Beth Harte: Are You a Jack/Jane of All Marketing Trades?

As marketers, sometimes we are siloed in one area or a few areas during our careers. For example, there are branding, lead generation, PR, sales, supply chain and product marketing experts. Some companies favor hiring an expert or specialist versus “a Jack/Jane of all trades” when it comes to hiring or developing their marketing departments. Specific experts are also sought out when hiring agencies or consultants.

While I think being an expert in any given marketing area is important, I also think it is limiting (I’ll explain why a bit later). The other day I wrote a post called “PR 2.0 will double your workload” to demonstration to today’s PR professionals how Web 2.0 and social media isn’t taking away their work, but doubling it (whether client- or agency-side).

Whether it’s a PR or Marketing (I am of the integrated school of thought that PR falls under marketing), social media and Web 2.0 are doubling our workloads and as practitioners of our craft, we need to understand that. (Heck, Web 1.0 did the same thing back in the day!)

Jack Wojcicki (@PRJack), Media Director at Veritas Communications, left an interesting comment on the post (I have paraphrased his comment here):

“I disagree that all of these skills/responsibilities will be added to the required competencies of all PR people… The thought that one PR person can, or should do it all, while admirable isn’t the most efficient way of doing things. Sure it’s possible, but more often than not the reality is that ‘A Jack of all trades is the master of none’… Those people in one discipline don’t need to understand the intricacies of other disciplines; they just need to understand how the different disciplines connect. For senior level people there needs to be enough of an understanding of other disciplines so as to make sound decisions, but in the end it usually comes down to the guidance of a skilled practice leader to guide the way.”

Jack has a great point. But where my thoughts lead me is to think that it’s not incumbent upon just senior level people to have an understanding of other disciplines and how they connect. Every marketer, no matter their level, should have an understanding even if they don’t master the task or discipline. Even the best skilled practice leaders have a blind spot. That’s why it’s important for all marketers to learn beyond their expertise. Not necessarily the “intricacies,” but enough to know what they don’t know. Not doing so might negatively affect marketing capabilities, decisions, and budget.

Over the years, I’ve bumped into several of these situations. I had a marketing friend recently tell me that their PR agency said that his news releases couldn’t be optimized for search engine optimization (SEO). And he believed them because, well, they were the experts. I told my friend that it wasn’t true and that moving forward he should provide a list of keywords (natural search) and links to be used for every release. As well, he needed to take it upon himself to tell the agency to use a wire service that offers optimization as part of their services.

Another example is a company that had a fully optimized website that was changed to an entirely Flash-based website. They started having all kinds of SEO challenges and their budget was being tapped for all sorts of little changes that never affected them before. I asked who approved the change and was told it was the VP of Marketing. I naturally wondered how that decision could have been made, I mean shouldn’t the VP have known better? Well, the VP trusted the expertise of a manager who trusted the expertise of an agency. Now, they are stuck with the limitations of an all Flash site because they don’t have the budget to change it back.

I think there’s a place for a “Jack/Jane of all marketing trades,” and it is a place of value within the marketing organization. Being the Jack/Jane that understands the importance of knowing a little bit of everything allows them to see the integration of any given project or campaign. A Jack/Jane could have also helped with the above scenarios. Jack/Jane might not be an SEO or website development expert, but if they know the basics, they could have added value and helped the company not waste budget dollars and gain or keep valuable SEO rankings (and that’s really Web 1.0 knowledge, not Web 2.0).

I am a Jane of all marketing trades and I personally see value in that as a marketer. But, not everyone does.

Given your experience, can someone be an expert at being a Jack/Jane of all marketing trades? Is that a good or bad thing? What are the benefits? The limitations?