If you’ve never heard of the T-shaped dispenser, you might think we just invented it. But, we swear, it’s one thing. And that’s a big problem.
The reason being a T-shaped marketer is something all marketers strive for is because it allows them to do more as a marketer. This gives them a basic understanding of all the essential parts of marketing (like SEO, channels, social media, influence campaigns, etc.) Attachment.
When your marketing strategy fully flows from bringing new awareness to your business (first stage of the Customer Value Journey, Awareness) to elevating to next level products your followers (in the sixth stage of CVJ, Ascension) – that’s now you have a winner. Shaped marketers create and maintain perfect flow between all the different aspects of marketing. Here’s how you can become one.
What is a T-shaped marketer?
A T-shaped marketer is someone who specializes in about 1-3 key aspects of marketing. For example, maybe you’re good at content marketing. You have a proven track record of doing great things with your organic content and strategy.
But they are also well versed in other marketing aspects such as email marketing, pay-per-click advertising, community building, and SEO. They just don’t understand the first two aspects.
This is a T-shaped Marketer.
Graphic showing a T-shaped marketer
The horizontal part of the letter “T” represents general knowledge of marketing. These are all other aspects that you know, but don’t necessarily have to be an absolute expert on.
Next, the vertical part of the “T” represents depth of knowledge about a topic. This is the aspect of marketing where you are an absolute expert. In this case, it would be content marketing.
T-shaped marketers are not experts, they are generalists with a specialty.
They can look at a marketing strategy as a whole and understand every part of it, even if they only run a few PPC campaigns during their day.
And that’s what makes them so precious.
How to Become a T-Shaped Marketer ?
Now you may be wondering, “How can I develop T-shaped skills?”
To become a T-shaped digital marketer, you must first experience as many different areas of digital marketing as possible. In this way, you begin to develop the necessary breadth of knowledge and find the areas you love most.
Relax. You don’t have to decide on your specialty right away:
The advantage of being a T-marketer is that you don’t have to decide right away what your specialty will be. Find opportunities to work with PPC advertising, SEO, content marketing, copywriting, social media, website development, and other areas needed for a winning digital marketing team.
Step 1: Get Started Learning Online
Start learning about different areas of online marketing by taking free courses. In addition to online digital marketing courses, consume digital marketing educational content. Here is a list of great digital marketing podcasts.
A common area where people start learning about digital marketing is online advertising managers. You can easily start your own ad manager on Facebook or Google to learn how they work. You can build your skills by learning how to write compelling ad copy as you create paid ads. Plus, by learning how to interpret analytics data, you’ll be able to gauge the success of any campaign you run.
Step 2: Learn how to use growth hacking tools
Develop your growth hacking skills by learning different ad spying tools, tracking competitor ad data, this can help you create ads that can beat your competition.
Neil Patel has a great article with 35 different growth hacking tools you can use.
Step 3: Start Finding Opportunities
By using different areas of marketing, you will gain confidence in using these skills. This will make you a qualified candidate for more opportunities. It’s no secret that a T-shaped trader will compete for a higher salary than a regular trader.
If you’re starting to apply for a job, it’s essential to adopt good job search strategies and kick bad habits that will hold you back. Also, make sure you are well prepared for the interviews.
One of the best ways to quickly develop the skills of a T-shaped marketer is to work for startups where you will tackle all areas of marketing. However, finding such roles is not always easy, especially for new employees, as these roles require considerable experience.
Step 4: Get hands-on experience working with a mentor
In such a case, an easier way to gain marketing experience and become a T-shaped marketer is to try digital learning. An apprentice simultaneously works on different aspects of a digital learning marketing project under the guidance of a skilled mentor. As a digital practitioner, you will learn different areas of marketing and benefit from mentoring from business founders and owners. The mentoring you receive can also develop your network of expertise, which is important for finding future opportunities.
Benefits of being a T-shaped marketer
Being a T-shaped marketer means you can help customers with their marketing strategy from A to Z. While you have your bread and butter (like SEO, social media, paid advertising or community advertising), you will be able to create a winning strategy among other marketing aspects by collaborating with your marketing team.
T-Shaped Marketers with Disciplines
This is what makes T-shaped marketers so valuable. They’re not going to come and create conversion marketing strategies out of SEO alone, they’re going to do it at all levels. They should be able to implement an SEO strategy that incorporates the content marketing strategy into the email marketing strategy.
Businesses need T-shaped marketers to steer the ship of all their marketing strategies, from SEO to email. T-shaped marketers do this by using their expertise and knowledge of other marketing strategies to steer that ship to more traffic and more conversions.
In conclusion, the concept of a “T-shaped marketer” embodies a strategic approach that has become increasingly relevant in today’s dynamic and multifaceted marketing landscape. The T-shaped marketer possesses a breadth of knowledge across various marketing disciplines, symbolized by the horizontal bar of the “T,” which includes areas like social media, content creation, SEO, and analytics. However, the true strength of the T-shaped marketer lies in their deep expertise and specialization in a specific area, represented by the vertical stem of the “T.”
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