So you want to get into Marketing? Good! Marketing is a rare beast: it’s creative, yet analytical; you need to have traditional skills, yet the environment is always changing. Here are my top 5 tips for getting into Marketing:
1) Show your skills! If you want to tout yourself as a kickass copywriter, show it. Write for as many places and brands as you can. Whether you decide to write for a variety of websites or websites that focus on a key topic, it doesn’t matter – just get your work out there! Twitter is a great place to find copywriting or marketing opportunities.
2) Talking of Twitter, you need to put some effort into your social media accounts. If I’m honest, this is the kind of advice I’d describe as ‘the only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on’ as I really should put more effort in myself. But I’m currently on a mission, and you should be too! Spruce up your bios, update your contact info and decide the purpose of your accounts. My Facebook is for friends and family, with the privacy settings to match. Whereas my Twitter is more open and I use it as a ‘professional’ side. I follow people who work in marketing; I use it to keep up-to-date with industry news and movements.
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3) Teach yourself. Although I now have an extremely supportive employer, not everybody is that lucky, and before her I had to teach myself. You have to be a bit discerning but there are a lot of free resources for people who want to learn more about marketing.
4) Become obsessed with world events. I don’t mean a quick glance at the free paper as you get on the bus. I mean starting your day with actual grown up news channels, following various news reporters on Twitter. The more you know about events and trends in the world, the more you can harness them. Show that you can tie your potential employers brand into world events (but obviously, keep it relevant to the brand, don’t just jump on every bandwagon that comes your way)
5) Sharpen up your maths. Since gaining a C at GCSE level, I hadn’t touched my math skills (that’s what calculators are for, right?) But maths is an important part of marketing, in terms of dealing with figures. You need to be able to analyse the figures behind your recent campaign to see how it’s working, is it getting the brand message to the right person? Is it converting into real sales, or having a tangible effect?
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This is by no means a definitive list, and there are probably a lot more things you can do to make the path into marketing run smoother, but these are my top five. If you can think of any other tips or want to discuss them, tweet me @RebeccaCotzec.
