Are you a Marketing Martian?

Last week I went to see 'The Martian' and was struck by  how similar being a Marketer in professional services can be. 

What do you think of when you think of the word Martian? Human colonist? Extra Terrestrial? Super-beings? I think the marketers life, in professional services, is all of those things. Let me put this into context. 

When working in Law or Accountancy you can often feel like an alien speaking a different language, isolated right brainers in a left brainer world, with ideas from another planet that are received with all the fear and angst similar to that of ET meeting Elliot's brother and sister for the first time. Arrgghhhhhh.

When I first started out on my marketing career 'marketers' as a profession were really like aliens, with marketing being a less tried and tested option for accountancy and in particular law firms. Now, every professional service firm over a certain size has a marketing person but the scope of the role has evolved faster than Darwin's theory, as technology has evolved creating roles unheard of 18 years ago. Do you even know what a Digital and Mobile Content Strategist does?

So back to my point. In my experience, setting up a marketing department in professional services feels like setting up a colony on Mars. Recruiting a team of individuals to support the needs of the firm, often at cross purposes due to conflicting priorities and demands and a lack of understanding as to what marketing people do and how long pulling together an event or presentation can actually take. 

Super-beings? Yes, I think so, we have to multi task and manage a huge work- load, under the direction of 'many bosses' in the partnership, whilst remaining cool, calm, logical, creative, adaptive and above all, a natural peace keeper. Not only that but we have to stay on top of technology and moving goal posts like no other role I know. 

In the same way that Watney had limited resources to work with. We as marketers are limited by budget, resource and time. Often though, as was the case on Mars, when under pressure, with constraints and deadlines to work towards, marketers come into their own and not only survive but produce great pieces of work.