30-Year Perspective: Seven Traits of Successful Digital Marketers
This year marks the 30th anniversary of my working in the ‘internet’ industry. Although at the time I got involved in my first web-related project, I wasn’t aware that the internet would spawn a whole new way of working and living for just about every person on earth. Certainly, I didn’t think the next 30 years of my career would be devoted to it. In fact, in 1993, I had barely heard about the World Wide Web browser that Tim Berners-Lee created.
An ‘Internet Tech’ Career Path: Dumb Luck or Planned Destiny?
Thirty years ago, I was working as a software engineer and a systems analyst for an IT consulting company. Much of what we did was custom software development in nature and usually operations related. For instance, an early project I was given was to develop an inventory control software system for a consumer packaged goods company.
I was called into my supervisor’s office and put on a new and very vague project.
“Rick, a steel company just acquired another steel company. One company runs on Windows, the other on Macintosh. You need to figure out how these systems can speak to each other. They don’t want to invest in a new infrastructure.” That’s it. That’s all I had to go on.
I had been reading about the internet and the first browser called Nexus. HTML was in its infancy … at least as far as I knew. No one really knew what a website was. A colleague of mine was just hearing about all this too. Was this something that could solve our problem? Long story short, we cobbled together a rudimentary web server. We created an HTML version of a document, hooked a Mac and a PC up to the network, and showed the CIO how each computer could read the same file using this browser. A week later, we were two 20-something kids showing this crude internet browser-based “solution” to the board of directors of what would eventually become one of our region’s first corporate intranets.
For those of us who made a career out of internet tech, was it dumb luck to be in the right place at the right time?
This 30-year milestone has spurred me to reflect as of late. What motivated me to work in the internet industry all these years, and furthermore, what motivated me to continue learning new things? And what is motivating me still today to stay on top of this cutting-edge changing tech world we live in today? I believe that it’s a mindset, not a skill set.
Some of my peers from the mid-90s dropped out of the industry, while others, like me, remained. For those of us who made a career out of internet tech, was it dumb luck to be in the right place at the right time? That was probably part of it. I suppose just about anyone could have been given that steel company assignment. Was it the internet itself that fascinated me? After all, it drove me back to school to get my MBA in marketing. Or was it something else? I think the root of it was my desire to use technology to solve business problems, and in particular, marketing and sales problems. To me, the internet was like a creative canvas. You could quite possibly create just about any type of solution using web technology. And if there’s no current solution, just wait, because surely someone else will be able to invent the next big thing.
Seven Traits of Successful Digital Marketers
One of the things that I like to do these days is to teach or mentor young professionals. I’ve had a chance to do this through guest lecturing at local universities, as well as through the mentoring program at our agency. Many of the people I connect with want to learn the “secrets” to a successful tech career. They will ask me to teach them about digital technology. One of the first things we talk about is the key to success and longevity for digital marketers has nothing to do with digital marketing technology. Rather, I believe there are seven life skills, that if mastered correctly, can lead to a successful career in marketing technology. Here are the lessons I’ve learned over the past 30 years.
1. Problem-solving
I believe the ability to apply technology to solve problems is an art, not a science … the science comes in after you know the solution and you get into execution. And the best thing is that a problem-solving approach can be learned. You don’t need to know code to imagine, dream, talk to people, brainstorm in the shower, or look outside the industry for analogous examples and inspiration.
2. Continuous Learning
Waiting for someone else to figure something out won’t build your personal knowledge base. It also won’t earn long-term respect or trust — in any corporation. But most importantly, without a concerted effort to keep learning about what’s new, you will eventually turn into a generalist. There is no place in today’s hyper-competitive internet economy for a pure generalist. That is not to say that I don’t strongly believe in working toward a “T-Shaped” career approach, one where you become an expert in one thing, but then expand your knowledge base across several different areas.
The key to success and longevity for digital marketers has nothing to do with digital marketing technology.
3. Admitting You Don’t Know
If anyone claims to know everything, even about a vertical service area like customer relationship management or search engine marketing, then they are lying. The internet and marketing tech fields are just too vast, and still changing quickly. Being an expert in everything simply isn’t possible. I can honestly say that after 30 years, I still learn something new every day. This is not a cliché; it’s the absolute truth. To this day, I won’t send out a proposal, or a definitive POV on something, without having at least one of my colleagues review it for fear that I have missed something or could be proposing an outdated approach.
4. Hire Smart-er People
I’ve known many managers who will only hire people who know less than them. I suppose they’ve felt threatened or want to feel that they are the smartest in the room. Most have heard quotes like this in the past — this is not new advice. But it IS highly relevant to the tech industry. Steve Jobs probably summed it up best when he famously said, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
5. Become an Expert
Earlier, I mentioned I don’t think anyone can know everything. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try to be an expert in a certain area. A true generalist approach won’t work. For example, I went to school for a marketing-focused MBA. I’ve worked at a marketing agency for 23 years. I’ve probably been in hundreds of conversations about brand strategy. But I am NOT ever going to pretend that I’m a brand strategist. Likewise, just because a creative director has sat in a room to discuss digital media or a landing page strategy, that doesn’t mean that he or she is an expert in those areas. To do that requires extra effort, studying time, and hands-on experience.
6. Get Your Hands Dirty
To the point of becoming an expert, in the internet industry, you learn by doing. Period. As a career progresses, delegation becomes critical to focus on the big picture. But walking away from hands-on work 100% isn’t an option. The internet industry changes too fast and you can become obsolete in a hurry. Find ways to get your hands dirty to keep learning how things get made. Manage a project. Write some code. Talk to industry startups. Get demos from industry-leading platforms. Or ask the young professionals who are passionate about a space (see #3 above) to show you. Even today, I always have one or two small projects that I manage directly — I’ve learned a ton through that approach.
7. Be Patient
My former manager, one of the founders of Brunner, once told me, “Rick, the company will never be where you think it should be. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t keep pushing it. But just be a little patient while you do.” That simple piece of advice kept me from leaving the agency out of frustration 20 years ago. Instead, I directed my frustration internally and found different ways to advance Brunner and our collective skill set. The same can be said about career advancement. I guarantee that those who follow this advice, and the other advice above, then the right people will notice.
As we enter the next chapter of the internet — one of machine learning and artificial intelligence — I’ve been thinking a lot about the overall state of the industry and the people who work in it every day. Sadly (or fortunately depending on how I wake up every morning), I will be in the fourth quarter of my career during this next technological revolution. Ultimately, who knows how this will turn out, or what the effects on the digital industry will be. The execution aspects of the industry will certainly change and might even replace quite a few jobs. And that’s not even thinking about the changes to the business and financial models of the industry. But I can predict one thing with relative confidence: those who take the seven principles above to heart will be more than just fine.
Rick Gardinier
Partner, Chief Digital Officer
Rick Gardinier is a partner and chief digital officer at Brunner. With over 30 years of professional consulting experience in internet/digital marketing, software, and IT fields, Rick’s unique blend of technical, marketing, and business expertise enables him to build bridges between the technical and creative sides of the digital space. For the past 23 years, Rick has led Brunner’s digital practice, positioning the company as a top independent creative, technology, and data analytics-driven firm. He spearheaded the launch of Brunner’s innovation lab, BHiveLab, which for 10 years was dedicated to helping companies invent new ways to use technology to engage their customers. This has helped Brunner to remain at the forefront of digital innovation and maintain a competitive edge in the market.
Prior to joining Brunner, Rick was the senior manager of technical operations at PCM Enterprise, where he was responsible for running the software development and project management divisions. He also worked as a technical sales engineer for Arrow Electronics. Rick graduated from Bowling Green State University with a B.S. in Computer Science and earned an MBA with a Marketing concentration from Capital University.
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