Can a successful marketer in one industry be successful in another? Can someone who markets B2B market also be successful in B2C? Can an individual who markets $1.00 widgets be as successful marketing $1,000,000 widgets. Can someone who has marketed services her whole career switch over and market tangible products? These are all questions that have come up throughout my career with clients, co-workers, and peers.
Before getting into the answer lets take a look at what is marketing and what are the traits of a great marketer. It seems like everyone has his/her own definition of marketing. An old employee of mine thought marketing was all about creating brochures and advertisements. A former executive thought marketing was providing support to sales.
Merriam-Webster says:
marketing are the activities that are involved in making people aware of a company’s products, making sure that the products are available to be bought, etc.
The American Marketing Association revised its definition in July 2013 and now defines it as:
the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
Philip Kotler has multiple definitions but his most concise one is:
finding needs and filling them profitably
In my post, 10 Traits of a Great Marketer, I identified traits ranging from being able to work cross-functionally to listening to strong analytical skills that all great marketers possess.
Based on conversations I have had with a variety of hiring managers and HR professionals in many different industries there seems to be a general bias that marketers are best suited to perform a marketing job if they have held a similar position in their career. I understand this mind-set, as it is always nice to have specific and relevant market knowledge when being asked to market something different. Using this thought process, ideally if I were looking for someone to market a new beverage I would look for someone who had successfully marketed similar beverages in the past. Similarly, using this same mind-set, a pharmaceutical company would not only gravitate towards other pharmaceutical marketers but other pharmaceutical marketers in the same therapeutic area. I know as a hiring manager early in my career, I tended to lean towards looking at candidates with specific corresponding market experience first before candidates from other industries or product lines.
An alternative approach would be to assume a great marketer could market across industries and easily switch between B2B and B2C or between marketing of products and marketing of services.
This brings me to why I included definitions of marketing and why I referenced my previous post on top traits of great marketers. First, looking at the definitions of marketing not one of the definitions mentions specific requirements for different types of product or services or industries. Therefore, I can assume that whatever definition of marketing I choose will apply to all products and services regardless of industry. Next, looking at the 10 traits of a great marketer I have identified, none of them are specific to any type of product or service. Like the definitions of marketing the traits are not industry, product or service specific.
I once had a mentor who said,
a great marketer can market anything. It doesn’t matter if they are familiar with the product or industry. They can learn it.
I agree with that statement with one caveat. A great marketer must have the capacity to learn the product and industry in order for her/him to be successful.
Like any other profession finding a truly great marketer is extremely difficult. Everything being equal would it be nice to find a great marketer who has marketed a competing product in the same industry and been successful. I think everyone would say Yes. However the likelihood of finding that person is slim at best. Can a great marketer be successful marketing a new to him/her product or service in a new industry if they have the capacity to learn? Absolutely!
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