Increase your value in the workplace
Marketing practices within the workplace must continually evolve and this evolution must occur through legitimate avenues to education because an education without substance is no education at all.
So when you look at subscribing to education programs, ensure that they are legitimate and conducted by experienced industry professionals.
So when you look at subscribing to education programs, ensure that they are legitimate and conducted by experienced industry professionals.
In the context of marketing, education requires seeking out professionals who will help you evolve into better marketers.
Disturbingly, however, the marketing industry is littered with pretenders: those who can speak about textbook marketing without having the substance to back their claims, and those who have nothing to do with the marketing industry other than an ability to sell themselves.
The repercussions of bad advice can be dire for the marketing industry. Marketers researching courses they believe will improve their skills, must realise that generic speakers may be entertaining, but don’t add value unless they have a successful marketing background.
When you consider how marketing has evolved through technology, social media influence and automation, experience in these areas is an imperative. An overall knowledge base drawn from textbooks and hearsay will not teach people how to utilise these tools to advance their own skills. In fact, those without the relevant, industry-based knowledge should not be passing themselves off as teachers.
For instance if someone is spruiking a course about blogging that has peaked your interest, do a little bit of research and find out how many people follow this person’s blog. If they aren’t receiving thousands of hits, can they really call themselves a successful blogger? If not, what do they have to offer you, when the goal of blogging in a marketing context is to create awareness.
So how do you determine what is a legitimate course and what is not.
Like any good marketer you should first do your research. If you want to learn about blogging, follow the world’s best bloggers such as Inc.com’s Jeff Haden. Haden has a formula for success that builds an audience through effective writing principles. Compare that to a university lecturer in social media who doesn’t blog or just isn’t getting reward for effort in the form of numbers.
Association is another effective method for creating personal evolution. Take the Atlanta Tech Village. Founded by entrepreneur David Cummings of Pardot renown, Atlanta Tech Village is a hub for tech and marketing entrepreneurs who wish to learn and evolve with their peers. Being in this hub allows businesses to understand which technologies will have industry impact before they are recognised.
The key to education and evolution in marketing is to be collaborative, sit in forums and have people challenge you. Good marketers will share ideas with marketing groups and develop case studies for workable marketing solutions and practices.
The best educators put their money where their mouths are and these are the people you need to be learning from. These are the people that will help you grow in real time.
Marketing education is like that never-ending piece of string; learning is an ongoing process that requires constant attention as the industry changes.
Today, it is difficult to ascertain what education platforms to choose. Marketers are fed a great deal of information and must sift through a saturation of events and learning pathways to find the one or two things that will help them improve their skills. As such it is important to be smarter in the way time is allocated to education; the emphasis must be on marketing platforms that put an emphasis on growth.
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Annie Ming
30 Apr 2015With the marketing landscape changing so rapidly, I have realised that my marketing degree is only touching on the foundations of the study and that I need grow my marketing knowledge through other educational channels.
ReplyThis has led to information search through attending lectures, forums and reading blogs. Although a few have been memorable, most have been generic and uninspiring.
Not doing sufficient research and being spoken to by educators that were out of touch in the industry only frustrated me. I also found that I needed to be clear in what I wanted to learn and achieve from the classes, to make the experience fulfilling.