Whenever we discuss a profession, it involves discussing the characteristics and the job description of that profession. Similarly, in the case of marketing, reports, articles and all forms of write-ups only include the necessary means of achieving perfection in marketing but, do not discuss the executioner itself, the marketer. The marketers’ success, or job satisfaction, sharpness, interest is never discussed in details. According to MarketingProfs and Mantis Research, the wellbeing of the marketers can be accounted by two different approaches. The first one being their sharpness and preparedness in every sense and the second one is an evaluation of their mindset towards work pressure, failures and venturing newer ideas. Through their findings, they found out that marketers are in general reading, learning, setting up their specific goals and placing faith in their own instincts. However, given there is always room for improvement, a recent study titled ‘Marketers Happiness Report 2019’ proposes further suggestion on improving a marketer.
Working with Mantis Research, MarketingProfs surveyed 1,533 marketers from around the world in May and June 2018: 46% of the respondents were from B2B companies, 11% wre from B2C companies, and 27% wre from B2B/B2C organizations. MarketingProfs produced a report to account for these marketers and the factors that determine their satisfaction from job and their happiness from performing the job. The factors include are being discussed here in brief.
LEARNING MINDSET
The learning mindset must include the constant enthusiasm to read books, blogs, seek out knowledge and being in the lookout for newer opportunities. The report found out that marketers are active learners who mostly use blogs and online resources as their learning sources, helping them develop both personally and professionally. Furthermore, they are always looking for opportunities that require them to learn new skills. Although almost all the marketers read blogs and online media, 27 percent of these marketers do not read them for professional growth at all and over half of the marketers only spend 1 or 2 hours per week for personal enjoyment.
Apart from reading habits, the data found out that almost half the marketers listen to podcasts that makes them a part of the cutting edge group. Despite the popularity of podcasts, almost 50 percent of the marketers have never listened to podcasts.
In terms of having personal and professional growth, marketers also use social media as one of their learning tools. While 90 percent of the marketers utilize social media for their professional growth, 74 percent of them spend time on social media only for personal satisfaction, a quarter of which never spend time on social media for personal reasons.
Webinars are also very common among marketers to educate themselves. Marketers have in-person seminars, workshops, online courses at their disposal for their growth. The most effective way of learning, however, involves interaction and discussion in person with people of the same criteria. Hence it was observed that 85 percent of marketers attend at least one in-person event per year. As a part of their skill development, Mantis Research found out that 92 percent of these marketers learned at least one new technology or marketing tool in the year surveyed. This involves seeking out opportunities and availability. 4 out of 5 marketers always seek these opportunities where they are required to learn a new skill. This also includes the desire of projects that need marketers to figure out things as they move forward in the project and almost half of them prefer such working opportunities.
Finally, the strength that helps marketers to be strong-willed is being decisive. Two third of the marketers prefer making a decision than not acting on a situation even when there are chances of the decision going wrong.
INTENTION
It is essential that marketers always remain updated and have a clear vision of their everyday task. Although marketers know what they need to achieve on a daily basis but the accomplishment in fulfilling the task does not always result in a success. 1 in 3 marketers state their problem in focusing, 34 percent of these marketers are unable to complete the tasks mostly due to interruptions. Starting off the day with a clear vision fails often times as most marketers shift their priorities due to the phenomenon of email goblins. Approximately 50 percent of the marketers lose focus and shift their daily priorities based on what they find in their inbox. One-third of the marketers face interruptions from emails, social media, and phone calls and so on, which obstruct their regular working and productive day, leading to a failure of not obtaining the desire objective.
All professions come to face demanding tasks at one point of their career. These marketers as well face such demanding and challenging tasks from time to time. It is important to create a personal space of peace, either physically or mentally when performing these tasks. However, only about half of the marketers create their own space before performing such tasks.
Furthermore, less than one third of the marketers succeed in being focused for an extended period of time. The Marketer Happiness report suggests that in order to practice focus, it is important for the marketers to close down their doors in a room alone and stay there for at least 30 minutes or so. What mostly acts as an obstruction to focusing is the lack of interest. Most of the marketers are bad at refusing a new project even when it does not fit their needs and personal goals. Only less than half of the marketers work on the projects they want to, allocating more time to each project individually.
GRIT
Confidence is an important asset for every marketer and according to the reports, all the marketers have a measured level of confidence, which still has more opportunities to work. Four out of five marketers are also confident about stating their opinions whenever in disagreement, solely relying on their gut. 60 percent of these marketers, however, hesitate in such cases and are convinced that they need proper qualification before trying something different and new, and almost half of the marketers are not much acquainted with their peers.
While stating their opinions, the marketers, approximately 60 percent of them, move behind and relapse on receiving any form of criticisms. Approximately 50 percent of the marketers are comfortable with the forms of uncertainty while one out of three of these marketers easily get anxious when immediate results are not received.
It is important for marketers to rely on their gut feelings and according to the survey results, two-third of the marketers succeed in trusting their instincts believing that hard work can always surpass inborn talent. Despite the confidence, three out of five marketers still feel the necessity to learn before giving new things a try.
COMMUNITY
Taking all the factors into account, marketers always flourish the highest when performing in community. After all, one of their primary jobs is to understand human needs and analyze their behavioral pattern. This is further proven by the fact that all the satisfied marketers are more in need of help and support from their communities and having a tribe within the company holds intrinsic values to them. However, the tribe should not be the only criteria. Marketers should always expand their horizon and reach out to the marketers out of their own company which can be used to broaden their perspective.
The necessity of the community was reflective in the report as 80 percent of the surveyed marketers always have someone to seek advice from during a challenge. As marketers are not always in contact with the ones outside their company, the internal support acts as an important tool. The study suggests that this communication restriction can be defeated through social media or phone calls.
These communities are also useful in terms of guidance. Mentoring is important for both the mentors and the apprentice. Over 50 percent of the surveyed marketers have been involved with such mentoring experiences. Thus, the study suggests marketers to commit to finding a good mentor or serve someone within their community, since only half of the marketers have felt supported whenever they wanted help from a second party.
ENERGY
After the discussion of community importance, there lies the responsibility to one self. Marketers must take care of themselves individually as well, which can be done through a mix of varying personal habits. 50 percent of these marketers prefer getting sufficient sleep while others are focused on fueling themselves with good food. However, there are marketers who fail cultivating other unconventional activities and detaching themselves from social media.
Statistics show that 65 percent of the marketers take care of their health and hygiene through food, while 50 percent get good sleep and 17 percent mediate.
Marketers, nonetheless, feel they spend too less time with friends or exercising, volunteering or flourishing their personal hobbies.
FULFILLMENT
Once the marketers attain happiness in their profession, it leads to proper fulfillment. Mantis Research aimed to understand by digging deeper in terms of their actions and interactions to understand what will result in fulfilment. Every marketer is unique with their unique requirement of fulfillment. Mantis Research created a 7 point Likert scale to assess their fulfillment capability and evaluated the respondents’ responses.
TO CONCLUDE
Despite all the shortcomings and loopholes within the system, it is always possible to dig deeper and obtaining full satisfaction as a marketer. Mantis Research conducted the research to understand the need of the marketers to encourage these professionals to become involved in every way possible.
By AFRAIM KARIM
