5 things about marketing only marketers know
We never tell anyone else because, well, aren't we all liars?
There are things about marketing only we know.
We don’t, or can’t tell anyone else, even our bosses and colleagues. They wouldn’t understand. It would only baffle them.
I’ve compiled a few here:
Marketing looks really sexy from the outside. It isn’t.
Especially in the kind of marketing we do in the digital realm, a lot of it is just plain getting things right. Sure, you can plan a great campaign, but what happens after is, to put it mildly, grunt work. There is so much to get right - copy, email flows, hand-offs to sales, and so on.
If any marketer you know is painting a rosy picture of a role or the team or about what they do, they are probably hiring.
Spreadsheet-competency is a competitive advantage.
If you are in college or are annoyingly young or something, spend time fiddling with spreadsheets. Just do it, and do it some more.
It’ll pay off handsomely.
Most things we do are held together by sheer will, and a few dodgy Zaps.
All modern marketing mechanisms have a lot going on behind-the-scenes. These can be manual - like the insane amounts of back and forth for getting a blog image exactly right, or automated - like flagging of important leads so sales can get on them immediately. This means a lot of if-then shortcuts and engineering hacks. In most startups (and even in mid-sized companies), the marketing/sales stack is only one or two integrations away from breaking completely.
Except, no one can know this. The world should see only the finished, slick end result.
We make sure of that.
Marketing attribution, however expensively implemented, is just made up.
No more comments. It just is. Don’t @ me, or do. Up to you.
Marketing, the good kind, takes a long bloody time.
Overnight success is rarely that, and we marketers know.
But when everyone wants outsized results in three months or six, we promise to deliver, knowing full well that it’s just not possible.
Why?
Because you’ll only pay us if we believe that too. That’s why. And remember point 2: We know spreadsheets.
The last two essays on the newsletter turned out to be serious ones, about bad appraisal questions and management mistakes. Wrote this just to lighten it up a bit.
Also, jobs.
A couple of founders reached out asking me if I could put up open marketing roles here in the newsletter. I don’t see why not, especially with companies I admire.
So here goes, check out these roles in Atlan. They just raised their Series A, and are a stellar team looking for stellar talent.
Also, have a look at the roles open at Zolve too. A new fintech startup from the founder of TaxiForSure, they just raised a seed round (Accel is in there, yes).
Securden from Chennai is also looking for their first PMM. This is an Accel startup again, and I’ll be working closely with whoever joins.
Do apply if you think you are a fit for these roles, and please connect with me on LinkedIn if you have any questions.