So You Want a Career in Marketing?

What does a marketing person actually do?" I asked my supervisor at Hotel Riverview, Westlands—a charming boutique hotel with twenty en-suite rooms and flexible meal plans ranging from full board to bed and breakfast.

At the time, I had no idea that this seemingly simple question would mark the beginning of my journey in marketing. No one told me that weaving words to capture and sell an experience—an atmosphere, a sense of ambience—would become something I genuinely loved. Fast forward 10 years, and here I am, still driven by the same passion for bringing brands and customers closer together.

As the great Steve Jobs said, sometimes you can only connect the dots looking back. So I'll share with you how I got into marketing and how you (unlike me) can have a well thought out career journey.

Make sure you want a marketing career

For me, it all began with my dad setting up my interview for this Hotel Riverview job. He knew the manager personally, and when the manager mentioned the only vacancy was for a receptionist, my dad didn’t even pause to ask how I felt about it. Instead, he confidently said, “She’ll be here first thing Monday morning.” And just like that, I found myself behind the reception desk.

One month in, thanks to the IT background from my degree course, I was unexpectedly promoted to the marketing department. One morning, without any prior notice, the manager walked in and simply said, "You’ll be working in the back office." No interview, no questions asked—just like that. I moved to the back room that same day. Reflecting on it now, none of the decisions leading up to that moment took my feelings or aspirations into account.

Now, imagine yourself in my shoes. Would you have been happy with how things played out? More importantly, can you see yourself thriving in a similar situation?

To answer these questions, you need to be sure what are your values and your ideal career plan. I won't go into detail of how to make the final decision - you're fully equipped to do it on your own. But if marketing is your thing, now is the time to double down on building your knowledge and experience.

Pinpoint your niche

Once I was able to answer the question, "What does a marketing person actually do?" while at hotel Riverview, I didn't really think of what kind of marketer I wanted to be. To be frank, this was the first quickest offer I got after university, so I didn't really give it much thought - hey, it's experience, right?

Months later, I realized I was taking on so much. The stress of event planning, especially for a hotel hosting the attendees, was no joke. It was a small hotel, so we planned events with an intimate understanding of the space. The endless phone calls and the weekends lost to organizing didn’t always feel worth it, even with the thrill of a successful event.

I'd say I could've figured it out earlier. But you can only connect the dots....yeah, you know ??.

My point is, marketing is a big-big country. There's brand management, corporate communications, there's promotion development, there's content, there's community management, product marketing....so much to try!

To kickstart your journey, think about your core interests and how they align with different marketing sub-fields. Seriously, make a list of your strengths and interests, then compare them to the various domains within marketing. Once it’s all down on paper, it becomes easier to visualize where you might thrive.

Based off on that, pinpoint what niche you might be interested in and start there.

Plan how to become a T-shaped professional

Thinking about so many marketing domains is enough to get your head spinning. But fear not! There are only 2 fields you really need to master.

Which one, you ask? That's a harder question to answer. You have to define them on your own - hopefully, through some value assessment and through some experience.

The point is, nobody expects you to know everything. You should have a basic understanding of the core marketing skills, but you should excel only in a few. That's what I call a T-shaped professional.

The T-shaped marketing professional has three degrees of knowledge:

1. Base knowledge: you need to have at least a basic understanding of these fields. They will include oldies and the goodies like storytelling and behavioural psychology, as well as the new and trendy stuff like UX.
2. Marketing foundation: you need to have a deeper understanding of these skills, which may include machine learning, analytics, copywriting or statistics. You will be getting closer to the core marketing skills, but still, are touching the surface.
3. Channel expertise - acquisition and user lifecycle: the first part of skills here is related to tactics that fall squarely in the marketer role like SEO, performance advertising or social media. The second group of skills has to do with the new trend that lets marketers work on the full customer funnel - activation techniques, customer lifecycle management and more.

Find the right education

In marketing, you need to learn constantly. The field is developing so fast it's hard even for experienced professionals to keep track. So education doesn't only happen at the start of your career anymore.

The good news is there are much more options to learn.

It's doesn't matter if you're a recent grad to someone transitioning into marketing, like I did, I always dedicate my time to two main directions:

a) old knowledge that still holds up.

Social psychlogy, influence mechanisms, storytelling, copywriting...all of this is old-old news. But that doesn't make it less impactful. It gives you a strong foundation.

As a podcast addict, I've listened to hundreds of interviews with high profile marketing professional. When asked about their favourite books, they always quote some old foundational reads.

Never forget the classics. Otherwise, you risk losing the strategic perspective in a vast sea of new channels, hacks, and experiments.

b) cutting-edge tactics

It's easy to see the digital landscape is developing with lightning speed. It might be harder to comprehend how hard it is to keep ahead of the curve.

I've been in marketing for a while now. And every day, my routine consists of listening to a marketing podcast shows on my daily commute and going through 25+ marketing articles on blogs, social media, and news.

There's an increasing digital skills gap between what you know now and how quickly the technology landscape is evolving. If you're good at "traditional" digital marketing domains like SEO, e-mail marketing or social media, you now need to get more technical, go into development, machine learning, and more.

The good news is that the skills gap leaves a lot of room for new entrants in the job force - what you know and what you've done is more important than what university you went to and how many years of experience you have.

The bad news is once you're on the treadmill. you need to keep running. It doesn't stop - and the pace is now getting even faster.

Welcome to AI

You've already seen I mentioned AI, machine learning and automation. Let's first get this out of the way: I'm highly doubtful that the marketing profession will disappear any time soon.

Still, as a marketer, you'll need to familiarise yourself with some AI-specific topics. On one hand, you need to know how all of this crazy AI stuff works - at least on a general level. Then, you should make sure you have the right complementary skills. You can't beat AI, so why not work together with it.

Practice is a differentiator

My early career might've happened haphazardly, but the key benefit was that I started working as a marketer at age 23. This gives me a strong advantage - there aren't many 33-year-olds with 10+ years of professional experience.

So the best advice I can give you is: get stuff done!

1. Find an internship - even if it's unpaid, you'll gain valuable experience. What's more, you'll gain inside knowledge of what that specific marketing field looks like. You'll also forge some handy connections.
2. Volunteer - The best option is to find an organization that does something you’re passionate about – then work is not a chore, but a pleasure.
3. Help friends – In the age of startups, you surely know someone starting a business. Help them out! It’s not just good karma – it will also guarantee you a lot of freedom of execution and breathing room to test new stuff.

You may think only paid experience matters, but you’re deeply mistaken. A potential employer will recognize your unpaid efforts as proof of your drive to learn and your practivity. Those sometimes matter more than the right certificates,

Above all else, find your calling.

I’m keeping this as the last point, but it’s the most important one. Find something that truly makes you happy. We have only about 80,000 working hours in our lives (I googled that), so you’d better make them count.

Make sure you’re following your Workplan and your Lifeplan and you’ve found a position that corresponds with your values.

And don’t forget to have fun

If you're just starting out in marketing, don't take everything too seriously. Mistakes and missteps in your career may cost you some time, but they’ll also teach you invaluable lessons. During a townhall meeting, on Friday - last week, my CEO, Andrew Mwanyota Lewela , reminded me of this when he quoted Mahatma Gandhi: "The future depends on what you do today."

Lastly, share your journey. It’s hard to travel alone. So share your journey.

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