Thinking of going into marketing?
Already work in marketing?
About to take on your next marketing role?
Here’s everything you need to say / know / do to survive in a marketing environment in 2018:
– Mention ‘data’ a lot, or ‘big data’.
Or, if you really want to sound good, say ‘data-driven insights’.
Whatever you do, don’t elaborate on what you actually mean by saying any of this
– Talk about ‘audience engagement’ and ‘engagement-driven insights’ – particularly during meetings
– Mention ‘authenticity’ – as in; ‘authenticity is key to engaging with our audiences’
– Mention ‘millennials’. Don’t follow this up with anything – just mention them…
– Talk about ‘metrics’ and ‘measurable KPIs’
– Say ‘we must have a content strategy’
– Say ‘CMS platform utilisation’, and watch people nod
– Mention the importance of ‘reaching out’ to key audiences, while forgetting that you’re a good 4,000 miles from the U.S and you never usually talk like that
– Talk about ‘audience personas’, and invent a white male, aged 18 – 35, called Michael, ‘who has a disposable income’.
In the charity sector, ‘Michael’ will become ‘Michaela’
– Say ‘integrated campaign, across all platforms’ while talking about a one-off press advert
– Mention the ‘customer journey’
– Hire an ‘Insight Manager’ … but ensure that no-one knows quite what they have insight into
– Create spreadsheets showing a strategy across the year / a content calendar.
Avoid the notion that all you’re doing is writing obvious things in boxes, then making those boxes different colours.
Turn that spreadsheet into a pdf, to look even more professional.
Remember: words in boxes + colours = ‘organised’ and ‘strategic’
– Talk about ‘cross-fertilisation’, without the slightest recognition that, up until five years ago, this was purely a biological term
– Mention ‘collaborative working’ at least three times a day… while noting that all departments continue to ignore the existence of other departments
– Come up with a world-beating campaign, and create a committee to oversee that campaign – then create another committee to oversee that committee, and a committee to oversee the committee overseeing the committee.
Realise, a year later, that the campaign has moved no further forward, and quietly abandon it.
– Get used to interpreting utterly vague phrases, such as ‘make it pop’ and ‘just jazz it up a bit’, in relation to any creative work
– Write ‘reimagined’ or ‘reinvented’ for things that have been neither reimagined nor reinvented.