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Great article from Forbes on The Most Outrageous Job Interview Mistakes. Reality is the best candidate does not get the job, the candidate who interviews best does.
You can learn more about how to interview here:
How to Prepare for an Interview
Marketing today is largely influenced by how technology is used to understand consumer behavior. According to a study involving 1700 Chief Marketing Officers conducted by IBM, there are four major changes that are “pervasive, universal game-changers”: the data explosion, social media, proliferation of channels and devices, and shifting consumer demographics. Web analytics are a critical tool for taking advantage of these game-changing factors, and as a response to this influence, web analytics classes, seminars, certifications, panel discussions, and Master’s programs are popping up on the Internet and at academic institutions across the country.
The most effective format for an education in web analytics is still uncertain and under development, and businesses cannot wait for academia to set the course in this rapidly-changing environment. There is a need for on-the-job adjustment. The deepest fear CMOs have, according to a recent Forbes article, is “that they themselves, and much less their teams, won’t know how to regenerate the relevance of their brands in this [rapidly changing] environment.” Ironically, because the environment is changing so rapidly, new marketing professionals have many of the same fears.
According to MarketPro Vice President Cindy Underwood, “Many young professionals are challenged to find opportunities in the field because of their lack of experience.” However, Underwood sees very few companies that are willing to provide the necessary training needed to start the future web analytics professionals. She suggests two approaches: provide more internships for young professionals seeking experience, and offer those professionals with a well-rounded knowledge of marketing the opportunity to expand their skills.
The question becomes, what skills do companies need to be targeting as they expand their marketing teams and supporting the development of in existing talent?
Underwood believes that the best analysts are not specialists. Instead, they have a great abundance of knowledge across a variety of business subjects such as usability, product, marketing, advertising, and media – with a thirst for knowledge that keeps them at the leading edge of new development. What they understand best is revenue growth and profitability, but they are also great collaborators. These practitioners are not just producing reports; they are looking for problems and then finding the data to make recommendations to fix them.
In the end, the skill set most beneficial to the CMO will be trust: trust in their team’s ability to offer help with new ideas and with social media, trust in their end users’ feedback with regard to perceived value and the digital storefront, and trust in the data and the advantage of technology to their business.
About MarketPro:
MarketPro is the leading marketing staffing and marketing executive search firm in the United States. Whether your need is interim / contract or direct placement, we provide top companies with talent that exceeds expectations both functionally and culturally. Our recruiters know the best marketing talent, because they are experienced marketers. MarketPro places talent in all marketing related disciplines and does so in less time with a higher success ratio than anyone else in the industry.
Traditional web statistics provide tremendous quantities of information about our B2B and B2C relationships. Every click and the duration of every transaction can be tabulated to provide a clear picture of interest and give insight into the effectiveness of promotions and design. It is the nontraditional channels, however, that take web analytics to the next level.
Consider the free Starbucks iPhone app. For the consumer, it is a handy Starbucks locator, a rewards program, and a cardless way to pay for a latte. For the merchant, it is so much more, a literal treasure trove of personalized information. Starbucks knows that a given customer purchases a bold grande and a slice of marble loaf every morning around 8am, and usually springs for a pumpkin latte three evenings a week. Starbucks probably also knows that this customer is male, aged 35-45, so the obvious demographic metrics fall into placeData mining from social networking sites like Facebook can also yield phenomenal results. To continue with Starbucks as an example, consumers can sign up to win free coffee or even free flights on Southwest on the Starbucks Facebook page. Analytics algorithms acquaint themselves with the registered customer base by examining a customer’s profile: extrapolating age from high school graduation dates, taking note of jobs, and creating a range of likely salaries – all before mining the data from the friends list.
Apps, social networking, blogs, interest groups and other nontraditional channels are a vehicle for substantial data collection and candid statistical analysis, but it is the split second, quantifiable interpretation of the data that lays the foundation for an effective campaign and viral consumer networking that makes a business a better investment than gold.
It isn’t just data anymore. It isn’t just information. It is intelligence.
Equipped with an innovative web analytics department, CMOs can know precisely who their customers are and what drives sales. With comprehensive web analytics, we learn exponentially more about products and market behavior than with websites and surveys. As the traditional and nontraditional channels inevitably merge, highly effective customized, targeted, and personal marketing for both businesses and consumers will result.
In our next post, we’ll look at the necessary skill sets CMOs need in their burgeoning web analytics departments.
About MarketPro:
MarketPro is the leading interim marketing executive and marketing recruitment firm in the USA. Whether your need is interim / contract or direct placement, we provide top companies with talent that exceeds expectations both functionally and culturally. Our recruiters know the best marketing talent, because they are experienced marketers. MarketPro places talent in all marketing related disciplines and does so in less time with a higher success ratio than anyone else in the industry.
To say that chief marketing and chief financial officers have historically had a taut relationship is an understatement. CFOs often look at the marketing function as a soft cost — purely in terms of profit and expense. They typically don’t understand the ethereal nature of traditional marketing metrics, such as “brand awareness,” “positioning” and “shifting perceptions.” In fact, the CFO party line on the marketing organization is that it has dodged financial accountability for far too long and after extensive investment.
In a down economy, that’s code for slash your budget or prove your worth.
CMOs need to take on the mantle of leadership and learn the CFO’s lexicon for return on investment. By creating a data-driven culture, you can translate your creative strategies into terms the CFO can understand and support.
One of the best places to start this effort is with your web analytics. Websites consume corporate dollars, and it’s a reasonable demand to prove with cold, hard facts that the investment is worthwhile. Although more marketing departments are taking the reins of web analytics away from IT, most are still clumsily fooling around with it. Most organizations haven’t really figured out how to take advantage of this treasure trove of data.
It’s not for lack of trying. Forrester Research estimates that businesses will spend $953 million dollars on web analytics in 2014, with an average annual growth of 17% from 2009. Still, it likens web analytics to a teenager in terms of maturity in the corporate marketing sphere.
The challenge, therefore, is before you. Marketing has a reputation for being surrounded by data but often falling short of effectively leveraging it. CMOs need to shift their work from the more subjective, intuition-driven approaches to a more objective, analytical and data-driven operation.
In practical terms, the shift has four distinct tracts. You are closely watching data, such as traffic sources and volume increases, conversion and bounce rates, etc. But the next step is moving beyond tracking to data analysis. Link the experiences your targeted audience is having on your corporate websites with your marketing programs, using your traditional measurements. Explicitly connect your work to data from your analytics.
Next, cross over from being data-informed to data-driven. That is, make decisions and changes in your marketing programs based on that data. All of this is quite an undertaking, but you’re not done yet. The fourth element is presenting your analysis in ROI terms, aligning your marketing measures with corporate goals and objectives, including profit, growth and savings.
We’ve seen this changeover take place a few times, in which interim marketing executives go in and create web analytics programs where none existed previously and begin to make the shift toward data driving marketing decisions.
Both chief executives understand to a certain extent that there is a bit of intangible when it comes to marketing. A bit of magic, a dose of uncertainty and an unending quest for perfection in timing. Even CFOs grasp the concept of assumption. When justifying your need for marketing dollars, consider a language soaked in fiscal responsibility and methodical analysis.
Web analytics is a good place to start, because of the web’s growing centrality to business. But it’s not the only place. In our next post, we’ll unpack more practical steps in shifting their culture and the other domains CMOs need to mine for data.
About MarketPro:
MarketPro is the leading interim marketing executive and marketing executive search firm in the United States. Whether your need is interim / contract or direct placement, we provide top companies with talent that exceeds expectations both functionally and culturally. Our recruiters know the best marketing talent, because they are experienced marketers. MarketPro places talent in all marketing related disciplines and does so in less time with a higher success ratio than anyone else in the industry.
MarketPro has moved to an exciting new space.
41 Perimeter Center East, Suite 635
Atlanta, GA 30346
404.222.9992
Advice about battling age discrimination abounds. Interview coaches advise job candidates to not wear a watch to interviews since it dates them, to carry a Smartphone since it makes them look young, and never, ever, utter the words, “When I was your age.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has seen a 40% increase in age discrimination complaints since 2006, and the AARP reports that: “Once unemployed, older workers are, on average, out of work longer than their younger counterparts… Average duration of unemployment for jobseekers aged 55 and over was 52.4 weeks… This compares to 35.6 weeks for the younger unemployed” (excerpt from June 2011 AARP Public Policy Institute Fact Sheet).
It can be tempting to concede to the discouraging tone of statistics, but in reality what helps anyone – regardless of age – keep or find a job in today’s market is understanding technology. Even print materials now seamless cross into the digital world, appearing electronically and leveraged by social media.
It is crucial that job candidates understand the power and uses of social media and blogging. The digital world is infused into every aspect of business expertise, and is changing everything about how business is done. It is changing market research. It is changing direct marketing. It is changing branding.
Is it changing your approach to work or finding work? It should.
What also must change is the way you present yourself. How do you present yourself? If you have true genuine energy, enthusiasm, focus in the interview process, that comes through. If you come through as frustrated and feeling like the deck is stacked against you because you do feel like you’re being discriminated against based on your age, that cynicism will show through as well. Your mental attitude is incredibly important.
There are excellent resources available to help prepare for an interview. Use them in conjunction with updating Facebook and LinkedIn profiles and taking whatever classes are needed to get up-to-speed on technology (or just sit down and talk with your teenager). Then take off your watch (just in case), pick up your Smartphone, and get into the groove – the digital world awaits you.
About MarketPro:
MarketPro is the leading interim marketing executive and marketing executive search firm in the USA. Whether your need is interim / contract or direct placement, we provide top companies with talent that exceeds expectations both functionally and culturally. Our recruiters know the best marketing talent, because they are experienced marketers. MarketPro places talent in all marketing related disciplines and does so in less time with a higher success ratio than anyone else in the industry.
MarketPro, a WBENC certified business, opens office in Philadelphia to serve customers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC.
We are excited to add this location to our current offices in Atlanta and Detroit.
MarketPro – Philadelphia
12th Floor- East Tower
1500 Market Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19102
About MarketPro:
MarketPro is the leading marketing staffing and marketing recruitment firm in the USA. Whether your need is interim / contract or direct placement, we provide top companies with talent that exceeds expectations both functionally and culturally. Our recruiters know the best marketing talent, because they are experienced marketers. MarketPro places talent all marketing related disciplines and does so in less time with a higher success ratio than anyone else in the industry
Effective marketing is one of the most vital components to getting a startup off the ground. The problem, however, is that most venture-based startups don’t really have the capital to put a seasoned marketing executive in place. Instead, Venture Capitalist-backed startups typically bring in someone with often significantly less experience – and more fiscally palatable salary demands, of course – and throw them directly into the fire.
More often than not, junior-level professionals simply can’t develop the marketing strategy needed for a significant start-up to be successful. The practical ideas they generate are often very good, but less effective without the benefit of an senior-level perspective for the marketing direction of the company.
So how does a start-up get past these hurdles? Outsourcing the work to agencies or an independent consultant are often more costly than hiring a full-time executive. A much better option is to bring in someone on an interim basis, typically six to nine months, to work with the company’s chief officers in drafting a comprehensive marketing strategy. You get the benefit of having an experienced professional on your team at a crucial time in the company’s development without having to swallow the steep salary that an individual of that caliber would demand over the long haul.
It’s the same general principle as bringing in an experienced software architect at the beginning to help design the entire system. Once everything is in place, you have the flexibility to bring in lower-level employees to implement the ideas. Software development companies don’t have to pay coders anywhere near what they would have to shell out to keep a high-level software architect on the payroll. Marketing is no different. The junior-level employees have an important role to fill, but they are much more valuable to a startup because of their ability to put a plan into action.
About MarketPro:
MarketPro is the leading interim marketing executive and marketing executive search firm in the USA. Whether your need is interim / contract or direct placement, we provide top companies with talent that exceeds expectations both functionally and culturally. Our recruiters know the best marketing talent, because they are experienced marketers. MarketPro places talent in all marketing related disciplines and does so in less time with a higher success ratio than anyone else in the industry.
Marketing Sherpa recently conducted a survey of 1700 BtoB marketers to discover their specific blocks to success. What was their number one obstacle? 62% of all marketers surveyed identify lack of resources in staffing, budgeting or time as the greatest barrier to their marketing success.
The historical solution to that age-old problem was to hire a consultant. But put the word “consultant” at the end of anything, and it quickly gets expensive. Yet on-demand marketing expertise is exactly what Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies need in order to set the pace in today’s ever-changing marketplace. How do the successful ones do it with today’s restricted budgets? They do it on their own terms – with Interim Marketing Executives.
Companies outsource manufacturing and tech support to work faster, better, cheaper. Finance departments have used interim executives for years. Entire R&D efforts are purchased as companies identify new markets. Ad hoc marketing expertise is now essential is all competitive business models – Interim Marketing Executives are moving in for brief periods of time, and getting results for smart companies.
An Interim Marketing Executive is a highly skilled, independent mid- to executive-level professional, hired as needed to quickly integrate into a company and perform a specific task, project, or transition. They are especially effective when a new and impartial perspective is desired, marketing strategy is to be developed or revamped, or when a specific skill set is needed only for a few months, or years.
In light of this creative solution, smart companies have found a way to take advantage of new, competitive landscapes they would not have been able to in years past.
For example, MarketPro, a national placement firm, helped a multi-billion dollar publicly-held company accomplish just this task. By hiring just one of MarketPro’s Interim Marketing Executives, they were able to launch one of its most successful brands in China. Directly following the strategic development and launch of the brand, MarketPro’s Interim Marketing Executive quickly and seamlessly transferred this strategy and knowledge to the existing staff. The value of the Interim Executive’s service to the long-term business sustainability is unquantifiable in its magnitude.
A nimble workforce has been the goal for a decade. All decision makers have visions of highly qualified personnel switching gears on a moment’s notice and redirecting efforts to new projects seamlessly. What is just now being understood, however, is that these changes need to happen from the top down, and realistically, the best way to achieve this level of flexibility is with interim partners, perfectly paired to a businesses’ needs, and with an unrivaled depth of expertise.
Interim Marketing Executives are the way for businesses to get the talent they need when they need it, and at a price far more competitive than consulting firms. Free of internal politics, Interim Marketing Executives are utilizing their proven abilities to take savvy companies to the forefront of a new competitive edge.
About MarketPro:
MarketPro is the leading interim marketing executive and marketing executive search firm in the USA. Whether your need is interim / contract or direct placement, we provide top companies with talent that exceeds expectations both functionally and culturally. Our recruiters know the best marketing talent, because they are experienced marketers. MarketPro places talent in all marketing related disciplines and does so in less time with a higher success ratio than anyone else in the industry.
Each year the WBENC has its major conference. This year MarketPro will be there in full force. Check out our print ad that will be in the directory handed out to all attendees. We look forward to seeing you in Vegas.
About MarketPro:
A WBENC certified business, MarketPro is the leading marketing staffing and marketing recruitment firm in the US. Whether your need is interim / contract or direct placement, we provide top companies with talent that exceeds expectations both functionally and culturally. Our recruiters know the best marketing talent, because they are experienced marketers. MarketPro places talent all marketing related disciplines, including creative, digital, communications, market research, brand / product management and direct response.
