So Julie, How Did You Become A Digital Marketer? – Episode 48

You've got formal marketing qualifications. I, I come at this from a different background. Alex comes at this from a different background. I mean, in your view, what, what, what's the essence of being able to do what we do?

When I left school, I had never heard of marketing. I went and did business studies and did lots of sort of options. And I got to the marketing one and I'm like, ah, this is great, I love this. It's got psychology in it because you're talking about your buyer journeys, your buyer behaviour, what messages to put out there, what imagery to use, how to I'm waving my arms about. Obviously this doesn't come across very well on the podcast, but really understanding your customers, there's a creative side, which is, you know, to do with actually producing your adverts, your websites, your videos, whatever. There's the writing side producing your content. There are a lot of different skills involved in marketing. So it doesn't really matter what background you come from. You could probably, you know, be part of a marketing team.

Okay. Welcome back to digital marketing from the podcast. Um, there are. Oh, God, have I got it wrong? Digital Marketing From The Coalface podcast. Yeah. All right. Um, yeah. Digital marketing From The Coalface. It was good that I was jumped on straight away there as soon as I got that wrong. Um, I've been asked, as I get asked every year to go into Robert Gordon University to talk to students, and the lecturer involved asked me to do it and I said, great, what do they want to talk about? Um, he said, they're really interested in SEO. They'd like to talk about that. So that's maybe something we'll talk about. But it got me thinking about the whole how people get into being involved in digital marketing. I mean, for example, my background is engineering. I'm a chartered engineer, but I'm involved in digital marketing. Alex, who's on the podcast today is, um, background is English. He's, he's studied English and Julie is actually the real deal. She's a chartered marketer. She's actually studied marketing and everything else, so we thought it would be a good idea today just to dig into that a little bit and let Julie tell us about her journey from, um, licking envelopes to doing digital marketing for fantastic businesses all around the world. Does that sound about right, guys?

That sounds just about right. Yeah. Okay. Including the licking envelopes bit.

So to start things off, um, we've only done one meet the team type podcast. And that was with Alex, who's also in this podcast today. So maybe Julie putting you on the spot a bit. Give us a potted, a potted history of, of Julie.

Okay. The very short version was, um, business studies and French degree because I really wanted to do something overseas speaking French in France. We um, clearly that went really well because here I am sitting in Aberdeenshire. Um, but yeah, um after that, uh, management training program followed by a series of marketing management type jobs, followed by.

Who.

For? Oh well, this is the potted version. If I start listing them, we'll be here all day. Go on.

Give us the highlights.

Okay, we can always go back. But the highlights was right. Management training programme for British Rail from.

Do do do do do do do do.

I'll sound.

The sound effects are great. Yeah, I'll do them all. Keep that up as we go through.

Woohoo! Um right from there I got a basic that involves standing on station platforms and I'm hideous, but, um, got a proper job in an office after that, which was warm and dry. Um, as a publicity assistant. Um, followed by getting my job, my boss's job as a publicity manager. From there, I went to the College of Law as a marketing officer. I think the job title was, but that was a lot of direct marketing.

Okay, no further questions, Your Honor.

I told you it would take a long time. From there to the Brick Development Association, which was a trade association for brick manufacturers.

We don't.

Need. No.

Yeah.

That one.

Um, sounds ridiculous, but it was actually a really great job because I got to go in a helicopter and organise great big awards ceremonies. So that was a lot of fun. And edit magazine. I got to do loads of stuff there. That was it was actually a really cool job. From there, I went to, uh, exhibition company that organised construction industry, trade shows and into build, which is one of the biggest trade shows in the country. Got involved in promoting that. From there, I went to a small market research company who um, basically did, um, gather data about computer monitors, which was very.

How did you gather the data in them days? Um, was it computerised, or?

They had an ongoing sort of customers who provided data monthly. It was ongoing.

Like a panel almost.

They did newsletters. Yeah, it was a sort of panel thing. And they did newsletters and and provided basically the market research to back to the companies. Um, then from there, I set up my own business. So we'll stop at that point, I think.

Thank God for that.

That's like proper marketing. All of that.

Told you! Proper marketing. I know, I know.

So obviously in that time things have changed dramatically. And I'm stating the obvious now everything we do is digital marketing. Everything we do is measurable. Everything we do is completely different to licking envelopes. But I mean, is the it really changed in your view, as if things really changed.

It has and it hasn't. I mean, the principles I'm sure I've said this before, that the principles, the principles are still the same. You, um, you need to know who your audience is. You need to know how to reach them. And you need to know what messages to use to get them to do what it is you want them to do. so. I mean, that's exactly the same. Um, I guess methods are different.

Yeah. The bit that's changed a lot is the reach them because in the olden days it was like there were two or three, four TV channels. You can only advertise on two of them. So, you know, you could reach people knowing that if, for example, you advertise in the brick, if you could afford it when Coronation Street was on, then twenty million people would probably see a message or be exposed to your brand.

Yeah.

With the fragmented nature of. Yeah, things have changed dramatically. So I suppose.

It's a lot more complicated. Um, um, we used, you know, we used direct mail, we, you like say we put things in envelopes and, um, sent them out. I was terrible at putting things in envelopes because I got, I got distracted my, I kind of wandered off because I was so boring and I couldn't remember if I'd put three things in that envelope or if I'd put the wrong thing in the envelope. And I had to keep going back and take them out at the end.

It's a shame. You know, this is a podcast because if it was a video, if we were videoing this, people would be able to see my I'm not surprised first.

Yeah. You know, it was it was something I kind of wasn't wanting to do. So I wasn't paying much attention to it, but it was something I kind of had to do occasionally to help out, but it wasn't really my proper job, thankfully. Um, but yeah, we had that. We did, we did press advertising, we did posters, um, a lot of brochures. Um, yeah, a lot of-

I mean brochures used to be just massive. I mean they. Hugely expensive to produce them. Yeah. Um terrifying for those who had to proofread them. Yeah. It's nerve wracking as they came back to the office and shrink wrapped and you had to open them up and read those.

It was thousand of brochures getting delivered to the office in the boxes. First of all, you're going, where on earth am I gonna put these? Yeah. And then there was the I'm too scared to open this box because if there is a typo on this brochure and we have to redo a thousand brochures, all of which have like sixteen pages, um, and were hugely expensive. I'm dead basically.

That's right.

Seems nuts to me that with brochures. So there's literally no way of measuring the results from them. Right. You can't tell if you just email. If you mail out a load of brochures, you can't tell whether people have read them, whether people care about it. It is a completely different world when you think about it.

Yeah, totally. Totally. It was very difficult to measure anything. I mean, we did focus groups and things. So you would get people's opinions on your advertising or whatever. Um, and you could do some sort of like research before and after, but it's very hit and miss. Yeah. People don't really remember.

It's back to that quote, which is, I think it was actually in the last podcast we did with Cliff and Cliff mentioned it. You know, half of it works. We just don't know which half.

Lord Leverhulme, it's half. Half of my advertising budgets wasted.

So many different people. I thought it was Rockefeller, Cliff said it was somebody else said it was Lord lever.

He. He was a founder of lever. Okay. Like, um, the fairy liquid type people.

I think it's one of those where nobody really knows who said it first.

I'm pretty sure it was him, but somebody will write in, go on, write in and tell me I'm wrong. But fifty percent of my advertising budget is wasted. But I just don't know which half.

That's right. So I guess what we're trying to drive at just now is the purpose of this, uh, this particular episode of the show is to try and maybe guide people. Going back to what I said about being asked to go in and speak to students. So, you know, we've tried to point the students at this podcast. They might, they might actually listen to this. I, I come at this from a different background. Alex comes at this from a different background. You've kind of you've got formal marketing qualifications. Yeah. Is, is it I mean, in your view, what, what, what's the essence of being able to do what we do? If you're a student of anything, you could potentially get involved in marketing and that's, is that a good thing or is that a bad thing?

I think it's a good thing because people bring other backgrounds, they have different, different ways of approaching it. And I think that makes for a good team. Um, I mean, I, I didn't when I left school, I had never heard of marketing. Nobody, you know, the careers advisors hadn't heard of marketing just. I went and did business studies and did lots of sort of options. And I got to the marketing one and I'm like, ah, yeah, this is great, I love this. Um, it's, it's got psychology in it because you're talking about your buyer journeys, your buyer behaviour, how you know what to, what messages to put out there, what imagery to use, how to I'm waving my arms about. Obviously this doesn't come across very well in the podcast, but, um, you know, really understanding your customers and you know, that that's a lot of psychology is really, really interesting. There's a creative side, which is, you know, to do with actually producing your adverts, your websites, your videos, whatever. So there's a creative side, there's the writing side, producing your content, writing your brochures, you know, storyboarding adverts, whatever it is. So there's a lot of different skills involved. I can't actually remember what the question was, but I'm going with this. But you know, there's there are a lot of different skills involved in marketing. So it doesn't really matter what background you come from. You could probably, you know, be part of a marketing team.

And is there any aspect of being involved in marketing now and doing what you do now that makes you look back and think, you know what? I kind of wish I'd gone and been a lawyer or a doctor or something else. I mean, are you is it was it has it been a decision you made that you're absolutely comfortable with and you still love it?

Yeah. Funnily enough. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people sort of start out doing one thing and then realise that they want to do something completely different. But I think that marketing has changed so much and it changes so much all the time that it's not, it's kind of the same job I was doing before, but it's very, very different. I mean, as soon as the digital side came along, I was I kind of got involved in that right away. Um, I think like early nineties, I was involved in producing a website for the company I worked with then, and that was their first website. And then the next business I went to again, I got them, I got them their first website. So I've always been really interested in that side of it. And that's obviously just become a bigger, a bigger part of the job. Um, so it, it's really evolved and it's, it's always interesting because it's always, always changing.

Mhm. Do you think, um, when I talk to people about a career in, say, web development and then, you know, front end development, back end development, some of the more techy stuff I say to people, it's not something to do if you're looking for nine to five, it's, it's something to do if you're prepared to live and breathe it for a long time, to really master it and get good at it, it might be back to that idea of the ten thousand hours until you really get good at something, you have to do it for ten thousand hours. Yeah. Um, I mean, I in a previous life I was doing, I did a lot of coding and I didn't just do it like at work. I read about it when I was out of work. I was working on projects out of work. I just did nothing. But in order to get good at it. And I just wonder if marketing's like that even more so now. In an ever evolving landscape, do you really have to be like reading interesting stuff about marketing. When you go to bed at night sort of thing. Or is it? I mean, I'm trying to say you have to be immersed in it totally.

Because like I said, because it's changing so fast. I mean, if, if you didn't read about it all the time and keep up to date, you'd still be producing brochures, you know? Um, you, you have to be aware of what's going on. You have to understand, you know, how the landscape is changing. Um, but plus the other thing was, you know, I started off in a job that was a sort of general management training job. Um, and I really wanted to get into marketing, having done it at university. I'm like, no, I really want to get into marketing. So I went and we went away and did the Chartered Institute of Marketing, um, qualification because I wanted to sort of have that under my belt to help me get into a marketing job. And it did. And I would say, you know, if somebody's wanting to, to get into marketing, then, you know, look at the, the extras that you can bring to help you progress.

Yeah. Okay. So something that was, um, just occurring to me. And I'm being a bit distracted because Lucky's in the office this this morning, and he's upstairs above us, and I think he's he's gnawing away on something up there, and I can and I can hear it. And I'm probably going to get getting picked up on this microphone as well. Um, one of the things that surprises me when I go into, um, the uni to give my guest lecture is, is am I going to be hated for saying it? Maybe, but I'm amazed at how much the students don't know. And I'm not talking about first year students. I'm talking about students about to go out into the world. They don't seem to be doing this thing that we're talking about. You know, you'll say, well, you know, obviously some great stuff available on HubSpot. Um what's that? You know, you're about to go into the world of digital marketing, launching a career. And yet things like HubSpot are news to you and some of the other tools that we use. Now, I know that uni is not there to teach people how to use tools, but to me, if you're going to get into this business, then when you're leaving uni, you should be all across. You should already have all of your AdWords qualifications, your Google Ads qualifications. You should already have your inbound qualifications. You should be all over some of the most popular systems like Pardo and HubSpot and all those things. And you should be living and breathing it. I mean, am I wrong? What do you think?

Um, I think it's quite hard for students because it's so broad and you do you do a marketing qualification and you have no idea of what end of it you're going to sort of be in. But, you know, if there's a particular area you want to work in, then I think, you know, getting some of these qualifications and doing some of that extra study is going to put you miles ahead when it comes to getting recruited.

Yeah, I think that's the point I'm making. I think there's an opportunity for people. And again, I'm not saying that you should spend your time at uni learning how to use particular software tools, but if you're not aware of the HubSpot ecosystem, for example, and all of the inbound methodologies that they've developed as well as, you know, Pardo and all the rest of them, as I keep saying, if you're not aware of that, if you're just kind of focused in on the stuff at uni.

I think, I mean, I think when you start a job, that's when you actually learn how to do it. You have the theory, but you know, going into a job is completely different. And, um, the actual hands on stuff is, you know, that's when you really start learning. But if you've got the, the basis from university, like why you're doing it and how it all fits together. Great. But the yeah, if you have any of that hands on stuff before you start a job, you're going to be a huge advantage.

Yeah, I would say so. Alex, anything any thoughts on that?

Well, yeah, just, you know, like what a lot of what we're talking about is for anybody listening who isn't aware of it completely free as well. Right? So you can go on to Google Google's website right now and sign up for AdWords courses and certifications that will take you a couple of hours. If that to do, they'll teach you the basics, they'll walk you through it, and you come out of it with a certificate that you can show employers or anybody else for absolutely nothing. And it is it is, you know, a few hours of your time. It's an evenings work to get some of these things and they are well worth doing, I think.

Yeah, the Google ads, the Google Analytics, things like that. Um, some of the HubSpot qualifications that you don't have to sort of, you know, own a copy of HubSpot to, to do those inbound qualifications. Any of them just give you the more practical side that you probably don't get university.

Yeah.

Do you think, um, there's a, that might be one of the differences between when you left uni and went out into the world of being in, involved in marketing and now do you think like when you left university, maybe you were pretty well equipped for.

The.

World as it was at the time?

Not at.

All. Okay.

I didn't know how to buy advertising space or negotiate with a printer. What did you say?

Lick an envelope?

Yeah. Well, yeah. It wasn't wasn't trained in that either. But no, none. None of that was taught. It was very much more the theory and the strategy and how to write a marketing plan and that sort of thing. So you come out of university knowing how to write a marketing plan, but you go in a junior job, so you're not the one writing the marketing plan. Your boss's boss is writing your marketing plan and you're just licking the envelopes. So there's almost a slight disconnect with that. What you come out with from university with, and what you do in your first job.

Well, I think that is perhaps the opportunity that exists for students now is that they could be going out into the world as a junior member of staff, but if they equip themselves with some of these tools that the senior members of staff either haven't heard of or don't really understand, you know, then it gives them an opportunity to rapidly progress their career. I would suggest, okay, so working in marketing, you and I often talk about some of the frustrations. So let's sort of dig into it because even this morning we had a conversation with a customer who are, um, reining in their marketing spend. Yeah. And, you know, for all sorts of reasons. So in the time you've worked in marketing, I mean, what are some of the frustrations that you Experience either, you know, one off or on an on going basis. Just to give people an idea of what it's like to be in this space.

Well, definitely what you just said, you know, as soon as budgets get cut, the marketing budget and the training budget are the first two to go. Um, marketing is seen as a cost, not as an investment, not as seen as a revenue generating process. It's seen as a cost. And I mean, I remember in my very first job, you know, having a huge argument with the managing director, which was kind of risky. I was about twenty four, but I thought I knew everything at the time. Um, and just saying, you know, it's completely the wrong thing to do. You can't cut the marketing budget because, you know, that's where the, how we're going to get more money in. So, you know, you're, you're limiting the chances of making more money if you cut the marketing budget. And he was a marketing guy, he got it. But, um, and I think to be fair, he did listen and he did kind of give us a chance. But, um, it, it happens all over, you know, with our clients or when you're in on client side working away that, you know, the marketing budget gets cut at any opportunity.

Do you think that is changing with the advent of things like Google Analytics and things that make what we do measurable? Yeah, you'd hope, wouldn't you, that it was easier now to kind of show people, you know, it wasn't just brochures that we sent out and people maybe got them or maybe didn't. You can actually.

See the data. I mean, we've got a client we're looking at, and we can see really clearly that, you know, the advertising that we're running for them is getting them conversions. So yeah, if you can demonstrate with data that what we did brought you this much money, then there's a much stronger case. But you know, the client that we were speaking to this morning, they just don't have the money. And whatever happens, you know, they can't invest. Um, but, you know, the, the person we spoke to from the, from the clients, you know, was really upset about that decision. And she kind of saw that, you know, she's a marketing person, she doesn't want to cut the budget, but the money's just not there. But she's very keen to, to kind of get going again. But yeah, it happens all the time. That is probably the the biggest frustration from marketing people. That and the fact that boards, you know, the boards of companies tend not to have marketing people on them and they're very finance driven or operations driven and probably don't take marketing as seriously as they should. And they don't realise quite what a contribution it makes to the overall running of the company. And the another thing is that people don't actually understand what marketing is. They think it's about adverts and brochures and it isn't. It's about the entire process of, you know, understanding what your customer wants, producing it and communicating it to them, and then providing service at the end, and then getting them to recommend you or buy it again. So it's much broader than the sort of colouring in department that we get labelled as.

Okay. Alex, you wanted to say something.

The colouring in department. Well, I was just gonna say that it kind of speaks to what David was saying earlier though, as well, doesn't it, that, you know, when you're kind of coming out of uni, that sort of thing, you have an opportunity to kind of educate yourself to use platforms like analytics or Search Console or things that will prove to other people like your old manager, that actually what you're doing does have some utility and value. And I think that's maybe, again, one of the things that people miss when they come out of uni is, is all that kind of in the real world, you're going to have to justify what you're doing. And the best thing you can possibly do is set yourself up to know how to justify that and actually prove that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So going back to the idea of maybe this, this podcast being primarily to offer some thoughts, whether it's guidance, I don't know, but certainly offering some thoughts to students, this idea of the way that marketing is perceived across the C-suite, C, E or C, F, O and all that kind of thing. You've already said, but almost universally it is not taken seriously.

Yeah.

But I mean, in some large organisations, are we really saying in organisations like like, uh, Nike or. Yeah, I don't know, Apple and places like that, that marketing isn't taken seriously.

And those organisations. They. They are all about the marketing. Yeah, marketing is all they do. They go out to the market. They find out what opportunities are there to produce new products. They produce the products that fit what the customers want next. They make them really appealing. They promote them in a really clever way, and they have shops to provide customer service to train people. I mean, they, they are marketing. All they do is marketing. They are marketing organisations through and through. And that's why they're successful.

But is it is this the B to C, b to B? You know, demarcation? Is this what is you know, both of the examples I gave Nike and Apple are B2C. You could argue that Apple's B2B, but primarily it's B2C. So is that is it like if you want to get into marketing and you want to work in an organisation where everyone from the C-suite down is engaged in marketing, then stay away from B2B? Is that where the real problems are?

Not so much other than B2B companies are often run by engineers or finance people.

Who.

Don't.

They're all idiots.

They don't understand marketing. They're very, very logical, very practical people. And they don't necessarily get the value of marketing because they they're sort of problem solvers. And very much engineering companies tend to be the make it and then find out who to sell it to. Marketing based, marketing centric companies, find out what the customers want and then produce it. Engineering centric companies produce a thing and then try and figure out who the hell is going to buy it.

Yeah, a familiar problem for us.

It is. Because we're primarily.

Involved.

In.

B2B. Yeah, but B2B companies don't have to be engineering centric. They could be marketing centric. It's just that often they're not.

Yeah. I think if you're painting with really broad brushstrokes, it is a case that B2B businesses are generally less aware of the importance of marketing. I think it's also important to say, though, that probably B2B is the better place to learn and innovate. Maybe because B2C, they're very fast paced. It's very much what you know, you do what you can to get results and it's less you have less of a time.

I've worked a little bit in B2C and personally I didn't actually like it.

Mhm.

You're very kind of limited to what you can do, but B2B, I think there are more opportunities and I think you can learn more. Um, you've also tend to have much smaller marketing departments and therefore you can get involved in a lot more stuff. Um, if you're trying to learn rather than going into a very narrow job, you get a much broader sort of view of what, what all the kind of marketing rules are because you're probably doing them all.

Yeah. Well, that was one of the things I was going to say about what we were saying earlier, I guess a kind of counterpoint to this idea of skilling up on tactics, specific tools and things like that when you're at uni is because what I think happens to a lot of people who come out of uni and end up working in an organisation like, say, Nike, for example, or a big agency that does B2C work, is they'll get pigeonholed very quickly. You'll become the Google Ads person or the email marketing person, and you'll never be able to kind of get out of that. Yeah, I think.

That's you can get stuck in a big marketing department. You're obviously going to be doing just one little bit of it. So yeah, that I think I said that earlier, you don't know what kind of job you're going going to go into. So you don't quite know what to skill up on. But things like, you know, analytics and stuff like that is, is, you know, always useful.

Okay. So would you say then it's fair to regard B2B as where the opportunities for innovation, the opportunities to shine if you're prepared to be. And we've used this word a lot recently, if you're, if you're prepared to be brave, then B2B can be really exciting because not many.

People.

Are doing that.

I would say your vet. Your interviewer. Interviewer. Your interviewer. Find out what the culture of the place is like. You know, are you just going to be sort of putting the company logo on golf tees? Or are you really going to be doing marketing? Um, because you could end up in a job, that you could just be answering the phones and yeah, stamping the logo on on golf tees and licking envelopes. Yeah. Getting very, very frustrated and not not learning. But if you're in a company where they're like, yeah, look, we really want to do something here. We want to make a change. Or they've got a sort of marketing culture, then you're going to learn a lot.

Although going back to what you said earlier, the chances are if you are are working in B2B, you're going to be, I think, to use your words, Alex, constantly justifying your existence.

Yeah. Well, it depends. I don't know you. You maybe are you maybe aren't. Again, it comes back to the culture to a certain extent, you're probably going to have to justify your budget, but not necessarily your existence. Um, but I would say, you know, just choose carefully, um, if, if the culture is open and, you know, there is a positive view of marketing in the organisation, then great. But you know, if it, if they're really not quite sure what they're interviewing you for and they're not quite sure what you're going to do, then I would steer clear.

Okay. Just, uh, move the conversation on a little bit. We've concentrated now we've concentrated on, um, people going into organisations, whether B to B, B to C, starting in a junior level, working their way up the opportunities for working your way up quite quickly. If you can get your head around some of the technology, MarTech as it's commonly referred to. So that's all great. What about people coming straight out of uni who fancy agency life? Because that's what we know, isn't it? We're an agency. So what about agency life as a marketer?

Yeah. I, um, obviously came to agency life sort of later on, I started on the client side and then moved over to the agency side. Um, I always fancied it and kind of yeah, got here in the end sort of thing.

But having worked in both as a marketer, um, without, we'll explore like what's exciting and everything else, but what are the primary differences? There's the obvious difference is you're spinning lots of plates, but that's it.

I mean, you're not doing the same thing over and over again. I mean, I worked on client side and I kind of had a sort of two year shelf life because, you know, the first time you do it, it's like a bit scary and interesting and exciting and you're learning. The second time you do it, you're kind of doing it a bit better and you've learnt. And then the third time it's just really tedious. And so, you know, on the agency side, you're, you're getting involved in lots of different projects and you're working with like lots of different, um, disciplines. So I'm working with web developers, with designers, video producers, um, you know, lots of different people where rather than just working with other marketing people on a project. So it's a lot more varied and you're working obviously with lots of different clients. So it's, it's faster and it's yeah, it's a variety.

And what sort of people do you think, um, will find an agency environment as a marketer? Um, the most enjoyable.

That's hard to tell.

Really, isn't it?

Um, if again, it really varies.

The reason I say that is I could imagine people coming out of uni think, oh, it'd be really exciting to work in an agency, but I wonder if without any experience at all, the agency life is the best.

I'd say probably go client side first, you know, get an understanding of how a marketing department works, how to, you know, run projects and, and how to work with an agency. You probably you get a better grounding on, on the client side first. Not say you can't, but if you, you know, if you work in an agency straight off, you're probably going at sort of like account exec type level and you're, you're doing communication, but you're probably not kind of that hands on. So yeah, first job, ideally, I'd say, you know, go in the client side and, and kind of get your, your basics.

Okay. Um, but if you are willing to throw yourself body and soul at it and work ridiculous hours and, and, you know, is it possible to succeed in agency life at the age of twenty two, straight out of uni or whatever, whatever age.

People do it. I think you've got to be, you know, good at project management because you'll end up sort of being the sort of client liaison and having to go backwards and forwards to clients and, um, you know, be very good with people. Very good communicator, very organised. Um, if you can sort of nail that and, um, you know, keep your clients happy and, um, you know, deliver projects on time, then you'll probably do really well, but it's probably quite a tough ask for somebody who's straight out of university.

Okay. Alex.

Well, I think it goes back to what I was saying earlier about vetting, doesn't it? We were talking about vetting, you know, kind of B2B companies that you're thinking of going to work with. I think the same is definitely true of agencies. It's like there's a huge difference between an agency where everybody works very hard and is very involved in all the projects. And, you know, you work long hours because everybody's there all day thinking of exciting new ideas and you're really involved in it. And the agencies that are just going to work you to the bone, because that's agency culture in inverted commas. And I think maybe if you kind of yeah, if you're, if you're thinking of going straight into agency life, the thing to do is to look for somewhere that has either a good track record of, or seems very willing to help you kind of skill up and learn and isn't just going to throw you in at the deep end, really.

Yeah. And look at career progression and look at, you know, how other people a few years older than you see what what roles they're in, or if they've all left because they couldn't bear.

It.

Or, you know, if they have actually managed to, to move up a level. And yeah, that's a very good piece of advice.

It's kind of baptism of fire type stuff, probably in an.

Age can be. Again, all agencies are different. I mean, we're pretty laid back here. Whereas, you know, you would get other agencies where, you know, everyone is is just expected to work all the time.

Yeah. Billable hours. Yeah. That kind of stuff.

Yeah. But then on the client side as well. I said, you know, I was involved in organising awards events, and if you're anything to do with events, then, you know, you're absolutely not nine to five. Mhm.

Okay. We're obviously trying to pursue this subject to look at, you know, how you came to be involved in marketing. And, um, and we're also doing it from a perspective of trying to offer some guidance for people who are maybe about to embark on a career in marketing. Um, is there any aspects that were not, were not really covering just now that, uh, things to consider? What about like, uh, joining professional organisations, continuous continual professional development, further qualifications.

I mentioned the C, I'm the Chartered Institute of Marketing. So that's the sort of professional body, the, the main one for, for marketing people. And, you know, they do a lot of training courses, but, you know, also the, um, diploma in marketing, which is a sort of standard qualification after you've got your degree. And that's definitely worth getting. What we haven't covered, I think, is the the marketing stuff that isn't the things we do. You know, again, we talk about marketing. It's not just the kind of marketing communication side. There's all sorts of other things you can get involved in new product development, you can get involved in market research, you can get involved in sort of, you know, after sales service or internal marketing. So there are lots of other aspects to it that, you know, it's, you don't have to kind of go into somewhere and produce digital marketing or do content or websites, you know, there are lots of other areas like, you know, new product developments are really fun area to be in. Um, so, you know, that's, that's something else. Um, but there are lots of other aspects.

Okay. Um, Alex anything else?

Uh, just that you silly if you don't do digital marketing. Okay.

No, I think, I think for me, this is the fun side. I mean, I think most people think that, you know, the communication end of marketing is the fun bit. But, you know, there are there are lots of other jobs in marketing that that aren't the communication side. So, you know, it's not for everyone, but you can get involved in the, the sort of early stages of, of, you know, producing products or the delivery of products, you know, um, the, the sort of shop and distribution side. So there's lots of other areas.

So the, the fun bit that you just alluded to now, um, I think it's important to point out that although working in an agency like, like, like red evolution is, I hope, great fun. I certainly enjoy it. Uh, or any agency for that matter. Uh, working in marketing, broadly speaking, can be great fun, but there's also a lot of absolute hard graft.

Oh, it can be really stressful.

Because.

We're up against deadlines all the time.

For example, you're not only up against a deadline, you're going to have to write, um, maybe a two or three thousand word piece of content about something which might not be that interesting.

I, yeah, I spent my weekend writing up a thousand pounds. Thousand pound thousand word blog post about welding inspections. Yeah. Um, probably not the most fun thing I've ever done, but, you know, it has to be done. And you know, that's part of it. And yeah, there's stuff that you do that is, you know, not that exciting. The stuff that you do is really stressful trying to meet deadlines. Um, and, and it is hard work.

Yeah. So if you're one of them students who during your degree course really didn't like writing essays and producing written content and all that kind of stuff, it just wasn't for you then probably digital marketing isn't going to be for you either, is it?

Probably not. Again, unless you find an aspect that doesn't involve writing, you'd probably then be better going into a bigger company where you can get a job that isn't the writing bit.

Yeah, there's plenty of like specialist subsets of like skill sets in digital marketing where you don't have to do any writing at all. Aren't there. It's just harder to, I think, ever do the general kind of strategy stuff if you don't enjoy writing.

I mean, it is the art of storytelling. It's the art of persuasion. It's it's it's a communications medium, clearly. And a lot of that is the written word. I mean, obviously, you know, right now you're surrounded by lights and things because we've got our own little studio because we're doing more and more video and that's great fun. That's a really nice way to communicate with people. Um, but.

A lot of it, a lot of it does involve words. And, um, yeah, if you're, if you're in a smaller company, you're going to have to be able to write stuff.

Yeah.

I think the other thing, probably just to come back on something you both said earlier about, um, justifying your existence. The other thing about marketing is no matter where you go, that's kind of a, a permanent thing, isn't it? That kind of like you're justifying your existence, you're proving that what you do works. You're showing results for things. So if that makes you uncomfortable.

You're gonna have to know your way around a spreadsheet and be able to add up as well. And, um, put a budget together.

I guess, um, one of the things about marketing is, um, there's kind of a low barrier to entry and, and, and yeah, somewhat broad. Well, broadly speaking, you know, everybody thinks they're a marketer. Every everybody thinks they can do marketing. Everybody thinks they can understand it. A bit like graphic design. Everybody thinks if they can use, I don't know, Photoshop or Illustrator, that they are therefore capable of doing graphic design.

Yeah.

And that that is completely not the case.

I know, and there's tools out there that make it easier and easier as well.

You are going into an industry that there is a perception that, you know, you're not going to be looked upon like if you're a doctor or a lawyer, for example. It doesn't have that cachet.

It's not it's not rocket science, to be fair. It's, you know, it's not difficult. Um, but you've got to know what you're doing and you've got to do it well. Um, and you've got to work hard.

Yeah. There's a lot.

Of creativity as well. It's a lovely mix of practical and creative.

There's a lot of talk just now. And I would, I would recommend the podcast you did with Cliff Collier to get more context on this. Um, there's a lot of talk just now about, um, about the value of brand and about the value of storytelling. And it's moving away from the more transactional PPC campaigns and all right, keyword research, search engine optimisation, all of that stuff is at the core of, of most digital marketing. But if you're prepared to be brave, then there are still a world of opportunities in marketing.

Yeah. And I think that's sort of as the sort of traditional, like consumer marketing is, is sort of creeping into all aspects, you know, because that's always been at the core of traditional sort of marketing. You know, as I was talking about marketing centric companies, you know, brand would be at the center of everything they did. But, um, I think it's getting kind of gradually after about one hundred years filtering through to other businesses as well.

Mhm. Okay. As a follow on from this, uh, podcast, I'm going to do, Going to do a show with, um, Doctor Kannan from RGU Neil. Good friend of mine. Um, and get try and understand from the other side if you like. Try and understand what what universities are thinking when it comes to educating the marketers of tomorrow. I think that will be that'll be quite.

What skills they're being taught. What they see is, is important.

That's right. Okay. So, uh, you've been listening to Digital Marketing From The Coalface. I'm smirking because.

You got it right.

Um, if you want to come on the show, we'd love to hear from you. We are getting lots of requests to come on now, which is fantastic. We're enjoying that and we've got some great guests coming up. If you want to come on the show, great. If you want to ask questions redevolution.com/digital-marketing-from-the-coalface or redevolution.com Um, that's all from me just now. Alex, anything on closing?

No, I think that's everything from me.

Julie.

Yep. It's a great career. Go for it.

Yeah. Sounds like a good plan. Thanks.