By the words of world famous inventor and business man, James Dyson, “business means constantly changing and constantly evolving.” It certainly feels like the world is changing at a much faster pace than before. I was recently in Sweden and in just 12 months since my last visit I could see how things have evolved there. New technologies and solutions that weren’t available less than a year ago, have become a part of day-to-day life. For AdMarula, change and evolution is inevitable – in fact, we’ve been doing it for the past 8 years.
Being part of one of the fastest evolving industries in the world, we as digital marketers need to keep up and evolve with the industry. Those who graduated with a degree in marketing can’t compete in today’s market unless they know how to learn and adapt as they go. The industry is simply moving too fast. What was popular in internet marketing 10 or even five years ago is now an ancient practice.
We all need to educate ourselves on a daily basis. Luckily there are lots you and I can do stay on top of things happening in our industry.
Reading, reading, and more reading! I often tell my team this. There is SO much information available to those who are willing to find it. Sign up to blog posts, newsletters, alerts and read articles. Set aside time in your day to do this, because if you don’t you will miss out on more than you realise.
Be out there, physically meet and speak to the people in the digital industry. Much of what we do is automated and can be done via email, Skype etc. but in essence Digital Marketing is still a people’s industry so relationships and communication skills are important.
Knowledge sharing. Attend seminars and industry events. We can all learn from each other and it’s often the best way to learn about new trends or important changes happening in your immediate business community.
For more technical knowledge you may have to attend a course. These days it is really useful for marketing graduates to have some development skills under their belt. The bridge between marketing and tech is becoming smaller and smaller, which means marketers need to know how to ‘speak basic tech’, and developers need to learn basic business skills so they can think one step ahead of the consumer – understand how they can offer a technical solution to a user-driven problem.
We are certainly living in interesting times, and I personally cannot wait to see how our industry will evolve even further in the near future.
Onwards and upwards!
Daniel Gross – CEO
