One of the best ways to learn is by doing. However, a preemptive measure to blindly taking action is to research what action to take. You can effectively gain this knowledge, outside of a classroom, by learning from those who have done what you want to do, successfully.

I’ve always been interested in marketing. What better way to learn than from those who have accomplished what you want to do? I interview Elisheva Hinkle, a freelance marketer, James Biller, a social media marketer, and Taylor King, a corporate manager. Each of these individuals is specialized in different kinds of marketing.

Elisheva: Freelance Marketing.

Elisheva is a freelance marketer who first got her start marketing your moms baby clothing line on Pinterest. She quickly grew an eye for ways to increase engagement and draw interest. She now works as a freelance marketer for a variety of businesses.

• Freelance marketing involves a lot of trial and error. Analyzing qualities of a successful campaign. What do their stories look like, what strategies are they using? Don’t be afraid to borrow a page from their book.

 

• Get yourself out there. Write about what you are learning, starting a YouTube channel and post videos explaining marketing, or build a podcast where you can build credibility and gain a following. However, even without gaining a following you still gain a portfolio full of experience.

Advice for campaigns, do preplanning and testing before launching a campaign.

James: Social Media Marketing.

James ran a social media account and experienced first hand the strategies necessary to engage customers.

• Be convicted. Have a genuine passion for the product you are marketing.

 

• Know your target audience. If someone already has a solution they are happy with they are not going to be interested in your solution to the same problem.

 

• Digital marketing is becoming the forefront of marketing. However, digital marketing loses physical presence. To compensate make your campaigns engaging and lively. This can be achieved by having attention-grabbing videos, high-quality pictures, descriptive captions and a call to action.

Facebook Ads are more effective when there is a picture showing the product in action.

To aspiring digital marketers: keep your eyes peeled for new opportunities. Set goals for what social platform you are going to conquer, and then learn all you can about it.

Taylor: Digital Marketing & Corporate Campaigns.

Taylor marketed on the corporate level. The process of building campaigns anywhere from analyzing whether your idea is feasible and how to best reach your target audience.

• The biggest key to successful marketing is to accurately hit target audience with a contextual ad.

 

• Marketing is largely psychological. Be instinctual and adapt, pay more attention.

 

• Paid and organic content is a great way to leverage your audience. Ideally, this would be a brand that has paid advertisements in addition to their consumers promoting it organically among themselves. When your friend dressed up like a taco from Taco Bell that’s organic marketing.

 

• The product doesn’t matter voice does. You don’t have to talk about your product to sell. Tell a story, no one wants to hear about a product that ‘s not contextual they want to laugh, they want to cry, they want to be challenged. Companies like Wendy’s market well because they tell a story, like retweeting Carter Wilkonson’s tweet.

Overall, this was a great learning experience.