Digital Marketing Executive

What's it really like?

Virgil Ierubino is a 25 year old Digital Marketing Executive, currently working at the publisher Cambridge University Press.

Here he explains his career so far:

 I graduated in 2008 with a degree in Philosophy from Cambridge University. As arts students will know, apart from academia, there is no obvious career path for graduates in this subject. However, philosophy taught me to think logically and write creatively, and both these skills ended up being invaluable for my marketing career so far. Apart from philosophy, I had always taken a huge interest in the digital field. I have always been very technical, and my knowledge of software made me an ideal candidate for digital marketing roles.

After I graduated, I secured the role of Marketing Manager at a company which sells animation software. I managed the brand, devised marketing campaigns and controlled the company’s website. Just under a year later, I left the company and for a brief period decided to be a freelance web designer. I then took up my present role as digital marketing executive at Cambridge University Press, where I market the catalogue of English Language teaching books and software, in a medium-sized team with other marketing colleagues.

My typical day in the office involves lots of varied tasks for different projects. I work on a lot of documents such as marketing plans, sales support guides and website briefs for suppliers. I also attend team meetings to discuss upcoming products and how best to promote them. Once a month I login to various systems to generate sales reports, and circulate them within the team together with an executive summary and commentary. I also login to social networking sites frequently and post appropriately.

I like the job a lot because of how varied it is — I am involved with a number of different projects at once so I never have to get bogged down in one thing. I also like the opportunity I have to influence and define the company’s direction for new types of digital products. The main thing I like though is the chance to be creative and experimental: because digital products and digital marketing is a quickly evolving field, there’s a chance to promote very interesting new products and be really innovative in campaigns.

Even though there is plenty of room for creativity, there are some more mundane aspects of the role which I don’t enjoy so much, such as generating sales reports. Also, because I am in a very traditional company that isn’t used to digital marketing, I often have to persuade people of marketing initiatives that they don’t immediately agree with. The other frustrating thing about this is that digital marketing and marketing for software is not always given the same priority and budget as traditional marketing or the marketing of books.

My advice to anyone seeking a career in digital marketing is to be very aware of what is happening in the digital scene. Know all the digital jargon and latest developments in gadgets such as mobile phones. It is worthwhile developing your skills in computer software too. Once you get the role, chances are you will be in the same team as people who don’t have digital marketing interests. Make yourself an expert and don’t be shy in taking the responsibility for all things digital in your team.

Analytics – Balancing The Creative And The Logical.

Analytics – Balancing The Creative And The Logical

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What makes a good analyst? Kevin Ertell from Sur La Table gave a magnificent talk at the recent E-Commerce Expo Melbourne that got me thinking.

I caught up with Kevin at the evening drinks, along with Craig Smith from Trinity Insight, and it turns out that we all have a background in the arts. Kevin is a talented bass player who played with the band Saber in Los Angeles in the 1980s, Craig is a musician and I am a painter and sculptor.

As an active analytics practitioner, I always like to know how other analysts ended up in this field. It is rare (I'd say never, but you can't rule out those black swans) to find someone who embarked upon their career with the sole purpose of becoming a web analytics professional. There are many paths to our profession, but I've noted that the analysts I respect most tend to have diverse backgrounds that include some creative passion or practice.

Foster Creative Connections

When most people hear 'analytics', they think numbers and they often assume that numbers must be one of those 'left-brained' things that only engineering types can master. I believe any good analyst must have a foot placed firmly in both camps to be effective. The best analysts look beyond the immediate and obvious to find alternative hypotheses, and these ideas don't magically appear from nowhere. Creative ideas are the results of association and memory.

Ideas take many forms, but great ideas are rarely the result of a linear sequence of rational steps. Most ideas come from random associations that we make and often the best ones result from unexpected associations. Take humor for example – a good joke or skit is the result of unexpected connections. Analytics is somewhat similar: seemingly random connections can play a big part in finding something worth reporting.

And this is where creativity comes into play (in all senses of the word). Deliberately creating these random associations has long been recognized as a way to build new connections that take us beyond the obvious. Take the Lateral Thinking methods of Edward de Bono and others, for example, which provide ways of facilitating creativity. Structured creative thinking can assist in breakthrough problem-solving in a way that no other approach can.

Analytics is far more than just looking at numbers – it is taking a deeper look at what might make a difference, and that takes ideas. Good ideas take time and are often random but using processes such asfocussed day dreaming, design thinking and other approaches can lead to deep insights.

Release Your Inner Engineer

The problem is that ideas are cheap. We all have them in abundance and we can be far too proud and possessive of them. This is where we need to release our inner engineer to exercise some adult supervision. Rationally testing the idea is the next step, both during exploratory analysis and in the following hypothesis testing. This needs both statistical expertise and the courage to question and test your best idea just as hard as your worst one. No playing favorites can be allowed.

Sadly many analysts in the web analytics industry either lack a rigorous understanding of statistics and probability, or they don't know when and where to apply them. While their hypotheses may be interesting, they aren't going to help clients unless they can be based on real data and real testing.

Our inner engineer needs coaching as much as our inner artist.

This isn't to say that rational thinking and our inner engineer is less important. After all even Edison recognized that inspiration is only part of the process with the statement "genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration". Without engineering, ideas will remain only ideas. Engineering thinking is how ideas turn into reality. Naturally any talented analyst needs both and unfortunately it can be a rare combination, particularly when you also include the need for business acumen.

Harmonizing Logic And Creativity

So my message to analysts is to get creative and learn to release the inner engineer under strict conditions. Getting these two approaches to work harmoniously together is the best way to produce the quality analysis that gets results.

What is your ideal balance between the inner artist and the inner engineer? Is it 80/20, 50/50 or something else? And what's the best way, in a busy workplace, to keep fostering the creative insights that produce our best ideas?

Please add your thoughts in comments.

Submitted by Rod Jacka on May 2013

About Rod Jacka

Rod Jacka is a Web Analytics veteran and his companyPanalysis was one of the first in the world to be certified by Google to join their Google Analytics Certified Companyprogram in 2006.. With over 16 years experience he is widely regarded as a leading expert in how to apply insights from tools like Google Analytics to real world problems. Follow him on Google+.