How to Grow As a Marketer: 14+ Tips to Develop Your Marketing Career

What to do when you have limited room for growth or a low threshold for risk

• Be collaborative. Anyone who knows me know that I hate meetings. But if you’re really aiming to grow, be part of more teams, and start attending more meetings. Start with just talking to colleagues both inside and outside of your departments—about anything, not just work-related topics. When your coworkers have marketing questions, they’ll start to come to you because they know you and have rapport with you—not because you always have the answers. Once you’re known as the in-house marketing resource, always volunteer to participate in new projects and initiatives. Be willing to take on tasks that are outside of your comfort zone.
• Ask your company to invest in your learning and professional development. For example, I advocated for a subscription to LinkedIn Learning (formerly known as Lynda.com) to help my organization’s marketing team become more cross-functional. There are a host of online learning platforms out there, some of which specialize in certain topics, such as:
  • CreativeLIVE: for graphic design, UX, photography, etc.
  • CodeCademy: for learning how to code
  • Udemy: pretty much anything under the sun

• Take advantage of tuition reimbursement benefits through your employer. If you’re interested in taking courses or earning another degree, don’t leave money on the table by not having your employer foot part of the bill.
  I caution this advice with a personal finance PSA. I’m not a fan of going into debt if I’m not certain that I’ll get a return on my investment—even if the investment is into myself. Definitely run the numbers, and see if:
  • You’re sure you’ll get to apply what you’ve learned soon after you complete the course/degree
  • You’re confident that earning the credit/degree will yield higher earning in the future.
• Seek out learning opportunities outside of work or in your personal time. If your employer won’t help you out with educational resources or tuition money, take matters into your own hands. There are so many ways to gain new information:
  • Google—who should be your best friend, you know.
  • YouTube. There are so many tutorials and how-to videos on here, it will make your head spin—while making your brain smarter.
  • Blogs. There are probably more blogs than people in this world. A simple Google search on “[TOPIC OF INTEREST] blog” should lead you in the right direction.
  • Your library card—which is good for more than just books. While I need to grow in the area of reading more fiction, I probably read one business or marketing book about every 1-2 months—not enough, but a place to start.
  • Networking and industry/association events. I can’t stress the importance of developing relationships, as these can lead to mentorship opportunities or at least new ideas.
  • Marketing conferences. If you learn nothing during the keynotes and breakout sessions, at least you might be energized by being surrounded by your peers who have similar goals to yours.
• Invest in your own learning during breaks and lunch, if you can. If you’re pressed for time, your lunch break is a good time to properly disconnect from email and your phone, and crack open a good book.
• Listen to audio books and podcasts. Make use of your morning and evening commutes by listening to an audio book or podcast on a subject matter that you’re curious about.
• Take initiative. Don’t wait till one of your coworkers or managers calls on you to solve a problem. Seek out the problems your organization might be having, and think through your own solutions. Having a hard time figuring out why customers are not converting on your landing page? Do some testing and analysis, and present the findings along with recommendations for fixes to your boss or a stakeholder. Does your sales team lack sales enablement tools? Ask for suggestions, and work with your colleagues to start putting some one-pagers together.
• Seek out a mentor(s)—whether they know they are mentoring you or not. I try to figure out who on my team is good at certain tasks or knowledgeable in certain marketing areas. When tasks come across my desk that I’m not an expert in, I always consult with the experts on my team to get their thoughts—and to have an opportunity to learn from them. This ties in with being collaborative. If you have a manager who is willing to spend regular one-on-one time with you, be sure to not only honor your meetings with him or her, but come prepared with questions and topics you’d like to discuss.

What to do if you have a bit more room to take risks

• In your current full-time role, go rogue. Use your best judgment so as not to get yourself fired or reprimanded, but don’t wait until you have permission to go and try to solve a problem on your own. You can even start by taking small risks that build into bigger risks—like taking the initiative to tweak email subject lines to test which one gets the higher open rate, leading up to experimenting with video in your social media to see if it garners higher engagement rates and reach.
• Take on side projects if you’re not barred from doing so by non-compete agreements. Check all of the paperwork you filled out when you were hired. Look for language that says something along the lines of, “We expect you to be 100% dedicated to our company, etc.,” which is code for, “You work for us and only us while you’re here.” Also thoroughly examine any non-compete agreement you committed to. If there’s nothing in any of these documents that prevents you from having a side hustle, then—with caution—go for it. There is a host of ways to seek out projects that may allow you to expand your skill sets or try out new ideas. In general, you’ll work and stretch your muscles in a different way from what you’re doing in a typical 40-hour work week.
• Work on passion projects outside of work. Or do some pro bono work. If getting paid for doing work outside of work is not a priority to you, work on something you’ve been thinking about or for a cause you care about. Writing an eBook on how to start a band? Starting a YouTube channel with arts and crafts tutorials? Becoming a volunteer CMO for a local charity? Any of these will engage not only your creativity, but also your soul in a new and exciting marketing activity.
• Find a new job altogether. This is not a decision to take lightly, which I will have to discuss in a separate blog post. But once you’ve reached the point where you are 110% certain that you’ve exhausted all of the opportunities that were available for learning and growth/upward- or even cross-mobility in your job at your company, then, yes, moving on to the next job may be the answer.
• Become a freelancer or a contractor. This is how I got my start in marketing in the first place—as a freelancer. Before I made the leap from employee to self-employed (albeit for a short 18 months), I gave this advice to someone else without even having firsthand experience doing it. The crazy thing is that my advice worked for them! They went from working as a marketing manager, which didn’t make them happy, to freelancer, and now Creative Director—their true calling. For myself, I went from consultant to Marketing Manager in less than 5 years—without ever having taken a business or marketing course in college.