Home > Big Ideas > The 2012 Marketer (a.k.a. Publisher)

Marketer – the definition could not be more convoluted and vague as it is today. Thumb through job descriptions and you will see “communications expert”, “storyteller”, “acquisition guru”, “media buyer”, “analyst”, “social media expert”, etc.

In reality, a marketer is all of these and more because of the age in which we live. It’s a time in which we’re always on, always connected and building (virtual) relationships. But most of this comes back to content – how we create it, how we define where it goes and how often we publish it – to forge our way through the excessive digital noise we call conversations*.

It’s the following themes that define the DNA of a 2012 marketer.

1.      Messaging Strategist.  We have less time than ever before (literally seconds) to get someone’s attention.  Multi-device, multi-channel also equates to short-term memory as consumers flip through reams of content on their email, browser and app(s) in a few short minutes. The consumer’s decision-making process to buy or not buy,  to engage (follow) or not follow is now more dependent than ever on how effective your messaging is, and how well you can storyboard the UX based on channel choices and buy life cycle stage of a user.

Messaging expertise is also reliant on leveraging a few innate or trained skills:

• An analytical mindset - the ability to derive target audience needs based on qualitative and quantitative research to build business requirements for digital story boards.

• An eye for copywriting – digital ad copy. Not saying you have to be a professional copywriter, but being able to convey tone (brand) and meaning (value prop) in as few words as possible is useful to working with designers, product management and media optimization teams.

• Ability to curate  – the knack for storytelling across a diverse mix of original and 3^rd party content (e.g. white papers, industry reports, blogs, video). This is the ability to weave your brand with others – similar or not – to create a big-picture story about who and what you represent.

2.      Digital Content Specialist. The virtual (digital) age requires content to be accessible in all shapes and sizes, at a device and ad product level. Customer relationships are started and nurtured now via video, display, search, email, app, email, blogging, and more.  A tech-forward marketer must know which ones to invest in and seamlessly stitch them together to create an iterative dialogue with consumers.

3.      Publishing [Distribution] Expert.  In a traditional sense, this is having superb campaign management skills. It’s the ability to know what, where and when, and how long to send a message out. Today, it’s also a hybrid of knowing the following:

• What devices to make xyz message available on.  What experience will audience A have on their iPad, or audience B on their Android smartphone?
• How and when to archive content – video, white papers, blogs – to ensure past and current users have the opportunity to fully engage with a lifetime of your brand and core messages.

Which marketing skills will you optimize in 2012?

*See new (free) e-book Get Scrappier for more info about how conversations, and which ones to leverage to extend your brand.

Photo Source: David Torcivia, The Non-Conformist Storyboard