Business Development
Swimming In An Ocean of Change
Returning to a full time job after a gap of 5 years can be a daunting task for anyone, more so if you’re in the Marketing game.
When I joined Zeitgeist a year ago after my “baby-hiatus” I didn’t realise just how much the Marketing game had changed.
The last time I checked, Facebook was being used to reconnect with my school friends who I hadn’t met in 15 years, not as one of the biggest marketing tools the 21st century has seen yet. And just who were these “millennials”? And how was I ever going to understand what made them tick?
How did I ever get any work done before, without being part of an office WhatsApp group?
It’s not that Facebook was alien to me; and of course I knew all about WhatsApp, but I hadn’t realised just how much a part of work culture and business communications these tools had become. Not one who was particularly fond of social media, I soon realised that I definitely had to join ‘em and not beat ‘em if I were to survive as a Marketing professional.
A New Way of Thinking
A year on, I’ve survived, but I do learn something new every single day. And that’s been my biggest takeaway – that today changes in the field of Marketing happen so rapidly, you have to be on the ball all the time.
It hit me the most when the guru of Marketing, Philip Kotler – whose books I devoured in college and referred to regularly in the earlier part of my career – released his Marketing 4.0 in 2017, in which he openly refutes many of his own ‘rules’ of Marketing from just a couple of decades ago. Incidentally, that book is a great place to start, to understand what you’re up against as far as Marketing in the 21st Century (or at least the next few years!) goes.
What’s the Most Important Skill Marketing Professionals Need Today?
I would say it’s adaptability. Technology is going to lead to new tools and new ways of working, with unprecedented changes bombarding you at a pace that is hard to keep up with. (In the few weeks since I’ve started writing this piece itself, the world’s view on Facebook has altered a fair bit! And that’s big!)
But the good news is that learning how a new technology works is not that hard; the resources to do so are easily accessible – usually at the click of a button. The real test will be how well you will be able to adapt new technology to your job as a Marketer. Choosing which aspects of emerging trends and practices are the best for your particular role and rapidly making it work for you, is where the cleverness lies.
If you’re up for a challenge – and every marketer I know usually is – the not-so-distant future is going to be an exciting time for sure!
Gitanjali Singh Cherian
Marketing Manager