What Are Some Career Skills That Are Essential If I Want To Pursue A Career In The Creative Side Of Marketing?
I have been considering changing my major to Marketing. I heard that there are two sides to marketing (although I know I'm gonna learn about both), the analytical side and creative side. I want to lean towards the creative side of marketing.
Some roles I'm interested in:
- Brand Marketing
- Social Media Marketing/Management
- Content Marketing
- Graphic Design
9 answers
Amit’s Answer
1. Brand Marketing: A Brand Marketing Manager or a Brand Specialist is responsible for ensuring that their company’s products, services, and product lines resonate with current or potential customers. They monitor marketing trends and competitive companies in the marketplace to stay ahead of the competition. Their responsibilities include analyzing brand positioning, shaping and communicating the company’s vision and mission, translating brand elements into plans and go-to-market strategies, and leading creative development to motivate the target audience to take action.
2. Social Media Marketing/Management: A Social Media Manager is responsible for planning, developing, implementing, and managing strategies for the social media accounts of a business. Their competence determines how effectively the business will be able to portray its brand value online. They are responsible for creating original text and video content, managing posts, responding to followers, and analyzing running campaigns. They also need to stay on top of the latest social media trends.
3. Content Marketing: A Content Marketing Manager is responsible for taking full responsibility of inbound marketing strategies including social media, blogs, and lead generation. They design content marketing strategies, undertake content marketing initiatives to achieve business targets, collaborate with design and writing teams to produce high-quality content, develop an editorial calendar, delegate tasks, ensure deadlines are met, and optimize content considering SEO and Google Analytics.
4. Graphic Design: A Graphic Designer is an artist who creates visual text and imagery. They design creative content for online campaigns, print ads, websites, and even videos. They use colors, text, images, and symbols to assist with their company’s design process and make communications easier to understand for all audiences. They are responsible for developing visual ideas and designs using digital tools or manual methods that accompany the written text to communicate messages that engage and inform audiences.
I hope this helps! If you have any other questions or need further clarification on these roles, feel free to ask
Amit’s Answer
I'm Amit and glad that you have an interest in Creative things. I’d be happy to help you understand the essential skills for a career in the creative side of marketing. Here are some key skills you should consider:
Creativity and Innovation: This is the heart of the creative side of marketing. You should be able to come up with fresh, innovative ideas that can capture an audience’s attention and communicate your brand’s message effectively.
Understanding of Branding: In roles like Brand Marketing, understanding the essence of a brand and how to represent it creatively is crucial. This includes knowledge of brand positioning, brand personality, and brand image.
Content Creation: For roles in Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing/Management, being able to create engaging content that resonates with your audience is key. This could range from blog posts and articles to videos, infographics, and social media posts.
Graphic Design Skills: If you’re interested in Graphic Design, proficiency in design software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign is essential. A good sense of aesthetics, color theory, and typography will also be beneficial.
Social Media Savvy: For Social Media Marketing/Management roles, understanding different social media platforms and knowing how to leverage them for brand promotion is important. This includes knowledge of platform-specific trends, algorithms, and features.
Communication Skills: Good communication skills are essential in all marketing roles. You should be able to effectively convey ideas to your team as well as communicate your brand’s message to your audience.
Analytical Skills: Even on the creative side, some level of analytical skill is necessary. You’ll need to understand how to interpret data on campaign performance, audience engagement, etc., to make informed decisions.
There are numerous marketing tools available that can help you in different aspects of marketing. Here are some of them categorized by their use:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools: 1. HubSpot CRM 2. Zoho CRM 3. Moosend 4. Zendesk 5.Pipedrive
Online Advertising Tools: 6. AdStage 7. HubSpot Ads Tracking Software 8. Perfect Audience 9. Google Keyword Planner 10. AdRoll 11. WordStream
Social Media Tools: 12. NapoleonCat 13. Buffer 14. Hootsuite 15. BuzzSumo 16. HubSpot Social Inbox 17. Iconosquare
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools: 18. Ryte 19. Ahrefs 20. SEMrush 21. Moz 22. Keywords Everywhere Chrome Extension 23. HubSpot Content Strategy Tool
Content Creation and Design Tools: 24. Adobe Spark 26. Piktochart 27. Canva 28. Recordit 29. Kap 30. Adobe Color CC
Video Marketing Tools: 31. Wistia 32. Vidyard 33. Vimeo 34. Loom 35. Movavi 36. Wave Video
These tools can help you manage your marketing efforts more effectively and efficiently, from managing customer relationships to creating engaging content and optimizing for search engines.
Remember that these skills can be developed over time and with experience. Good luck with your career in marketing! 😊
Amit recommends the following next steps:
Ivy’s Answer
Behavioral psychology: Learn how our brains work to help us navigate the everyday. Get comfortable with the contradictory and illogical ways that we carry out decision-making. It'll come in handy when you're trying to encourage behavior change in a campaign.
Audience research: Be comfortable exploring niche communities, subcultures and groups of people who aren't like you. Many times you'll get asked to make compelling campaigns for a target audience you have nothing in common with, so learning what they care about and being able to walk in their shoes is really important.
Culture and new media exposure: Play around with new social media platforms, dip your toe into popular TV shows/YouTube channels, learn Internet memes you don't know, go to concerts and art events, read good journalism and new books... exposure to new ideas is a surefire way to enhance your creativity and keep you connected to what makes people tick.
Eric’s Answer
The best way to start is to identify what kind of creative marketing job you’d like to get when you graduate to identify these skills. Based on the types of jobs you’ve listed, I would recommend to research what a day in the life is for these jobs, look up the job description for these jobs on sites like LinkedIn, and try to network with people in these roles. Alumni from your university is a great way to start. From there, hopefully that allows you to focus on 1-2 types of marketing jobs and dig in deep on what career skills they’re looking for. Based on my experience, when hiring managers are evaluating candidates, they typically assess the candidate in three buckets:
- Cultural fit: Do you exemplify the cultural or core values of the company and the team?
- Ability to do the job: do you have the education, work experience, and potential to be coached to be able to execute the job function?
- Vertical experience: do you have experience with the specific industry they are in or do you have the interest to be able to ramp up quickly?
Hiring managers will weigh each of these buckets differently, but it’s good to make sure you’re prepared to shine in all three buckets. Below are some other tips…
Eric recommends the following next steps:
Angie’s Answer
Get a great handle on at least basic Digital communications-
Begin RIGHT now, WHERE you are, not all things happen in some future date , as much as you plan for “one day” consider a pivot in perspective that you are a professional right now .
Create and maintain ties with your communities, your schools, your network can grow from the most diversified basket .
Be the kind of person you would like to have in your corner- this will help you , be your best -
Understand a great level of human nature, behaviors , consumer habits and Regional traditions - get a strong solid grasp for branding and product promotion .
Treat every company and client like your baby, and care about them , listen . This will make every difference in level of trust .
Angie recommends the following next steps:
Kyle’s Answer
Sara’s Answer
Tonya’s Answer
Some good basic courses that help are consumer psychology, market research, and any basic sales courses you can find.
Take advantage of any internships you can find- as well as just taking an opportunity to shadow someone in each area you are interested in. Maybe try LinkedIn to see if you can find a mentor.
Good luck!