A competent marketer from scratch: tips for students

It would seem that there are so many marketers today, where else are they to be found. But, as practice and real-life shows, there are few good professionals and their services are expensive. Therefore, do not worry about the competition there is none. Especially if you are still learning and aspire to become a competent professional who works for results, not for the sake of the process.

Today, let’s talk about how a student can become a good marketer before he or she has even had a degree in marketing.

1. Read professional literature

Purpose: To understand the basics of marketing, human psychology, different areas of marketing.

Yes, some books quickly lose their relevance, but some are considered the basics and provide a general understanding of the specifics of marketing.

Here is a list of books that will help a beginner from scratch understand the essence of the science and some tools:

“Principles of Marketing” by Philip Kotler;
“Marketing Wars” by Jack Trout, Al Rice;
“Brand Management” Harvard Business Review.

2. Choose courses where there is definitely some practical experience

The aim: to gain theoretical knowledge and consolidate it in experience, to get a full portfolio with cases.

If the courses consist only of theory or some kind of the same for all practical tasks (just like in school), then this option is not suitable. Training that will really give results is the one where practice comes first and after each module, you are literally forced to implement everything with real examples (often in the process of training they offer to find a company that needs a marketer, or becomes one for themselves and their project) and without this, they do not allow you to move on to the next lesson. And if the course also has a limited time frame, this will encourage you to do everything well and on time. So if you are studying at university at the same time, we advise you to turn to essayassistant.net so that your grades stay high.

After the training, the student should have an understanding of categories such as:

branding;
SEO;
working with analytics;
launching advertising campaigns (targeting, contextual advertising, working with bloggers)
content marketing;
copywriting (including storytelling);
PR, communications;
building sales funnels.

Also, courses, where the teacher does not have real and successful cases and a lot of experience, are not suitable. After all, what can such a person teach?

3. Join a mentor program

Purpose: To gain real experience, to see how different marketing tools work in reality

There are many such programs nowadays and they are often completely free and work as a community program. It is only important to make sure that the mentor is competent and able to teach and pass on the experience. Because there are some very cool and competent specialists, but they do not know how to teach others or do not want to spend much time on this.

4. Get an internship or an apprenticeship in a company

Purpose: to network with experts, to learn different perspectives on certain marketing issues, and to gain experience.

This is especially relevant for senior students or recent graduates. Some companies are happy to recruit marketing novices and actively train them for 2-6 months, hold entire competitions (as not everyone will be able to stay at the company), motivate them to go to case studies, and allow the students to come up with real cases afterward.

This practice is popular among international corporations, media holdings – big businesses. They can also have a mentoring program where one specialist is assigned 2-3 trainees and they study at the same time under the same conditions.

5. Attend thematic events

Purpose: to improve knowledge of certain areas of marketing.

Yes, a lot of things may be unclear and complicated at first, but you should definitely get to grips with all the terms, feel free to ask questions, talk to professionals and ask their point of view on certain things (what is now known as networking). In such conversations, you can get to the bottom of things or come up with a new idea for a project.

You can search for events (both offline and online) on Facebook, various thematic groups, and forums.

6. Study cases and real-life examples

Purpose: to find out what tools are used and for what problems, to analyze and apply this to life.

Sometimes what is written in a book or the way the information is perceived does not quite match reality. Therefore, it is better to make it a rule to read 5-10 cases a day (you can find them simply by searching on Google for “marketing cases”, “Internet marketing cases”), analyze them and write down ideas and try to understand why this happened and how it can be applied.

7. Get a job as a junior marketer or assistant marketer

Purpose: To learn about different marketing tools in detail and to work with them.

There’s nothing like real-life practice. Yes, assistant marketers don’t get paid much, but at this stage in your development, your goal should not be money, but experience and knowledge. It’s only important to find out right away what your job will really involve and match this with your requirements for it. More often than not, it’s a set of small tasks like creating email lists and emails, downloading analytics from different resources, searching for key phrases and words, setting up ads, paying for services, writing posts, or selling texts, etc. You can use a marketing bundle with email templates, animated banners, fonts, icons, illustrations, landing page themes, and other graphic elements to optimize some processes. These are all important, but don’t hesitate to ask for more serious strategy-related tasks after a while..

8. Start your study with the SMM area

Purpose: To study a particular area of marketing in detail to work with strategy, specific tools and move on to general marketing.

If you want to become a professional marketer, it is important to understand the different areas of marketing. SMM is the most common place to start, as it’s very close to extensive marketing, plus it’s easier to get a job and gain experience. The main thing is not to stay in it for too long but to gradually expand the amount of knowledge and skills.

It is important to learn the following:

developing a promotion strategy;
creating a content plan (both textual and visual, for stories);
creating a strategy to warm up the audience and sell;
building a communication policy;
creating a brand voice;
finding and working with bloggers and advertising platforms.

You should also study graphic editors (both Photoshop and online services with paid and free social media templates) to learn how to make beautiful images quickly and efficiently.

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