My Journey Into Marketing...
Happy New Month Everyone! This week I want to touch a bit on my story of how I got into marketing and if anyone is interested in getting into marketing there are some tips to help you.
Happy New Month Everyone!
This week I want to touch a bit on my story of how I got into marketing and if anyone is interested in getting into marketing, there are some tips to help you.
Growing up I always wanted to be an investment banker, mainly because I loved Canary Wharf and the few role models I looked up to were city boys. I didn’t know anything about marketing and that you could get paid for having creative ideas - this is why representation is super important. When I was in my 2nd year of university I birthed a passion project called ‘Review Plug’, a platform that offers reviews and suggestions of Films and TV series. This became my trajectory into digital marketing as I had to consider different methods I could use to grow my platform. I ended up going down a rabbit hole and found loads of podcast episodes discussing marketing, such as The GaryVee Audio Experience, Young Smart Money and Marketing School with Eric Sui & Niel Patel.
The internet is your friend. There is a vast amount of online free courses at our fingertips. I found a number of courses that taught me about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), social media marketing, and community engagement. This helped me to finetune my interests and I put my newfound skills to the test for a small business where I landed a job role as a Business Development Manager. After understanding that I had built up specific skills in this role, I was committed to sharpening them. I decided to start freelancing by growing social media pages, creating websites and campaigns for other businesses. This is how I began building my portfolio and getting more skin in the game.
I soon landed a work placement at Converse which definitely gave me a great insight into how global brand marketing works and most importantly, engaging with diverse communities. This opened a new door for me as I pitched for Converse to do their first-ever UK Black History Month campaign in February, long before the Black Lives Matter protests. I learnt so much at Converse and it was a great work placement. I want to advise people to be humble enough to take a salary downgrade if it means that it will put you in a better position in the future where you can earn 10x more.
The path into marketing isn’t linear, there are so many routes one could take and there’s never a clear route into most careers to be honest. However, one thing I can say that got me into the position I'm at now (even though I'm just scratching the surface) is taking ACTION. In hindsight, following my passion, thinking big, and committing has gotten me where I am. This is not advice just for people in marketing this is for anything, you have to have skin in the game. People talk about the experience paradox a lot: jobs demanding candidates with experience and candidates not having experience because no one wants to hire anyone without experience.
You can create your own experience, the same way you can create your own opportunities! I took free courses, watched a lot of YouTube videos, listened to various podcasts and I did so much free work (way more than I should have). All of this created a tangible range of work to put into my portfolio when presenting myself to Converse and clients.
Here are some quick tips if you are looking to get into Marketing which can also be applied to other career routes:
Find a specific skill, build specific knowledge, and put your hours in. This could be web design, social media marketing, brand design, paid advertising, anything! Try a bunch of stuff, find what works for you, and obsess over it till you have specific knowledge. As mentioned above you can gain specific knowledge through reading topic-related articles or books, watching videos, listening to podcasts, or participating in courses, and don’t be afraid to pay for them!
Get skin in the game. I got skin in the game by creating something and growing it. You can do the same or can get some skin in the game by volunteering to take care of your friend’s business marketing (do this for a limited time though, if you start bringing in money make sure you’re getting something for the value you’re bringing in too).
Create your own job role by creating concepts for businesses, this could be a campaign that will help them be more connected to their communities (i.e what I did for Converse). I see loads of people doing it on Twitter with a brand and UX/UI design and honestly, it’s the best way to get exposure, even if you don’t get noticed by the brand, you could get noticed by a competitor who would want you to do something similar. Just be careful around it and make sure you don't give without receiving, so make sure you don’t give out your best ideas for people to copy. Always show your ideas at surface level, and if pitching make sure you pitch that you want to lead the project execution.
Lastly, you might not actually need a job in marketing. Freelancing or starting your own agency might be what’s actually best for you… I know not everyone is entrepreneurial and that’s totally fine but being honest, when I realised that I could replace my salary and triple it having three clients a month, I started to think why am I actually looking for a job? Why don’t I take control of my destiny and do the work I enjoy, working with people I want to work with and now I wake up every morning grateful and excited to work. I’ve always been entrepreneurial though, I just needed to find what was for me which clearly wasn’t investment banking.
To conclude, following my passion, being curious, and taking action is what got me to where I am and you can apply this to any industry. The first thing you have to do is get clear on your vision, get some skin in the game, build some value (specific knowledge and results) and show up every day. Next start putting your work out there, get it in front of people you want to work with or for. Stay curious and keep evolving, don’t let imposter syndrome stop you from starting, just START.
The more you build and show your value, the more opportunities come your way. I found getting a job extremely hard, draining, and tiring so I took things into my own hands, created my own job role, and now headhunting opportunities are coming my way.
Wishing you all a great week and month, as always feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or want to talk a bit more.