I didn’t go to school for marketing. In fact, I never took as much as a single course in marketing during my college days. And in hindsight, that might have been a good thing.
Why?
Because with every passing day, I see some of the more traditional, subjective facets of marketing (what some refer to as the “art” of marketing) giving way to a much more analytical, dare I say mathematical, approach to marketing (what some refer to as the science of marketing). And I know that I’m not alone. It seems like with every passing day, more and more of the big opportunities lie in disciplines like marketing finance and big data science. I’m even starting to see some of the big players including skills like SQL in marketing leadership jobs that have historically focused on “idea” people as opposed to analysis people.
Even at the day to day level, it seems like more and more of the meetings I attend deal with statistical significance, A/B splits, and data integrity as opposed to campaign tag lines and marketing hooks. I’m loving it because I’m a big believer in creating a culture of testing, and creating that type of culture requires moving away from subjective approach to executing marketing campaigns and initiatives. Yet at the same time, it’s got me thinking that I should be spending my spare time sharpening up my mathematical, statistical, and programming skills (and perhaps even returning to school) so that I can keep pace with breakneck speed at which analytical sophistication impacts the various digital marketing channels that I work with.
And then I think about folks I’ve worked with that consider themselves “traditional marketers.” Pivot tables are foreign to them. A/B tests are a necessary evil if not an encumbrance. Marketing is all about getting credit for the next “big idea” or about documenting process or about schmoozing with colleagues and business partners.
Mind you, there’s certainly a place for big ideas, process, and schmoozing. There likely always will be. But as digital begins to overtake traditional individuals with a skill set geared only for the latter and not at all for the former will likely find themselves outflanked by individuals that took the time to develop both simultaneously.
And you can forget about it once TV finally succumbs and becomes a truly digital channel that’s subject to interactivity and analytics tracking.
So the moral of this story is this:
If you’re already knee deep in the scientific side of marketing, don’t become complacent. Keep refining and developing those skills and that knowledge base, because I can guarantee you that there are new generations of super smart and tech-savvy kids who could soon be nipping at your professional heels.
And if you’re one of these traditional marketers, recognize that you’re at a crossroads and take the steps necessary to ensure that you don’t become obsolete in the digital long run.
