When hiring a marketing lead, or even a consultant for that matter, one of the biggest influencing factors in a hiring decision should be “how quickly can this person get up to speed on our market and product/ service category?”.
A deep industry knowledge permeates everything a marketer does. From writing tactical email campaigns and segmenting addressable markets to creating pricing plans and go-to-market. Without it, a marketing team is flying somewhat blind; reliant on other functions’ view of the world and unable to independently generate ideas.
As a marketer, you don’t have to be the expert, but you should seek to become one of them – able to question and challenge other functional heads to identify market opportunity and challenges. Only then can you put into place suitable strategies that deliver results.
Most good marketers can transfer their skills to new roles and apply tools to make a difference. The great marketers I’ve worked with have the humility to learn a market, it’s nuances, history, and evolution; their critical skill is to get under the hood of a market and business and really differentiate.
We all know that you can’t have converting content or landing pages let alone successful sales discussions without messaging, and you can’t have messaging without really knowing the market. That means your industry, product, customers, competitors, pricing, prospects – all of it.
Understanding marketing principles, content best practices and analysis [aka your function] is almost table stakes. Applying that to your specific market and buyers, with a strategy and goal aligned to it, that’s the job.
This is something that I believe is engrained in many marketers at the agency-level. I recently spoke to a new graduate that was looking for advice on their options for in-house marketing vs. agency as a starting role. While it’s not always easy, and it’s not true for every individual, an agency background can give a marketer the opportunity to build a product marketing or “big picture” mindset in a way that I believe in-house alone can’t.
In an agency environment, you have to acquire the skill of learning and analyzing markets, product and companies, quickly, to both win business and retain it. You need to be fluent in each of your clients’ businesses and competitive landscapes simultaneously, as well as staying on top of your marketing skills, in order to succeed.
It’s why in my former role, as Marketing head of a B2B tech start-up, I made it my mission to try and get to grips with the product and the market from the get-go. I spoke to everyone about everything, whenever I could. Now I think of it I was probably a little annoying in those first weeks!
Critically, we had a CEO that was product-led and encouraged this approach – I learned how to demo the product to prospects, performed QA testing, spoke to customers, shadowed sales meetings and pricing discussions. This investment paid dividends; I was able to get up to speed on the market and product –to be dangerous – in a few months. I’d encourage any of my clients to take this approach wherever possible, and for all sales and marketing hires, wherever possible.
It’s not that simple, of course – hiring never is. Based on experience, it’s true that market experts don’t always make great marketers and vice versa. However, if it’s finding that balance between functional know-how and industry knowledge that makes a great hire for you, then it’s not just about the skills and mindset of your incoming colleague, it takes a commitment and transparency from other team members and functional heads to make it a reality.
Jen Manning | Go-to-Market Blog and Services 