The Agency Marketer's Guide To Career Development

Whether you’re part of an in-house marketing team, or work for a marketing agency,
great marketing is great marketing.
Both sides are working toward the same goal. Both understand the power of a great
campaign. And both are passionate about marketing and lead generation.
But all marketing environments are not equal. The team, environment and
performance metrics differ depending which side of the fence you’re on. Of course,
working on both sides is very valuable and adds real depth to your experience, but
the roles vary quite dramatically, and so do the people who inhabit them…
the in-house marketer
This job requires in-depth knowledge and understanding of your business and
its products and services. In particular, you need to be strong enough to get the
information you need out of people who often don’t understand or care about
marketing.
It helps that in-house marketers have direct contact with senior internal stakeholders
and decision makers, and the sales and product teams are only ever a few steps away.
But it’s maintaining strong relationships with these (sometimes prickly) stakeholders
that’s the real challenge. You certainly need to be able to win friends and influence
people if you are to succeed in-house.
The in-house marketing team is responsible for working out which markets to go after
and how best to position the business and its offerings within those markets. You
are the gatekeepers of the brand. You’ll need to work closely with the sales team all
the time, to ensure that what you produce is what they need – and then you need to
make sure that they use it properly.
It’s your job to translate technical features into hard business benefits – an important
job if your role is in a technology company. The ability to demystify the “tech speak”
and look at everything from the point of view of your customer and how your
solutions will help grow their business, is paramount.
On top of all that, you need to prove your worth. Have you delivered on your
commitments? Are your campaigns generating sufficient leads and return on
investment? Can the sales team feel the impact of your work? Are they seeing the
value that marketing brings?
The sad truth is that marketing is often an overlooked and undervalued part of the
business. Do you have the strength and strategic capabilities to turn it around?
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The Agency Marketer’s Guide to Career Development
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