Top Tips to Help You Jumpstart Your Career in Marketing
A career in marketing is fun, engaging, and exciting that can be adapted to any sector. This means that you can shift your focus and find a company or clients to work for that interests you directly. You may have a passion for the sciences but are terrible at math – guess what? Working as a marketer for a STEM company lets you have the best of both worlds while working on your strengths.
Tips for Building Your Career in Marketing
The advertising world, however, is very competitive. If you want to jumpstart your career today, you’re going to need to think outside of the box or start by using these tips.
Specialize With Your Degree
The days of simply earning a marketing degree and being ready to go are over. If you want to start your career with a bang, then you need to establish a niche early on. There are a few ways to do this, but the most effective by far is to specialize with a degree. Take a public relations and advertising major, for example. Not only are you building up essential PR skills, but you’re combining them with advertising to make your skills more effective and also stand out.
With such a degree, you could help companies not just get their name out there but more effectively manage their brand image and public reception.
Start Building Up Your Own Platform
Use what you learn in your degree to build up your own platform. You don’t have to make your brand persona all about marketing itself, either. If you want to work as a PR advertiser for a fashion brand, for example, then you can make your online brand all about fashion and the industry itself. Use that passion, and your skills, to grow an audience and platform you can then use as your very first portfolio example. Do well enough, and that platform is going to open up many doors and new, unique career paths.
Stay Informed on the Latest Thinking
Every college student should prop up their degree education with industry information. This means going to conferences, talks, and workshops. Thanks to the lockdowns, many of those events are offered today both in-person and online, so you can attend more informative events without having to leave home. Online attendance is usually far cheaper than in-person tickets as well, letting you save in the process.
Branch Out Early
When you’re starting out, remember to only stay in a role long enough to learn and get experience. Once you have that, it’s a good idea to find a new position in a slightly different company or field. This will help you branch out your industry knowledge and your experience. Being a flexible advertiser that can adapt their approach to many different types of clients and markets is invaluable. It’s also a good way to keep your salary competitive. After all, the best time to get a raise is when negotiating your salary at a new job.
