First Year MUST LEARN as a Marketing Professional

All things considered, what is the most important thing for an aspiring marketing professional to learn in their first year on the job? I would make the argument that training in publishing and layout software, tradeshow management, brand rationalization, and copy-writing are all important, but completely secondary to teaching major, overarching marketing concepts. As a matter of fact, I would argue that you will get the most out of your entry-level marketing employee if you teach them conceptually how marketing decisions are made, what drives marketing spend, the importance of return-on-investment (ROI), and so on. Furthermore, if an entry-level marketing person learns to operate these major marketing concepts, they are likely to pick up on the rest much more quickly and to understand your expectations—or how to best help you in your job—much better than they might otherwise.

What, then, should an entry-level employee learn from the seasoned marketing professional? Here are the top five things to learn if you are an entry-level aspiring marketing professional:

1. First and foremost, the newbie must learn about ROI. The concept of ROI, sadly missing even amongst some high-level marketing professionals, is essential to making the marketing department a useful, healthy, respected part of any organization. A marketing department that uses its budget without any systems in place to track the ROI on that budget is a disgrace, and therefore any employee that makes marketing decisions without thinking about an implementing a  way to track ROI on that decision is a disgrace.
2. Teach the spring chicken about who the stakeholders are in your work. Sound political? It is. It is essential that she figure out early on who the people are that are affected by the quality, focus, and subject matter of the work produced by the marketing department. Who is going to come to her if she makes a mistake in the technical information? Who will object to one image being used over another? Who is a stickler for data-driven content, and who will complain about marketing fluff? Of all these people, who is the most important to please? To whom does her boss answer? All very important questions to consider for the aspiring marketing professional.
3. The new guy must learn quickly who the best resources within your company are. Who is most in touch with customer needs and can best evaluate whether or not some piece of marketing reflects the solution to those needs?
4. Teach the youngster about value proposition conceptually, and then as applied specifically to your company and products or services. All too often, an inexperienced marketer will focus marketing collateral and customer outreach materials on product features or specs, instead of focusing on how those features can solve specific customer problems and why the customer should use your product or service over that of the competition.
5. Last but not least, every industry has its own lead generation profile. In some industries, leads are generated mostly online. In others, tradeshow leads are exceptionally good because they convert at the best rate. Teach the newcomer how leads are generated in your industry, and how leads should be qualified.

Read More…

• Back to Basics Marketing
• Marketing as Company Wide Responsibility
• Mobilization: Reaching Outside the Marketing Department
• Advanced Lead Qualification: Sales and Marketing Work Together
• Sales’ Feedback into Marketing: Profiling Prospects and Their Problems
• “Inside Marketing”: Marketing to Your Own Sales Organization
• Developing Unique, Customer-Focused Value Propositions
• You Are Here How to Train an Entry-Level Marketing Employee
• When Return on Investment Doesn’t Paint a Full Picture
• Defining and Presenting Value Propositions in a Competitive Market
• Logos and Promotional Product Designs for “Difficult” Subjects
• Defining and Refining Value Propositions for Luxury Items
• Evaluating Return-On-Investment (ROI) for Tradeshow Activities
• Management Mistake in Small Business: No Investment during Trying Times