What is a marketer?

If you work in marketing, you’ve likely had that conversation—you know the one—where a family member or friend asks what you do and you say you work in marketing.  To which they respond, “oh, you make commercials?”, or “my friend is starting a business and they need a website—can you build them one?”

And take a look at job postings that are hiring marketers—typically there’s about 6 different roles  laid out in each job post.

In my time as a ‘marketer’, people tend to think that being a marketer means that you are…

A strategist
An optimist
A revenue generator
A sales accelerator
A one-pager Major
A social media grazer
A slide deck doer
A lead gen lure
An AB tester
A brand investor
A community builder
A PR filter
A copywriter
An up all-nighter
A webinar host
A snapchat ghost
A story teller
A design expeller
An event planner
A new social banner
A swag savant
A little picky when it comes to the font

Take a deep breath, we're almost there...

Just a few more...

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A Facebook strategist
A LinkedIn specialist
A TikTok dancer
An Instagram romancer
A Twitter tweeter (I know, it's X now but that doesn't rhyme)
A Reddit reader
A video editor
A content readier
An SEO optimizer
A paid search synthesizer
A case study writer
A “can we make that a little brighter?”
A data analyst
A podcast panelist
An email expert
A curated excerpt
A landing page leader
A website breeder
A conversion driver
A budget allocation MacGyver
An internal communicator
An “I would have caught that typo sooner or later”
A workflow weaver
And an eternal dreamer
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And while all of the above can fall into ‘marketing’, expecting that one person can do all the above would be like expecting your family doctor to deliver your baby, replace your hip, remove your brain tumour, conduct research studies on common causes of depression, perform your root canal, and babysit your dog, all while posting on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn about how great their practice is.

So why bring this up?  Well, we often see companies declare that they need to hire a marketer early on—but what type of marketer?  A demand generation specialist? A social media maven?  A copy writer?

If you are company looking to hire a ‘marketer’ it’s important to understand what you are looking for.  And if you don’t know what you are looking for then it’s probably a good idea to hire or work with someone who has built marketing programs at multiple companies who can then diagnose what your immediate needs are from a marketing standpoint.  And these needs should reflect the overall needs of the business.

And wouldn’t you know it, but that’s exactly what LaunchLeap was built to do—reach out to learn more about how we can work together.