Marketing as a career has been out there for ages, be it selling carpets on the Silk Route to Elon Musk and Ryan Reynolds making some killer moves on a global platform promoting their products. Marketing is eternal and one that requires a lot of ‘understanding’ and by that, I mean one that is a mix of common sense and empathy.

Marketing for me grew into a passion at the end of Year 1 at IIM when I was faced with a choice to either opt for Finance or pursue where my heart was racing i.e. the fantasy world of creativity, data, strategy and hardcore results – Marketing.

With an internship in Corporate Strategy, this was a tough call esp. while factoring in the expectations of others which were primarily driven towards a career in Finance.

Well, not for me really!

Marketing as a discipline has evolved amazingly over the years and is one that has been taught to us in MBA classrooms through some awesome case studies. In regular life, when we talk about marketing, we usually tend to oversee how this beautiful discipline has evolved over the years.

For starters, it used to be all offline before the advent of digital media like the Internet, Google, and social channels. There were no TikTokers on the street in the 1920s but people handing out pamphlets and sending out adverts and inserts in newspapers.

Then came along TV and Radio which brought in mass advertising and print-based. With the rise of the Internet, digital came along with advertisers bidding on digital real estate for ads and SEO friendly blogs and boom! Video content and interactive marketing rule the world now with traditional media complementing the 360 degree marketing world.

Now one of the things that I usually tend to cover in my college connections is the fact that marketing is not linear. It is dynamic and dynamite!

As a range of newer technologies, techniques and platforms have grown in the last few years, one needs to understand the essence of marketing i.e., the pulse of the consumer.

Yes, the pulse (inclusive of the heart and the mind).

Communities, social engagement groups, podcasts, Instagram Reels and YouTube are some of the popular concepts dominating the marketing world. In alignment, there is a definite rise of vernacular content, hyper-local marketing and video-based content.

In order to succeed at these, one needs to understand the core of marketing and act accordingly.

For example, communities are nothing but groups of people who have similar interests like a group of Royal Enfield bikers who are looking for timeouts and get on the road to Ladakh for a road trip. What would they like to know about? And Why should you engage with them?

Say you deal in B&Bs and might want to tap into this community so that they can have a stopover at your place which lies en route to Ladakh. You might want to send them special offers, information for facilities at your B&B and how it is easily accessible and is a must stop locale on the scenic highway!

Now, remember, this is a fictitious example but nothing short of what a real-world community tapping might be like. You don’t sell products or services here. You sell an experience.

In order to understand the finer nuances of marketing, you need to be:

• Hands-on: Get ready to get your hands bloodied with data and research for hours over what could be the NEXT thing that can be explored. It is not a rosy job. It is a challenging job and on days you might be trying to find your way out of the marketing maze and haze! Don’t stop. Just work it.
• Analytics driven: There’s nothing more exhilarating than to dig data and find information and then use that to arrive at some key insights. Your world should not and cannot stop at one type of marketing. It has to expand and grow you as a professional. Data is the key to marketing nirvana (if it exists :P).
• Ability to take feedback: One of the things that I have discovered over time is the fact that people tend to take feedback ‘personally’ and that is NOT good. Always remember that when you receive feedback, it is for a task that you did and not for you as a HUMAN. Absorb the information, act on it and move on. Do not get bogged down if something doesn’t work as per plan. You can always ‘hack’ your way around it.

In addition, have a great understanding of content as content is an asset for a successful marketer. It is something that not many people get and not many will either but one that can make you stand apart from a crowd of me-too’s.

Now the next logical question that you might have is – from where should you begin on this journey? Well, just READ. Read blogs, forum threads, observe social handles and create content.

And above all, do not stop exploring!

In case of any queries, kindly feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn and Instagram (@devanbhalla).

Do well!

Thanks