Posted by In any field of work, experience is a very important factor for employers when picking candidates. Typically when you go for a job interview, people with more experience usually have a higher chance of getting the job than a fresh out of college candidate, which will lead to the question: How will I be able to get experience when I’m not even considered for the job? Well you don’t have to worry because all your questions will be addressed in this article.
You can also learn how to get experience in digital marketing.
WHAT IS MARKETING?
According to the Oxford Dictionary, Marketing can be defined as the action of promoting and selling of goods or services and these include market research and advertising.
Businesses typically consider the Four P’s when creating marketing strategies and plans to effectively market to their audience.
What are the four P’s of Marketing?
The four P’s of marketing are the most common foundation to creating a successful marketing plan. The four P’s are a marketing mix which are composed of four key elements; product, price, place and promotion.
No individual P takes more priority than the others. Instead, each P is equally important in carrying out a strategic marketing plan. Let’s talk about each P in more detail below:
- Product:
The product is simply the goods or services being marketed to a target audience. For a product to be successful, it needs to fill a void not currently being filled, or it should be able to provide a unique customer experience which will create an increase in demand.
- Price:
The cost of a good or service is known as the price. Picking the price of a good or service that is affordable for its target market should be a priority. If prices are too high for the target market, there’s a high chance the product or service won’t sell well, no matter how good it is. And if it’s too low there will be concerns that the product or service is of an inferior quality so it’s important to find a “Goldilocks zone” price point that is just right for the product.
- Place:
Place is where you sell your products or services and the channels used to distribute the product to your customers. Finding the right place to market or sell your goods is very important if you’re trying to reach your target market. If you market your goods or services where your target market doesn’t visit whether online or offline, you won’t reach your target in terms of sales. Vice versa marketing your goods in places your target audience visits will fetch you success in marketing that particular product.
- Promotion:
This is simply how you advertise your product or service. Through promotion you will be able to create awareness about your product or the kind of service you offer with an effective marketing campaign.
There are many ways with which you can promote your product or service. Television commercials, print advertisements and word of mouth are some traditional ways of advertising. In the modern age however, there are more marketing channels that can be used for promotion. Some of these channels are; email marketing, social media marketing and content marketing.
HOW CAN YOU GAIN EXPERIENCE IN MARKETING?
As we’ve discussed earlier, experience is a very important factor for businesses looking for marketers. But not to worry, we’ll talk about ways in which you can gain experience in marketing.
Develop Your writing skills
Content creation is a very important part of marketing which makes writing very important but a lot of marketers neglect this a lot. Developing your writing skills will set you apart from other new marketers in the eyes of interviewers. There are a couple of ways to improve your writing skills, these are; setting writing goals, writing often, proofreading, thinking about structure, joining writing competitions etc.
Learn from experts
From the “traditional age” to the “digital age”, forms of marketing have been ever-changing but the basic marketing principles have stayed the same so it’s important to learn these basic principles of marketing because it’ll make you stand out from others.
There are a couple of ways with which we can learn from experts such as reading their books; search up the top marketing books and read the top books that pop up first. Write down your key takeaways and discuss it in your next interview. Another way to learn from experts is YouTube. You can also buy their paid courses online with apps like Udemy etc.
Take the Google Analytics certification exam
For any marketing position these days, Basic Analytics knowledge is very important. Fortunately Google makes it easy to learn about market analytics and acquire a certification which you can put on your CV via the Google analytics certification exam.
The study materials provided by Google include about 4 units with 3-5 videos for each unit with assessments available at the end of each unit. The exam has about 70 MCQ and a score of 80% or higher is required to pass the exam.
Make your own content
Making your own content is a very good way of gaining experience when you don’t have any. Pick a brand you’re interested in and pretend you’re in charge of their next ad campaign. Practice making ads with engaging text and graphics.
Some tools that can be used for creating marketing content are; Photoshop, Corel draw, Pixlr etc. Although creating your own content isn’t quite the same as working as a marketer, you will be able to gain experience and you can include your creations in your CV.
Get a Mentor
Although this isn’t really a direct way to gain marketing experience, it’s important to have a mentor because they have the experience and will be able to answer your most important questions, give you feedback and help you gain essential skills in the marketing field.
CONCLUSION
You might have a good degree from school, but without experience many firms still won’t find you of much value to them in terms of employment. With that established we talked about how you can gain marketing experience such as developing your own writing skills, learning from experts, taking the Google analytics certification exam and making your own content. By doing these few things, you can gain enough experience to be able to land a marketing job.