag in your customer database that IDs Facebook Fans — then measure fans via new customers & existing buyers. Facebook Fans that are existing buyers represent a key measure issue — must identify orders “caused” by Facebook.  The problem, of course, is that most orders from Facebook Fans would happen without Facebook, but Facebook gets credit. ”

Clearly, Kevin is on to a more rational, practical approach to attribution of marketing campaigns.

About Jeff Molander

Jeff Molander is the authority on making social media sell and corporate trainer to small businesses and global corporations like IBM and Brazil’s energy company, Petrobras. He’s an accomplished entrepreneur, having co-founded what is today the Google Affiliate Network. He’s adjunct digital marketing professor at Loyola University’s school of business and author of Off the Hook Marketing: How to Make Social Media Sell for You.

Website: JeffMolander.com

Blog: Off the Hook Blog

Answers: AskJeffMolander.com

You can find Jeff on Twitter @jeffreymolander.