Petra Manson, CM, Growth Marketing Manager at CADdetails, discusses her love for creativity, pushing boundaries and making a name for yourself by voicing your opinions and communicating your ideas. She touches on microlearning to stay current, leveraging AI to understand the customer journey and how the metaverse can improve the customer experience. Petra encourages marketers to be courageous, take advantage of the tools available and ask the questions no one else is asking. 

Marketing is Vast

Marketing, a vast field, is significantly impacted by impending privacy laws. In this context, the Chartered Marketer program, with its standardized knowledge and high standard of professionalism, is crucial for the overall impact on Canadian businesses.

Being Creative

The marketing profession allows and encourages you to be creative, different, and unique, which I have always loved. Pushing boundaries, exploring new technologies and expanding the impact marketing has on business operations have kept me interested in growing my career and footprint in the B2B space.

Create a Voice

Reflecting on my career, I realize that creating a voice at the table could have accelerated my growth. It’s important not to wait for others to ask for your opinion; instead, push to be part of the broader discussions happening in all departments.

Staying Current

Since marketing moves rapidly, networking is more critical in this profession than in others. Microlearning is fantastic for staying current with trends, but foundational marketing knowledge is essential to build on your expertise in this fast-paced profession. Staying current and identifying “fades” from trends can make long-lasting impacts. We can get lost in the weeds on catchy new industry trends, metrics, or tools and forget to evaluate their value and overall impact.

Marketing Engine

Marketing has evolved from a segregated department responsible for demand and lead generation to an engine that supports all departments, from the C-Suite to onboarding and product development. Marketing now serves as the fabric tying user, product experience, and development together. This shift has led to more marketing leaders taking on CROs, CEOs, and COOs roles, as they understand cross-departmental needs and the holistic user experience of products and services.

Skilled At Communicating

Joining one of Constellation Software’s newly acquired businesses was my career’s most challenging and pivotal role. Stepping in as the marketing leader to spearhead a legacy software’s transition into a modern era was thrilling and challenging. Communicating new ideas and gaining buy-in from veterans at the company was a common practice. I’ve learned to become skilled at communicating the value and expected results of proposed ideas and how those changes would improve the professional lives of critical stakeholders. Every marketer knows the pain of budget and pitching. Remember, “You are only as good as your ability to communicate your ideas.” Ensure your ideas translate well in oral and visual communication to get the buy-in you seek.

Nimbler and Relatable

Leveraging AI is exciting because now we can better understand our buyer’s journey more intimately with insights never before possible. With AI, marketers can cater to their channels more effectively. It allows marketers to pivot quicker, as AI can glean insights into your market quicker than if you were manually gathering consumer insights and reports. AI also allows marketers to be more relatable to our audience than ever. We are already seeing this in the hyper-personalization trends that are taking place, such as tailored ads and landing pages via persona, industry, etc.

The Metaverse

The metaverse is another channel that deserves more airtime. The range of creative possibilities with meta products is epic. We can use the metaverse for multiple goals (lead or demand) to improve the customer experience. For example, you can have a VR headset at a tradeshow for a virtual demo to drive traffic and create a memorable impact. For customer experience, you can leverage VR for gamification sessions to make power users. The move from traditional B2B marketing to more personalized and fun B2B brands is also exciting.

Be Courageous

My advice is to be bold in your career. Roll up your sleeves and execute on multiple fronts and channels. It’s challenging to lead without first-hand experience or to provide strategy and recommendations without technical know-how. But you can overcome these challenges by networking and using the resources available to learn how to execute.

The pace of the industry is quick, so stay on top of industry events and online resources and learn in the most enjoyable ways. If you like videos, go to YouTube; if you like listening to thought leaders, listen to podcasts; if you’re a visual learner, download guides and infographics. Resources are abundant; be bold and use the ones that suit you best. Ask the questions no one is asking, and leap. Be courageous and, above all, never stop learning.

Petra Manson, CM
Growth Marketing Manager at CADdetails

 

Becoming a Chartered Marketer not only boosts your credibility but also ensures you stay competitive in this evolving field. Download the CM Brochure to learn more about the pathways to becoming a Chartered Marketer program today and take a significant step in your marketing career.