The Emergence of the DIY Marketer
Over 53 million people on LinkedIn have the term 'marketing' in their biography status - perhaps they are right to do so?
Any eagle-eyed professional on LinkedIn will notice that over 53,000,000 people on the business networking site have the word ‘Marketing’ associated with their introduction biography. That is 53 MILLION
We are in a time where the DIY Marketer is becoming more prevalent - One who does not necessarily have the qualifications, but does have the task of promoting and branding a company in an ever-changing digital market.
Who are we to blame for this new breed of modern marketer? Google? They have after all turned millions of people into certified marketing professionals via the Digital Garage and Google Ads. Perhaps LinkedIn is itself to blame? Making it far too easy to announce yourself as a marketing guru.
We are constantly inundated with marketing courses we are advised we need to take, either from Squared, the CIM, the IDM, or the ADBL with the same message – get qualified with us to achieve dream employment ambitions or personal/business growth.
Last week we saw the closure of M2M, a planning & buying agency that had lost its way in terms of clients. Clients who have gone to other agencies or who have taken their marketing needs in-house?
Attitudes are clearly changing. More companies are turning to their marketing heads to become more hands on, more do it yourself in planning and buying media campaigns via automated programmatic platforms. More socially aware of influencers, more understanding on viral videos and certainly more associated with email marketing.
To this end, can we expect the new breed of modern day marketer to have time to even appoint an agency, let alone work with one?
Time will tell with more businesses focussing on in-house solutions to development options – an integrated need for support will still be apparent – but don’t be surprised when your head of Sales suddenly changes their job status to ‘Marketing Manager’.