Navigating the marketing landscape: Four Marketing experts share their wisdom and experience

Meaningful tips, insights and career advice for your marketing journey

Marketing is a complex, constantly evolving arena, which can be both exciting and challenging. But, working in marketing, you’ll have the opportunity to be part of a brilliant, generous and energetic tribe and you’ll need to be versatile and learn every day.

To help you find your way through this rapidly changing landscape, we asked four long-serving and successful marketers to share some of their deep understanding and years of real-life experience.

What we learned was more insightfully brilliant than we could have hoped for.

Meet the experts:

So, what insights did we learn from interviewing our high-calibre panel? Let’s dive in and see!

Insight #1: Be flexible, energetic, creative and persistent

This is an exciting time to be working in marketing, because change equals opportunity. Natalie says:

So, a career in marketing means continuous learning and growth will be a normal part of your working life, and there’s no telling where the next idea will come from. “The creative energy that you get when you have a group of marketers in a room (especially with a whiteboard!) and to feel that buzz of coming up with new ideas is always amazing.” says Ally.

Of course, it’s not always a walk in the park, and Peter tells us the most useful skill he developed was the “Persistence and resilience to weather some tough environments.” But, achieving successful outcome is always awesome. Says Ally: “That feeling of achievement when you’ve put so much time and effort into a project and seeing it come to life makes all the hard work worthwhile.”

Insight#2: Start by exploring, then keep exploring

Yes, it’s a big landscape, so don’t settle. Catherine tells us that she would advise her 21-year-old self to understand more about the different specialisms within marketing, like… “brand marketing, product marketing, research, field marketing etc. And if possible, dabble in many fields before selecting to specialise in one area!” Ally agrees you should keep your mind and your options open:

And it doesn’t stop… “I’m constantly being pushed to learn new things. This is both fantastic and scary,” says Catherine.

Always having an eye on the horizon helps you to have a career you choose, doing the things you actually enjoy. Says Natalie: “The pace will get faster as the years go on, you’ll never stop learning, and you’ll love it even more in 20 years than you do now.”

Insight#3: Listen and collaborate

Marketing is not a solo business, and even if you’re a single marketer in a larger organisation, you’ll need to lean on the experience and expertise of others in the business.

Peter highlights how collaboration has been a crucial factor in for successful outcomes:

Catherine concurs: “Marketing touches every area of the business, so we get to engage with every internal department, with partners at all levels, with clients, suppliers etc.”

So, what’s the secret to collaborating across an organisation? Natalie sums this up beautifully: “Listen. We have 2 ears and 1 mouth, use them accordingly. Everyone’s an expert in marketing (apparently) but you can glean some gold from 99% of conversations.”

Insight#4: Marketing should focus on business impact

This is something we at The Walk believe in passionately. Sometimes marketing is dismissed as being a bit fluffy. But we know it isn’t true! Catherine has some great words on this:

Of course, it can take a little perseverance she tells us, “Being a marketer in corporate B2B is always an uphill battle, but (and here is the real lesson) stay faithful and believe because we know that marketing makes a massive difference to sales and as such are a partner in driving revenue.” Natalie lines up on this side too and describes what makes her most proud in her marketing work as: “Finding ways to take advantage of new marketing methods. And impacting the sales pipeline positively.”

Insight#5: It’s all in the detail:

To be successful in marketing, you’ll have to learn to juggle. So, staying on top of detail is critical.

Catherine tells us her secret: “Being super organised. I’ve always been in roles (whether in huge multi-national or small local companies) where there are a hundred things on the go. Being able to stay on top of everything or at least know where it’s all at has been a life saver.”

And, a word of caution from Ally:

So, there you have it

Firstly, we’d like to extend our thanks to our generous panel for giving their time to help us out with this project, and whether you’re a programmatic planner, an enterprise marketing profession or the customer outreach outcomes success ninja at a startup, just know that you aren’t alone.

We hope you learned something that will help you as you climb ever closer to your own personal marketing summit. If you’d like to contribute to this or have your own story to tell, we’d love to hear it!

Talk to The Walk

And now… the survey answers from our panel in full:

• I would tell my 21-year-old self

  Natalie Day
  The pace will get faster as the years go on, you’ll never stop learning, and you’ll love it even more in 20 years than you do now.

  ---

  Catherine Lee
  I think I would tell 21-year-old me to really understand the difference between:
  B2B marketing and B2C (especially FMCG) marketing – the style, the pace, the targets, the analytics, goals etc – all completely different and suited to different personality types.

  The difference within marketing itself e.g. brand marketing, product marketing, research, field marketing etc etc – and if possible, to dabble in many fields before selecting to specialise in one area!

  ---

  Peter Brinkman
  When you get a good boss – really appreciate that person and make the most of that opportunity to learn from them as you will definitely get some bosses that are far from perfect!

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  Ally Burt
  Take every opportunity that comes your way. Don’t be afraid to say “yes”. Learn as much as you can from the work experience and internship opportunities that come your way – and start building your network early.

• One key lesson I learned early on in my marketing career that has stayed with me.

  Natalie Day
  Listen. We have 2 ears and 1 mouth, use them accordingly. Everyone’s an expert in marketing (apparently) but you can glean some gold from 99% of conversations.

  ---

  Catherine Lee
  It’s a lesson I learned, but not necessarily a positive one. The lesson is that: in B2B “traditional” companies with “traditional”-minded leaders, marketing is often not seen as a revenue generating stream to the business. While it supports sales, the sales dept is the one that is seen to be revenue generating. As such, being a marketer in corporate B2B is always an uphill battle, BUT (and here is the real lesson) stay faithful and BELIEVE because WE know that marketing makes a massive difference to sales and as such are a PARTNER in driving revenue.

  ---

  Peter Brinkman
  To be successful you must partner and collaborate with the sales teams to develop and execute campaigns and initiatives.

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  Ally Burt
  Always take the time to triple check work before it goes to print. There is nothing worse than getting a big run of brochures back from the supplier, only to find a typo that everyone missed because they were too busy.

• What surprises/delights me the most about my working life

  Natalie Day
  Delights: Smart people, interactions with all types of tech roles, improving customer experience (customers = end users and internal stakeholders). Marketing is fortunate in that we need to integrate with many ‘departments’ in order to do what we do. That brings with it so many opportunities for learning and growing.

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  Catherine Lee
  The most delightful part of being a marketer is that marketing touches every area of the business, so we get to engage with every internal department, with partners at all levels, with clients, suppliers etc.

  ---

  Peter Brinkman
  Sounds a bit corny but working with a wide mix of people / personalities is great. Also working for an organisation that allows you test new and innovative ideas and approaches.

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  Ally Burt
  The creative energy that you get when you have a group of marketers in a room (especially with a whiteboard!) and to feel that buzz of coming up with new ideas is always amazing.

• I’m most proud of…

  Natalie Day
  Finding ways to take advantage of new marketing methods. And impacting the sales pipeline positively.

  ---

  Catherine Lee
  Two things:
  I’m always proud when a marketing campaign delivers beyond expectations and I can prove it. Marketing is very analytical these days and results are trackable so being able to prove ROI from a marketing campaign is fantastic, especially as mentioned above, when marketing has historically not been seen as a revenue generating stream.

  When a long slow-burn campaign comes to life. When people see the end result of a campaign they don’t often see the amount of work that has gone into it but when a big campaign launches, it’s such a rewarding feeling.

  ---

  Peter Brinkman
  Joining companies with different solutions and challenges and hitting the ground running to quickly execute demand generation programs.

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  Ally Burt
  I’m lucky that there have been lots of highlights in my career! But it all boils down to the excitement of pulling off a really big project – like a brand refresh, a big event, or launching a website. That feeling of achievement when you’ve put so much time and effort into a project and seeing it come to life makes all the hard work worthwhile.

• What’s coming up that’s thrilling or scary?

  Natalie Day
  Nothing scares me. What thrills me is we are in an advantageous position to ‘have to’ keep pace with a changing industry and get the rare chance to try, and to learn and to pivot quickly.

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  Catherine Lee
  It doesn’t necessarily ‘scare’ me but keeps me on my toes – the exponential growth of digital marketing, from SEO to retargeting to affiliate marketing etc – I’m not a spring chicken, and I’m constantly being pushed to learn new things. This is both fantastic and scary.

  ---

  Peter Brinkman
  This might be one of the career areas that will take some time before the robots can do these sort of roles – but once the AI starts to get really sophisticated and has creative capabilities, I fear that many jobs will be lost to bots that will work 24/7 and never take a holiday!

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  Ally Burt
  The mix of data and technology can be both awesome and scary. For example, social listening is handy for marketers, but for consumers it can be pretty creepy. When does that switch off? I don’t think any of us really knows what’s coming next.

• The core skills that have helped me throughout my career are:

  Natalie Day
  Tenaciousness.

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  Catherine Lee
  Being super organised. I’ve always been in roles (whether in huge multi-national or small local companies) where there are a hundred things on the go. Being able to stay on top of everything or at least know where it’s all at has been a life saver. Makes me look good at my job even when I have no idea!!

  ---

  Peter Brinkman
  Persistence and resilience to weather some tough environments.

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  Ally Burt
  Good communication is a crucial skill to master, especially being able to write clearly and concisely. For me, this holds true across the board, whether you’re emailing your team, writing an internal document, putting together customer facing collateral, or managing relationships with clients, customers and suppliers.