When I was in college I remember being very passionate about the world of communications but the field seemed so big that I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I’m thankful that my career has led me to where I am today, which is in the marketing field. There’s just something about that feeling of knowing you are exactly where you are supposed to be.
As I have learned to get to know myself and what I like doing and what I don’t career wise, there was a point in my life that I would ask myself what part of the communications field I saw myself fitting in to. What was it that I actually liked doing on a day-to-day basis? Well, as of right now, I’m pretty certain that I thoroughly enjoy the field of marketing. So, if you’ve stumbled upon this blog post and are considering a career in the field of marketing I’m here to tell you what it’s all about.
I like to describe the field of marketing as an in-between advertising and sales in that you are promoting something and hopes of generating profit (not all times of course, sometimes you just want people to know about your product). Marketing is all around us and I’m sure in the present time, you’ve probably seen commercials on television, radio, billboards and of course social media (hello influencers). As a marketer your main goal is to get the word out and to obtain results.
Personally, I work in the educational field at a university and just like any other organization, our main goal is to get the word out to students about our various programs and news within the part of the university that I work in. Now, you may be asking yourself what I do on a day-to-day basis and I’m here to let you in on what it’s like to work in marketing at a university. On a day-to-day basis you can find me working on things like:
- Managing social media. This means both planning and posting on various platforms.
- Working with various advertising vendors to set up various advertising campaigns. This involves reviewing our goals/objectives, pricing, deliverables, payment and analytics.
- Managing various mailing lists and sending out email blasts- this includes designing what an email will say and how it will look.
- Working with Adobe Suite using programs like Photoshop, Illustrator and In Design (it’s a constant learning for me on this one but knowing how to use these programs is key!)
- Planning events. Yes, you heard me. Though event planning can be a career all on its own, it can often be a part of a marketing manager’s job- especially as it relates to the promotion of various products or company happenings.
- Analyzing, analyzing, analyzing! Marketing is all about knowing what worked and what can be improved, therefore it is important that you know how to read analytics, whether that be Google Analytics, FB ads analytics, YouTube analytics etc. You’ll want to familiarize yourself with words like “impressions, click through rate, reach” etc.
- Reporting. Oftentimes, when working on a campaign, part of your job will be to compile a presentation of what you did and the results you obtained, therefore, part of your job will be to work on such presentations to share with your team.
- Writing. This one is always a given- I feel in any career- but when it comes to marketing, you can find yourself writing for a website, for brochures, for ads, for flyers etc. It is imperative that you have attention to detail when posting and creating various marketing materials.
- Finally, for me, the last part of my job which I haven’t mentioned yet, is updating websites. Nowadays you don’t need to know complex coding to work on websites as a lot of them operate under what is referred to as a content management system (cms)- meaning it is all set up so that you can click a few buttons to update content.
As you can tell, marketing involves working on various things, and like many jobs, no day is the same. If you’re thinking about a career in marketing, this is what your day-to-day can look like. It is a fun job filled with creativeness that can leave you feeling fulfilled.
If you have any specific questions about this career, I’m happy to answer them below. 🙂
