~**Marketing/Advertising**~ Discussion Thread

[Nouveau Pauvre]

Hey I know there are some other marketing professionals on here. Lets get some discussion going.

Personally, I've been excited to go from freelance creative work to being an employee with a start-up agency. I still have a lot of the creative control and freedom of a freelancer but a bit more stability. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be happy at some big PR mill but this has been a great step for me, and I don't mind sacrificing some security/earnings for the amount of freedom and responsibilities I have.

We're in a smaller city so we have some unique opportunities. While there is (considerably) less economic activity here then a first-tier market we have much easier access to channels of power. Rent and overhead is also much cheaper and we have a steady stream of freelancers coming from the art college. It can get a little dicey taking meetings at our office (parts of downtown are still very sketchy) but the clients who would be bothered by that generally have their own lavish conference rooms.

What's going on with you guys in the field?

 

[Joffrey]

sup

 

[Nouveau Pauvre]



sup

Jeff you are not a marketer.

 

[mikeman]

Nothing fancy like most here, however, I work in the marketing/ advertising department at a credit union (one of the largest in the state). I primarily do video and design work.

I hope to one day work at an actual agency as an account rep. I've done a couple of informational interviews and have decided that its the most fitting position for me as I like both the client side of things and the design aspect. I think I'd need to start as an assistant account executive, but am not having any luck with finding any. I also feel that being 26, I should have already been in some sort of account position already. Any advice or wisdom?

 

[Reggs]

I was thinking of making a thread similar to this. I'm at a crossroads in my career as a marketer.

I currently manage a marketing department at a tech company. I have a background in direct marketing and I approach things from the analytical point of view. I'm looking for a new job are these are the issues I hope to resolve.

1. Should I just start my own agency? I've met other marketers who have done this and I know I am better than they are, but I don't know how much money they were making. I can do all manner of traditional direct response marketing and PPC. I want to learn HTML so I can do SEO by myself within the next few months. With SEO I know all about selecting the right keywords, measuring it's success, writing great content, some of the principals of web design, but I just can't implement anything in HTML. I know this is enough to make a living as a 1 man company, but I don't know how much money I could expect to make. Money aside I think I would enjoy the happy stress that comes from starting my own company and tasting the blood and fear every day. I'm married so I feel a need to provide, but we don't have a kid so I have some wiggle room as far as career risk I can put into this.

2. I made a list of all the marketing/advertising companies in my area and have been reading their websites with the idea of calling them asking for a job or replying to their careers page. I can fit in a lot of companies but I'd only want to work with really good people. I know that a lot of marketers are just dreamy people who chose to be marketers because they think it's glamorous or they didn't want to take that extra math class in college, so they ended up here. If I work for an agency, I would learn a lot about getting clients, which would help me start my own agency later.

3. If I did work for another company, should I do it if the money is good but I would no longer be a manager? I'm a good manager and I know this leads to higher paying jobs. I also enjoy managing. Would it stunt my career to be a manager for a few jobs on my resume, then have that word disappear from my title?

 

[Nouveau Pauvre]

As far as I can tell there is one way to start your own agency: CLIENTS. Everything else can follow, but without a viable client list you'll get nowhere fast.

I guess you could manage it if you had easy access to a lot of capital as well, but I imagine this is a pretty rare scenario.

 

[Kvc06]

I am a marketing assistant for a local restaurant group. I came from the world's largest PR firm and it is quite a shift working in an office of 600+ to an office of 6. The hours are much more regular but I'm concerned with lack of opportunity to move up.

 

[JJeff]

I personally enjoy the freelance lifestyle. I have the freedom to come and go as I please which I don't know I could exchange for the security of a company. I do agree that there are times when a constant pay would be really nice, but there are also times as a freelancer that the ability to earn way more than a job could offer exists. If I had the option of the freelance lifestyle and the ability to gain the security of a job like you have, I may be tempted to move in that direction. For the meantime I will stay with the freelance options in front of me.

 

[Nouveau Pauvre]

My agency just re-designed our site: http://whatworksstudio.com I'm pretty proud of it - any feedback?

 

[Towers]



My agency just re-designed our site: http://whatworksstudio.com I'm pretty proud of it - any feedback?

I'm not in advertising but your clients section is kind of crap. I LOLed at "over 45 extremely satisfied clients!" and the movie poster-esque quotes complete with byline.

Here is a customer section i think is good from a company i am in no way associated with; http://www.igloosoftware.com/customers

 

[Towers]

To be clear; your website is great looking, the content is what needs work.


I was wondering why you picked 45 as it seemed like such an arbitrary number, until I saw the client counter;

 

[Nouveau Pauvre]

Thanks for the feedback, this isn't a project that I worked on personally.

We are working on formal case studies with specific examples of client work but the thought was to get something aesthetically pleasing up in the meantime. Do you thinks e should have waited until the case studies are finished?

 

[Towers]

Yeah, maybe something simple (logos and links?) until then.

 

[GregV]

My agency just re-designed our site: http://whatworksstudio.com I'm pretty proud of it - any feedback?

Bumping with a quick observation

 

[iamacyborg]

I was thinking of making a thread similar to this. I'm at a crossroads in my career as a marketer.

I currently manage a marketing department at a tech company. I have a background in direct marketing and I approach things from the analytical point of view. I'm looking for a new job are these are the issues I hope to resolve.

1. Should I just start my own agency? I've met other marketers who have done this and I know I am better than they are, but I don't know how much money they were making. I can do all manner of traditional direct response marketing and PPC. I want to learn HTML so I can do SEO by myself within the next few months. With SEO I know all about selecting the right keywords, measuring it's success, writing great content, some of the principals of web design, but I just can't implement anything in HTML. I know this is enough to make a living as a 1 man company, but I don't know how much money I could expect to make. Money aside I think I would enjoy the happy stress that comes from starting my own company and tasting the blood and fear every day. I'm married so I feel a need to provide, but we don't have a kid so I have some wiggle room as far as career risk I can put into this.

2. I made a list of all the marketing/advertising companies in my area and have been reading their websites with the idea of calling them asking for a job or replying to their careers page. I can fit in a lot of companies but I'd only want to work with really good people. I know that a lot of marketers are just dreamy people who chose to be marketers because they think it's glamorous or they didn't want to take that extra math class in college, so they ended up here. If I work for an agency, I would learn a lot about getting clients, which would help me start my own agency later.

3. If I did work for another company, should I do it if the money is good but I would no longer be a manager? I'm a good manager and I know this leads to higher paying jobs. I also enjoy managing. Would it stunt my career to be a manager for a few jobs on my resume, then have that word disappear from my title?

HTML is the important bit for white-hat SEO work, content and keywords are important, but increasingly less-so. Typical bullshit articles get picked up quickly these days and don't really add value. Semantic code is increasingly important for digital marketing, and it's starting to be relevant with email marketing in gmail.

https://developers.google.com/gmail/actions/getting-started