This blog post was written for a marketing seminar class at George Brown College and originally published on my website www.rightinthatmiddle.com
There is so much that can be learned when you hear from others and that is why I am incredibly grateful to listen and participate in the weekly seminar classes about digital marketing. Hearing about other people’s journeys is a terrific way to reflect and go deeper into what you want out of this industry.
For myself, that moment arose when we heard from Jennifer Stoll, VP, Strategy, Valtech. Hearing from someone who works directly in strategy, made me keen to hear her perspective. In her presentation, it became clear to me that strategy is an avenue that creates a variety of opportunities and allows people to go deep into why people buy products and how that message is communicated. While I have not had a lifelong passion for developing strategic marketing practices for consumer goods, I have been keen on figuring out a strong marketing strategy to compel audiences to engage with this blog platform, That Middle. I would love to find a way to make the unmarketable marketable. I don’t want to take important ideas and throw them into the librarian arms of the market, but I do want to learn how to make topics that are challenging to learn about more engaging. It took me a while but for the last few years, I have felt that marketing is the best avenue to get that going. I just must be mindful and ethical in my approach.
What makes me excited the most about strategy is its ability to take transferrable skills and apply them directly to their business efforts. As someone with a history and political background, I have been cautious of how many transferrable skills I truly possess.
Luckily after time spent in the breakout rooms, it was clear to me that it was a natural fit to explore strategic roles in my future career endeavours. There are so many different places you can apply a strategic lens. With my continuous curiosity about exploring digital marketing roles in the music industry, it is clear to me that I can use my transferrable skills to benefit my professional advancement.
As Jenn said, strategic marketing is about answering questions, providing direction, and evaluating from different viewpoints. From a historical perspective, those three key areas of focus are also prominent. To provide sound historical insight on various events and trends, you need to be able to evaluate different viewpoints and provide a direction. When you do that from a historical standpoint you can provide answers and keep the conversation going. In this sense they both tackle problems similarly, just to wield different outcomes.
Learning from Jenn’s perspective made me curious to what extent brand originality and individuality played a strategic role in her company’s overall strategy. When I asked, I was pleased to hear such a nuanced response. It is clear strategy comes in many forms and for some businesses, it is important to create familiarity with some brands and not others. While challenging to manage I am sure, the response made me happy to hear that such diligence was considered. Of course, I should expect nothing less based on the clients she mentioned she had worked with.
As I move forward in my job search it is clear that I will make sure to highlight the skills and work that demonstrates my ability to work in strategic marketing. I will continue to use these skills in the strategy for my projects, but in addition to that work, I want to use what I have taken away from this talk, to help inform how I build my career in the future. Hopefully one day I will be able to work on a strategic marketing project that is incredibly creative and compelling. At least one can dream big!
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