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I think one big difference between learning marketing vs learning software engineering is the lack of a feedback loop when you start out. If you want to learn
by mdcrowcroft 4y ago
I think one big difference between learning marketing vs learning software engineering is the lack of a feedback loop when you start out.
If you want to learn marketing properly, it's worth thinking of marketing tactics and marketing strategy as two different things.
- Marketing tactics are things like, running ads, writing content for SEO. Comparable to writing code day to day.
- Marketing strategy is the high level application of research and marketing science. Comparable to system design.
If you jump straight into tactics, growth hacking, posting on social media etc, you might learn how do some things, but you won't know why things work, and you won't know why generic tactics you read about on line maybe aren't working in your scenario. This is in the same way that you can learn to code online, but if you're only ever copy pasting from tutorials and stack overflow, you're going to get messed up with N+1 queries.
I would suggest getting a base level of understanding the core marketing science that exists. For this I would suggest reading anything from the Ehrenberg Bass Institute. In particular the book How Brands Grow, it's a bit dry, but very approachable.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Brands-Grow-What-Marketers/dp/0195573560/ https://www.amazon.com/How-Brands-Grow-What-Marketers/dp/019...
- quickthrower2 4y agoThanks for the recommendation. Reading the preview it does seem to assume marketing jargon knowledge, as if you are already a marketer.
- mdcrowcroft 4y agoThe 'intended audience' the book is written for is for the C-suite/business execs where marketing as a part of business has lost a lot of credibility which is why is serves as a good research based foundation to marketing. You're right there's definitely jargon and if you're coming in cold the book is quite dense. Maybe this would be a better step two or three in someone's learning. The reason I will always recommend this book to anyone interested in marketing is that there's a lot of junk thought leadership surrounding marketing that is thoroughly debunked.
- quickthrower2 4y agoIf there is a book with this wisdom but more “101” style I would be interested. But it might be worth the slog with this anyway.