If you want to break into marketing, but don’t have any relevant experience, don’t fret. As long as you get set up with a game plan and have some patience, it’s more than doable. Good things take time so you can’t expect a cushy marketing job overnight, but I’ve seen people embark on successful 3 or 4-month plans for finding a marketing job from scratch. You’ll need to have an open mind, start from the ground floor, and put yourself out there.
To do immediately:
- Think critically – why do you want to get into marketing? You need to answer these questions to direct your soul search.
- What excites you about being a marketer?
- Which specific functions in marketing do you want to explore? (There are tons of job types in marketing – take a look at your options here.)
- How do you hope to grow?
- Set up a goal sheet or accountability tracker and tape it on your wall. Check in with this weekly.
- Something like this. Here’s a template!
In the short-term:
- Start reading books.
- You’ll need to get familiar with marketing lingo. My marketing dictionary is a great place to start.
- Books about amazing marketing case studies, marketing best practices, and marketing tips are all helpful.
- Check out my list of favorite marketing and business books here.
- Subscribe to marketing newsletters via email.
- You need to consume the latest and greatest tips in marketing. Throw yourself into the deep end with the best marketing stories.
- Here are some of my favorites: Marketing Brew; HubSpot; Later
- Take a course.
- If you’re in school and can sign up for a course in marketing, do it! Get your feet wet by practicing marketing-speak and thinking about marketing problems every day.
- If you’re not in school, consider a MOOC – an online learning course. You can find great marketing MOOCs from EdX, Udemy, and Coursera that are taught by professors or marketers of practice.
- Review tons of marketing job postings online.
- You want to get a sense of what these companies are looking for so that you can build that tailored skillset.
- Do you want to be an Event Planner? Start searching for event planning job postings in your area and print out a few interesting jobs. Check off the skills you do have, and write down the skills you need on your goal sheet.
- Be active on social networks as a consumer.
- Use Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Youtube, etc – follow your favorite brands and observe their native content, engagement with their followers, and partnerships with influencers.
- Make notes of what they do well or poorly. Examine their creative assets and the language they use.
- I’ve written some commentary on my favorite brands’ marketing here. Check it out!
- Use Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Youtube, etc – follow your favorite brands and observe their native content, engagement with their followers, and partnerships with influencers.
In the longer term
- Help out your entrepreneur friends.
- Do you have friends who run small businesses? Explain your goal of breaking into marketing and ask if you can shadow their marketing processes.
- Or, offer to help them out for free! If you’re clever and detail-oriented, you can quickly learn and help out with things like social media posts, photoshoots, and customer emails. You can put this type of work on your resume.
- Be a thought leader.
- A lot of your “edge” in marketing is about staying fresh and coming up with ideas. Pick a platform and commit to publishing your commentary on marketing – whether you write Tweets, LinkedIn posts, or blog articles, people will respect your ability to have a view on the industry.
- Do some freelancing for free.
- When you’ve selected a path in marketing, you’ll want to build a portfolio. Introduce yourself to hustling and get some work under your belt. You’ll want to pick a specialty (whether it’s graphic design, social media, event planning, etc.) because it’s hard to trust someone who says they can do “everything.”
- You can try approaching a local business that you love and offer to help them with their marketing. Whether it’s designing flyers, managing their social media, or just brainstorming with them, a lot of small business owners may be receptive to the extra help.They’ll probably wonder why you’re volunteering for this kind of work at no charge, so be upfront with them and say that you’ve admired their business for a long time and are trying to get into marketing, and would love to help in whatever way they need. You might want to draw up a contract stipulating the types of work you’ll do, how many hours a week you’ll contribute, and how long the volunteer term is.
- Meet some marketers.
- Have coffee chats with people! Get on LinkedIn and find people who do what you want to do – get specific about roles and industries. For example, if your dream job is to run social media for a beauty company, find someone who currently does that and send them a message.
- Here’s an example outreach template:
- Hi [name]! I’m [your name], an aspiring Social Media Manager. I came across your profile while doing some research and your job working on Instagram at Lululemon sounds incredible. Would you be willing to have a 30 minute chat? I’d love to ask a few questions about how you built your skillset and found your marketing niche. Would really appreciate it.
- Yeah, talking to strangers might be awkward at first. But you’ll get better! Be really grateful for their time and get as much information as you can.
- Get certified.
- There are plenty of ways to get an external stamp of approval that looks great on a resume. Google has a free 40 hour Digital Marketing program, and Facebook has an array of different programs in digital marketing and management.
Right before applying to your first marketing jobs:
- Revamp your LinkedIn and resume to showcase your new skills in marketing.
- Make sure that your job application materials reflect your goals, marketing knowledge, and expertise. Add any courses or certifications you just completed, add any marketing projects you worked on with local businesses or friends.
- Set up a portfolio, if it’s relevant for you.
- If you’re aspiring to be in Graphic Design, Photography, Videography, Social Media, or Content/Blog Marketing, it could be a good idea to get a portfolio of sample work ready. These marketing functions are so visual that hiring managers may want to see what you can do. Some marketers post their work on a personal website, and others just keep the works on-hand to send upon request.
- Even better, if you’ve actually created these sample works for clients and saw great results, you’ll want to make note of that. For example, if you wrote a blog piece for a brand that got a record number of views and clickthroughs, jot that down and make sure it’s on your coversheet or in your email somewhere.
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