Ask HN: How do you learn marketing
I am engineer by skills but one missing skill I have repeatedly found is marketing.
How do I learn 0 - 40% of marketing? I want to understand basics and be able to market a simple product.
How do I learn 0 - 40% of marketing? I want to understand basics and be able to market a simple product.
I found Steve Blank (https://steveblank.com) the easiest to relate to and his book https://www.amazon.com.au/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp... is particularly relevant to high tech products and services.
Common fields of marketing include:
- Designers
- Advertisers
- Copywriters
- Analyst
- Social Media
- Product
- PR
- Events
- Affiliate
These can be further sub categorised also, plus I probably missed a couple.
So maybe having made it more confusing perhaps I would say the 2 key areas most people could learn about are 1) Analytics and 2) Copywriting.
For Analytics, this is the fundamental as its the results. If your running a business this lets you know what to look for and its meaning. Often staff and agencies will try to push the best results or a few blatantly lie. Having good knowledge of core analytics as well as direct access will give you a huge leg up vs most non-marketing types. The best way yo learn is probably just do and read blogs. I dont think any book/course will give amazing insight. I believe the 3 keys are to focus on the 1) The end point of 'what matters. Analytics options are huge and you can measure so much. Don't spend time on the journey, look for the key end result variable. You can also dig into the journey as you need to ad-hoc but so many people get distracted by the detail. 2) Monitor what your can change. Don't run weekly stats if said stats wont influence your decisions. As before there is so much data out there so focus on what will make you changes tactics or strategy and leave the rest for ad-hoc reviews or the guys working the detail. and 3) Look at trends not data points. Seeing where things are going is as important as the number itself. If something is on the rise you can choose to leave it as that area is being fixed or you can spot problems before they are below the threshold point type thing.
For Copywriting, this is the core art of marketing IMO. So many people jump to how the website/ads look but its best to start with what you want to say. Good copy is amazingly difficult and at the risk of offending HN, many technical personalities are horrid at content, especially for conversion activity. Engineer type personalities often go with the more good information you provide the better, and this is rarely the truth in marketing content. I would say for learning copywriting do 2 things, read "Ogilvy on Advertising" and look at ads of the companies known for great advertising, especially if its in your product category. Companies like Coke, VW, Guinness, De Beers, Apple etc
Anyway that would be my advice. If you have more specifics I can try to tailor it so.