Alex Ekong
People on marketing graduate schemes seem to have all the fun. Stimulating day-to-day work, like-minded people and a fun culture attract thousands of graduates to these positions every year.
If you’ve been lucky enough to snag one, you might want to pay close attention so you don’t trip up before you learn to walk. These are a few common misconceptions about marketing graduate schemes that you may run into.
“Marketing and advertising are the same thing”
Ah yes. The oldest lie in the English language after “Let’s do drinks soon!” Marketing and advertising are commonly conflated as being one and the same. It’s true that you can’t really have one without the other and seek to grow a business.
However, there is a distinct difference. If marketing is the science of reaching your audience, then advertising is the branch of that which concerns the message you’re sending them. There are several other slices of the marketing pie you’ll need to attend to. These include PR, customer support, media planning and more. Don’t get it twisted.
“Your degree is enough to get you through”
A marketing degree will see you cover theory for the most part. It’s not until you get to work that you start to come to grips with vital tools like Google Analytics and Keyword Planner. The foundation you do with a marketing degree will, of course, stand you in good stead and help you into the industry. Those of that you didn’t study marketing and want marketing graduate schemes, fear not. You won’t be too far behind.
“You need to expect results right away”
Marketing is a long game, which at times calls for plenty of tweaking, trial and error. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to succeed with a campaign right off the bat. In general, marketing is a long-term strategy.
It takes time for a potential customer to decide whether they download or buy a product. It’ll take time for you to find the perfect ad copy or PR angle that engages the most people. You’ll need to keep a careful watch on the metrics and see how they change over time. Once you’ve found something that works, you’ll start to see tangible results.
“Content/social media marketing is easy”
Oooooooh nooooo. Oh no, no no, no no. Don’t you believe this. It’s easy to suppose that because it manifests itself in the form of tweets, that social media in a corporate sense isn’t complex. Same goes for content marketing and the blog posts that come from it.
In truth, there’s far more to both than meets the eye. You can’t just write whatever you want. Everything posted comes with careful planning, scheduling and analysis of its effectiveness afterwards. It’s a rewarding craft for sure, but plenty of hard work behind the scenes.
“It’s more about creativity than numbers”
The reverse is also quite untrue actually. Marketing is one of the few career paths that require you be both left and right-brained. To succeed, you’ll need to think outside the box to come up with unique campaigns while also having a logistical head to measure the impact.
They’re hard work, but marketing graduate schemes will reward people for being creative while staying on top of the stats. That’s why they’re one of the more oversubscribed graduate schemes out there. There’s something in it for everyone.
Connect with Debut on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for more careers insights.
