The more time that has passed since I started in online marketing, the more I realize, the less I know about marketing.
I have been dedicated to digital marketing for more than 19 years, but because of my accumulated experience and knowledge, I realize that what I learned is a small part of what I would need to know, especially considering the speed with which things evolve. I am certain that it is much more what I need to learn than what I know. #USA Consumer Email Lists
This article comes from a reflection that I published on Linkedin (at the end of the post I leave it so that you can participate in the debate).
What do you need to be a good online marketing professional?
When you dedicate yourself (or want to dedicate yourself) professionally to something and want to progress in your work, the first idea that comes to mind is to train you. You think: “if I want to control my work, I have to study”.
And it is a great truth, training is the basis of everything. If you want to learn, improve and evolve in your career, there is no other way to train continuously.
But if training was the only answer, we would all succeed. It would only be necessary to study a lot.
To be a good professional you also need to accumulate experience in your work. To assimilate the concepts learned there is no other way than to put them into practice. It is the only way to understand and assimilate them.
The value you bring to a company is your ability to do things and solve problems. And this is thanks to the combination of training and experience that gives you the necessary skills.
To do good marketing you need to develop instinct
But this is not enough, at least not at all. In addition, we must keep in mind all possible options and choose the most appropriate one … every time! For me this is the most difficult thing.
That’s why, in addition to having the knowledge and experience, you have to be able to develop an instinct for marketing.
That clarity of ideas of those who combining objective data and intuition know how to find the correct answer (or at least the most correct one).
Apprentice mentality
For me the most important thing is to have an apprentice mentality. It allows you to be open to new possibilities and methodologies, to question your preconceived ideas and to always want to improve.
The day you start thinking that you have reached the ceiling and that you already know everything, try to take two steps back and look at the context to put yourself back in your place, because you have probably lost yourself.
What can you do to stay updated?
I do not have the magic recipe (but I would not be writing this post!), But I can recommend what I do.
At least 30 minutes of daily reading
Every day I check my list of pending articles in Feedly and spend at least 30 minutes reading interesting content. It may seem like a short time, but until you get to the interesting article you need to dedicate the same or more to review headlines and scan the content to decide if you read it or not.
An article for the blog every week
There is a close relationship between consulting, training, conferences and the blog. There are topics that go from one area to another, but they all end or start on the blog. Let’s say that the blog is in the center and “deals” game to the rest of the areas.
That is to say that the blog helps me to reflect on problems that I am in, to tell you my positive experiences with certain topics, to make my methodology evolve …
The blog forces me to think and helps me to be better in my work
New content sources
I try to keep up to date by incorporating new content sources by selecting new blogs for my Feedly selection, as well as attending conferences.
Although with the conferences I have lost a bit of hope. How difficult it is to find interesting and updated content!
It is very important to look for new sources of knowledge that give you different perspectives.
