Marketing agencies and in-house teams need a mixture of both specialists and generalists to be successful. Regardless of which route your career takes, becoming a well-rounded marketer is about more than being able to use different channels. It’s about possessing the softer skills, like communication and management, and developing traits like good business acumen and commercial awareness – all of which add value to a business beyond your job title.
Here are some ways to develop those naturally as your career progresses.
Go to all the new business meetings you can
It might sound strange if you’re not a salesperson, but it gives you the best understanding of what clients are looking for. I believe that being involved in so many first meetings with potential clients had the biggest impact on my development.
You get to understand what clients know, what they don’t know (and what they don’t realise they don’t know!). You learn how to articulate what you do in ways they can understand, and you get a sense of which parts of your work impress clients the most. It’s also just a brilliant opportunity to see how different business models work, as well as shadow your sales team or more senior staff. I’m a big believer in learning through osmosis, and there are few better opportunities for it than in new business meetings.
Get familiar with other channels… even if you aren’t the one using them
You don’t have to spend hours studying and using other marketing channels (although that can only be a good thing!), but understanding their part of the bigger picture is quite important. If you can at least recognise the language involved and have a basic understanding of how it works, you can have a conversation with a client about it, even if you then involve someone with more suitable skills.
Working closely with different departments is useful for this. If you’re a copywriter, offer to write ad text for the paid search team. Or next time you’re writing content for a web page, ask to help upload it so you become more familiar with your website.
Making sure you follow the right accounts on LinkedIn, and signing up to the right email newsletters is also a good way to surround yourself with the latest marketing updates in related areas, without having to dedicate specific time to it.
…And other areas of a business
As we touched on earlier with sales, it’s a big advantage to have skills within, or at least an understanding of, other areas of a business. After all, the role of marketing is to sustain and grow the overall business. Even if there aren’t opportunities to get directly involved, it doesn’t have to stop you learning about them. In the last few years I’ve taken an online HR course, and have started a business and finance course, because they’re things that interest me, and you never know when it’s going to come in handy. Equally, just being curious about what different people do, and taking the time to ask questions will help you learn something new.
Take on opportunities
We all sometimes have to do things that fall outside our job spec, but this can actually be a really good thing, as it exposes you to activities you wouldn’t have otherwise done. It may force you to become more familiar with the technical side of marketing, or you might find yourself project managing an event for example. All of this is great experience, even if it’s not ultimately what you intend to end up doing.
Work at different agencies or businesses
Possibly a slightly controversial one, but I do think that working for different agencies adds a lot to your career*. In my experience, different agencies have completely opposing views of what information or tools you should be aware of. When I left my first agency for my second, I found myself ‘behind’ in some aspects, but with a much deeper understanding in other areas that I’d thought were a given. Every company has a different way of doing things and places more or less emphasis on different areas, so if you’ve worked at a few different places, you’ve naturally covered more bases.
Taking small steps to become a more well-rounded marketer is a good way of protecting your career, especially if you’re working for smaller companies where it’s necessary to wear more than one hat. It can also be more rewarding as your contribution to the overall business becomes more apparent.
*Only up until you’ve found Browser Media of course :-)
