Alan's musings ... some personal views and rants

on this digital marketing malarkey

What's wrong with digital marketing?

It's getting better, but digital marketing skills are still under-valued - and worse still, too often in the hands of the techies.

The following is made up of extracts from a genuine job vacancy advertised on the web in the latter part of 2006. My comments are added in red.

Job description

Role - to be responsible for the following functions within the business:Search engine optimisation [website optimisation] A specialised job in its own right, people good at this practice are thin on the ground.
Webmaster What does this mean?
Identify new online marketing opportunities Entrepreneurs do this for themselves - they don't work for someone else. Sales experience might help.
Affiliate administration [trade doubler, affiliate window, internal affiliates] I think I know what this means, but then I've been writing about marketing for years.

Reporting to:
Head of IT Aaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh ... and the head of IT's marketing qualifications/experience are what? How will they know if this person is doing a good job or not?

Notes:
The principal part of this role is the optimization of the websites in the business. The successful candidate will have at least three years practical experience in successfully optimizing websites. SEO is new to most businesses, so 3 years is a long time - with that experience you are worth more than the salary offered for just this aspect of the job.

This role would also be the business's single point of contact for all link exchange and internal affiliate programme proposals Another specialised [marketing] job.

Candidate requirements

Search engine optimization
Proven optimization skills with all major search engines including but not limited to Google, Yahoo, MSN, ASK etc See my previous comments on subject.
Must be conversant with the rules and acceptable practices of search engine optimization Ditto.

Technical skills
Knowledge of html, asp, xml, css, asp, .net, rss So you must have a computer science qualification?
Knowledge of windows operating systems preferably windows 2003 server, IIS Ditto.

General skills
Thorough knowledge of the internet with some experience of online marketing including search engines, portals etc Define 'some' - particularly given the job description

Look at my profile. I could have a crack at most of the 'marketing' elements and the html in the job advertised above. There will be very, very, very few people who could do all of the above proficiently.

So why is this an example of what is wrong in e-marketing? Simple, the person who gets this job will have an IT/computer science background. They will have a degree from a computing school. They will not have studied or practiced marketing. With the exception of the technical elements of website development, this post is about marketing.

But ... as long as organisations put 'techies' in online marketing jobs there will always be work for teachers / trainers / consultants like me.

UPDATE, December 2010 I just came across an ad for a 'Faculty Web Marketing and Content Developer'. Now, let's not go into the syntax of that job title [what exactly is the job?] nor dwell on why I should come across an ad for such a job at a university [think about it]. No, I just wanted to raise the fact that I could not apply for the job. Why? Because one of the 'essential qualifications' was:
Knowledge of Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia Flash and Adobe Photoshop software.
Again, let's not quibble over the grammar [what is 'knowledge' in this context?], but concentrate on why a web marketer should need to know how to use this software. Guess what? I can't. Oh, I know that Dreamweaver is a WYSIWYG tool and so I guess I could handle it, and I use image software similar to Photoshop so I'd probably be able to get by with that as well. But Flash, good heavens no! As usability God, Jacob Nielsen says 'Flash: 99% Bad' - so why should I have learned how to use it? [BTW, the ad also says the applicant will be responsible for meeting usability requirements: usability > Flash ... oxymoron?]. This ad should have concentrated on the marketing skills and experience - if using this software was essential, a couple of hours hands-on tuition would suffice for what it would be needed.

UPDATE, December 2014 Can't give you a specific example, but although things have improved, the basic problem still exists. Ho hum.

UPDATE, September 2017 The issues described above have led - in my opinion - to the problem of non marketers in digital marketing. See also my comments on Facebook: one, two, three and four.

UPDATE, September 2020 Things have got better over the last 14 years or so - but all is not yet well. Just this week I was made aware of a person given responsibility for online content presentation - but was unaware of any aspect of user experience. She had a computer science degree.

How to cite this article:
Charlesworth, A. (2006). What is wrong with e-[digital]marketing?. Retrieved [insert date] from AlanCharlesworth.com: https://www.alancharlesworth.com/Alans-musings/whats-wrong-with-digital-marketing