Reflections on a marketing convention
Little after Hector Hernandez, Chief Digital Officer at McCann, finished talking, that feeling of wonder kicked in. I was fascinated understanding the importance of brand value. Hector was so clear in his explanation and the concept registered immediately… but then a million questions started popping in my head regarding the balancing act of a paid campaign with keywords of your offerings, a branded paid search campaign, and great SEO.
When do you determine that your brand is big enough to bet only in SEO and stop spending ad dollars in a branded paid search campaign? The questions were too much, and the answers were not coming as fast as I wanted.
Mike Kappitt, Executive Vice President of Bloomin’ Brands and President of Carrabba’s Italian Grill, had talked about it before Hector: Don’t forget your calculator, he said. It’s all about the numbers, and I was concerned because I’m in love with the “Magic” side of the marketing equation he mentioned (Marketing = Math + Magic). Then that feeling came back. The contradictory feeling of being fascinated because you are in the right place, but realize that there is still a long journey of learning ahead.
Joni Fernandez Marmo, former SVP of Consumer and Corporate Marketing at Univision Communications, injected hope and recommended being curious and asking questions to be a good leader. I was also surprised to find out that even Britney Muller, Senior SEO Scientist at Moz, had recommendations to mitigate Impostor Syndrome, as she had been in that position herself.
How about you? Do you speak Marketer?
Lately, I have been obsessed learning Anchor, an app that is used to produce your own podcasts and that was recently purchased by Spotify. As a content developer and a marketer, I’ve been very interested in everything Spotify is doing, since I aspire to work in a company like that in the near future. But I’m also very interested in the arts, and have been reading job postings from the local Adrienne Arsht Center, only to discover that they used Tessitura, which happens to be another software I don’t know and that I might need to learn in order to work there. Since then, it has been added to my wishlist.
After speaking with a professional marketer on Monday, he was fascinated talking to me about programmatic media, and I immediately added programmatic media buying in my to-do list of things pending to explore more.
I found myself too often focusing on the things I don’t know, like: How many softwares do I need to be successful in the marketing industry?
And the answer I keep giving myself is always very simple: The software(s) your company is using.
You’ll only get better practicing in real life situations. Using a software is a skill you can learn and perfect as you go. The more you use it the better you will get at it. You will also polish concepts and numbers as you immerse in them. But how about new phrases, the latest and trendy acronym in marketing? You will learn those as they are incorporated into the lingo. Keep digging and learning. Don’t be discouraged when the Impostor Syndrome kicks in. The world is constantly evolving, and entire industries are being transformed. The key is to remain curious.
So just when I decided to keep fighting the Impostor Syndrome, I discovered Seth Godin’s take on it, and I stopped resisting it. The idea behind Seth’s thinking is that the reason Impostor Syndrome is so trendy right now is because we are all impostors after all.
Seth Godin says:
“Everyone who is doing important work is working on something that might not work. And it’s extremely likely that they’re also not the very best qualified person on the planet to be doing that work.”
I took a deep breath, and embraced my new affliction… but this time understanding that this affliction is the consequence of daring.
The feeling that I tended to fight, is a thermometer that indicates that I’m adventuring into new territory. I should not be afraid, but excited.
A good thing is that now I make sure that I’m packing my calculator thanks to Mike, respect the power of brand value more than ever thanks to Hector, understand the power of artificial intelligence to remain relevant thanks to Sean, dare to ask more questions and aim to be abundant in my thinking thanks to Joni, offer my value instead of waiting for a mentor thanks to Britney, understand the power of the human touch when it comes to establishing relationships with your customers thanks to Evan, and understand the importance of including pattern interruption in any marketing strategy thanks to Kathy. And this all happened just in one day at the Digital Branding Analytics Miami 2019 Conference #DBAmiami
Status: Embrace the fear of entering new territories. Dare!
Mike Kappitt: https://youtu.be/2oy-ubZl_Pw
Hector Hernandez: https://youtu.be/xhGnk6YusTU
Joni Fernandez Marmo: https://youtu.be/33tlOtN90n4
Evan Carroll: https://youtu.be/CAQPN-ZOx24
Sean Gardner: https://youtu.be/useArF0b3Jw
Britney Muller: https://youtu.be/jHBd6gQJcwc
Kathy Mayor: https://youtu.be/8rAC5ztOCNo
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