Inbound Marketing Tips Every Graduating Student Needs To Know

I just graduated from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Got to put on the gown, walk across the stage, grab my diploma, and throw my cap in the air. Actually, it went a little more like this. I had to put on an oversized, unflattering cap and gown, listen to some woman I didn’t know talk about her time in Africa, walk across the floor in front of the stage, grab a rolled up piece of paper that wasn’t my actual diploma, and nobody threw their cap. The ideal graduation compared to the real thing is similar to the ideal marketing job compared to the real thing. I’m here to tell all these graduating college students just what they actually need to know about marketing, because it goes way beyond what a textbook and a PowerPoint can teach you.

Academics:

• You will have to deal with numbers. Just because you majored in communication studies and didn’t have to take statistics doesn’t mean you escaped math forever. And if you actually took some math in college and thought it was over, think again. Inbound marketing requires you to analyze everything you do every single day. You can’t escape the math, trust me I tried.
   
• Classrooms don’t teach you half the things you really need to know, neither do internships. The marketing classes I took in school required none of the skills I use in daily work life. I repeat, none of the skills. Can you believe that? I can, it’s because marketing, inbound or outbound, isn’t about reading a textbook and knowing how to do it. It’s about constant learning and growth in the field.

Experience:

• Internships don’t guarantee jobs. So you had an internship at a marketing agency over a summer in college? That’s awesome, so did almost everyone else. Don’t think experience will get you a job, you need to stress what you did during that experience. Did you just answer phones and bring coffee? Then congratulations you wasted your time. A big company’s name on your resume may guarantee an interview but if you have nothing to show for your time there, it’s ultimately worthless.
   
• Internships do however bring on networking opportunities. Your intern director helped you through everything you needed to do and was there to bring you constructive criticism and allow you to grow. Who better to reach out to than someone who already helped you succeed? They may have an opening at their company or know somebody who does. Even after I got a job, I still keep in touch with my internship director.
   
• “Don’t fear the man that practices 1,000 kicks, fear the man that practices 1 kick 1,000 times.” –Bruce Lee. Find your strength and focus on it. A long list of every organization you ever went to a meeting for on your resume is not going to win anyone over. Employers look for strengths, find one, practice one, flaunt one.

Marketing:

• Marketing moves faster than you can learn it. What you were taught freshman year about marketing is probably no longer relevant. Things change literally every single day and in marketing you have to constantly learn and grow to stay current.
   
• Gone are the days where the marketing department and sales department are separate. Be prepared to work in both. You should always be thinking about the return investment in everything you do. You send out a tweet, how does that benefit your company? You created an adwords campaign, how does that benefit your company? Don’t lose sight of the big picture during day to day work assignments. And that big picture is revenue.
   
• Get familiar with html. Not only do I hate html, after 6 months I still screw things up when I use it. When I first started I had to ask coworkers what the code was to center things, I mean I knew nothing. Html is something that is generally useful to know. And if you come into the workplace able to work with it, at least in a basic way, you are already ahead of the game.

Personal:

• You are going to get things wrong. I work for an inbound marketing company… I learned almost nothing I do at work in the classroom. When I started out, I thought I was terrible at everything I did. I’ve worked here for almost 6 months and I still get things wrong and mess things up. Does it bring me down? Of course, and I still probably take it much harder than I should. But the key is to turn things around to be positive and take it as a learning experience.
   
• Never ever ever ever ever burn bridges. You may be so relieved you finally got a real job and get to quit your part-time waitressing job. Don’t just stop showing up. You never know when you may need to market to a restaurant, have an event, or even need your job back one day! Connections are great to have no matter what, and networking with these connections is also key.