Career Advice for Future DTC & Retail Marketers

I recently guest lectured to a class of undergraduate marketing students. We discussed trends across ecommerce and marketing, and my career path. If I could rewind and share the same career advice to the marketing students to my younger self, I'd begin with the following:

1. Join a community and network;
2. Be persistent;
3. Keep learning, both on the job and outside of the job;
4. Try a new skill (or set of skills);
5. Find the wave and ride it.

Let me divulge:

Join a community and network

I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for mentors, relationships and the DTC and retail community. Timing, luck and market trends play a large part. But word-of-mouth referrals can be the proxy to an interview, new gig and references.

Networking may come naturally to some folks; but to someone starting out in a new field, it can be daunting. What do you say, what do you have to contribute, how do you even get out there and start?

Start with active listening, direct eye contact and taking an interest in your peers, colleagues, and community. That can be anything from your local coffee shop to your current job. Stay in touch with colleagues as they move on to new roles. Reach out and grab coffee; go on a walk. Be consistent and thoughtful in their life. Be the friend that you'd like to have.

Communities are much easier to join now than say, ten years ago. You can join based on hobbies, interests, skills, learning, sports; the list goes on. Connections can be made based on what you each find interesting.

Networking is more about who you're talking with and less about yourself.

Be persistent

It may not be apparent when a new connection or co-worker may evolve into something more in the future. Stay consistent in your communications with your network and community. Keep in touch as best as you can, and check-in. Everyone likes to feel appreciated.

Persistence pays off in other ways: early in my career, I was rejected from my dream company. Come to think of it, the rejection letter came pretty quickly. 🤣

I can count the number of times I have applied for roles and didn't receive call backs or emails returned. Don't take it personal; more than likely, another candidate (potentially in-house) may have been lined up for the role. Some of these factors are out of your control.

But what is in your control is how you respond and react.

Look at the job description and examine: is there anything here that I can improve on? Better yet, is there a sweet spot for that company that I can help with? If you are Gen Z, you're high in demand for marketers who want your content, feedback and input.

Check out Home From College and review their ever-evolving list of gigs. Be proactive. Create content, share it out and give a compelling argument for why The Brand should work with you to solve an untapped opportunity. The formula looks like this: "Hi my name is ____ and I'm Gen Z. I love what you're doing and believe in the products, especially _____. I surveyed a group of classmates, colleagues and friends who align with your customers and we think there is untapped opportunity / low-hanging fruit to get more customers. I've put together a canva with ideas here ____" If I received this from anyone 18-25, I'd be impressed and reach out. Especially if you truly love the brand and did thoughtful research.

Persistence and being proactive go hand-in-hand. Having the tenacity to pursue your goals is critical, but consider how you can help brands (or agencies) out. If this doesn't come naturally to you, then start small. Connect with marketing execs, directors and managers on LinkedIn and offer virtual coffee to review 1-3 questions and how you can help out. You never know who will respond back.

Remember that dream company and rejection letter I mentioned earlier? I interviewed again and didn't get the job I came in for. Instead, they offered me a different role. It was a stretch and out of my comfort zone. But I took it and the role exposed me to a whole new world of global retail and ecommerce. I traveled the world and made friends along the way.

Rejection is hard but that feeling when you finally get to where you wanted to be? Priceless.

Keep learning, both on the job and outside of the job

It's humbling to admit what you don't know. With each new role you take on at the same or different company, you pivot your skills and refine over time. It helps to maintain self-awareness at what you're good at, and what you could improve on.

For me, math did not come easy as a student. I like to joke that as stereotypes go, I'm in the 1% group of asians that just don't math.

I graduated with a humanities degree in English Literature from UCI; so far away from math, and that was intentional. I didn't expect to use math in my day-to-day job. But the irony is that marketing today involves being data-driven, which is to say, a blend of computation and analytical skills which at its roots is: math.

Math manifests itself in digital marketing and ecommerce as unit economics especially in retail and with DTC (direct-to-consumer) brands. Early in my career, I understood that to improve as a marketer, I had to step up my Excel game and learn retail math. I asked questions and wasn't afraid of exposing what I didn't know. I had to be curious, patient and have some degree of humility admitting what I didn't know. My Google search queries intimately know. 😅 If I didn't know a metric or a phrase, I hunted down the answer or asked around. Great thing about working fashion? Your colleagues are down-to-earth and friendly. Especially those in IT, finance, supply chain, merchandising, operations and demand planning. Sitting next to demand planners and buyers was a big unlock for me.

College does not prepare you for the report that your boss will ask you for. Much of the learning comes in and outside of the job. I took courses online that were more narrow into the skill sets required. My solution providers and agency partners taught me a great deal. Soak up the information that surrounds you, and keep a running list of what you don't know. Ask follow-up questions and whatever you don't know, research and ask away.

Try a new skill (or set of skills) early

Growth comes at the intersection of discomfort and necessity. Any role that stretched me out of my comfort zone pushed me into becoming a better person. I remember jumping from digital advertising to global ecommerce operations. I had no global experience. I had no idea what JIRA and Confluence were. I knew what development sprints were but had no prior ownership of the roadmap before then. I had been to 4 countries before then. I was in over my head.

David Epstein discusses breadth of skills in his book "Range". He points out that generalists with varied interests who cross pollinate areas of expertise develop increased agility. They may not become subject matter experts but exposure to new and different skills adds to development and sharpens other areas like creativity and their response reflex.

I became the kind of project manager who was never at her chair (usually in the hallways or walking from building to building). I learned time zones. I found that my prior work experience and skills allowed me the breadth of knowledge to amplify digital product launches by channel and site experience. My team, bosses and HQ resources were accessible and helpful.

Try something new and do it early if you can. Accept a role outside of your comfort zone that you have an aptitude for. Are you a natural communicator and intuitive PR and influencer marketer? Consider adding retention and email marketing to your queue. Look at your career trajectory and improvise your skill set. Companies like L'Oreal do a great job at providing their employees with skill set rotations, whether working on a global team or a group division or new market. No secret but ultimately they want their talent to grow into well-rounded executives with breadth of exposure to multiple skills and range.

Find the wave and ride it

I am not a surfer. I live in Orange County, California, home of Surf City and while I've paddled out and attempted to catch a few waves, I prefer watching surfers catch them. Paddling and standing up requires strength, agility and a degree of athleticism. Seasoned surfers can read waves with precision and fluidity. It's both an art form and skill to outpace your competition, and it amazes me how it comes naturally to some. It can however be learned.

In 2014, Stanford University offered a virtual course in Technical Entrepreneurship. One instructor introduced the notion of watching and riding waves in your entrepreneurial career. "Find the wave and ride it" and if you can, be an early adopter and ramp up before competition crowds in.

Right now, the market has subtle and not-so-subtle waves in motion. What trends can you decipher and analyze as future signals, and how does this impact your career trajectory? Consider the follow trends and signals that we are seeing as of today: generative AI in marketing, increased privacy and regulations effect on advertising platforms, and growing content consumption.

Generative AI, LLMs takes learning and working to the nth power

ChatGPT has disrupted how marketers think. This includes how we search, research, organize and optimize - whether personally or professionally. But how will generative AI and LLMs improve and evolve industries and the marketer's role?

Last month, Open AI's CEO Sam Altman predicted that "artificial general intelligence (AGI) will dramatically transform marketing, with 95% of tasks currently performed by marketing agencies, strategists and creative professionals being handled by AI." Is this a bold claim or is there early evidence of market shifts? Altman predicts that AGI will "dramatically transform" but not necessarily replace.

Marketers are taking heed and determining ways to integrate generative AI into current tasks and workflows. But with the goal of improved outcomes and efficiency; use cases are more "bottom-funnel" so to speak, and closer to deliverables vs conception.

With that in mind, what can you do about this now? Learn a new skill in prompts, refine Excel or Google Sheets reports with a no-code script to improve workflows, or take a course to get up skilled in the area.

Privacy and increased regulation makes advertising thatmuchharder

Remember when Meta was Facebook and acquiring new customers was somewhat linear? That was five+ years ago, and the current landscape is nothing short of agony especially if you are a new brand and you don't have the power of celebrity and endless VC money. Attribution has been murky for five+ years, and GA4 is nothing spectacular. Brands rely on third party attribution software providers such as Triple Whale and North Beam. Teams rely on incrementality testing and an increasing supply of creative assets. What does this mean for advertising?

I don't have a crystal ball, but I can predict it will get harder. Third party cookies are going away and legislators tout increased regulations and privacy bans. The EU is taking active measures by requiring Meta and Google to offer a paid subscription service in exchange for privacy (this is being contested); TikTok is waiting its fate in the US Senate. This is the dichotomy of a marketer: how do we reach the right audience and balance personal privacy?

If you're new to the field, talk to growth strategists, CRO experts, performance marketers and pick their brain. Talk to brand marketers and content creators as media teams circle back to brand marketing basics. Do they have a strong product market fit? Does it resonate to their audience? What other challenges are they faced with?

Better yet, open a Shopify store and sell products (your own or used) and see for yourself what works and what doesn't. You'll gain a deeper appreciation for what the brands are going up against, and how to stand out.

Increased content consumption means more creators

Netflix is at the top of the S&P 100. TikTok - regardless of its impending fate in the US - has enabled new waves of content creators that brands leverage. Brands need growth and the growing cost to acquire customers poses a unique challenge.

My thoughts? Carve a niche or sweet spot as a marketer-content-creator. Understand how the platforms work and create content yourself. Syndicate it out with generative AI prompts like this one to create a content grid system (I used this Justin Welsh yesterday and was thrilled at the results).

If you zoom out, and look at the marketing landscape with a bird's eye view, this makes sense: evolving complexity in technology, marketing automation, increasing costs in advertising, privacy woes (enter: high demand for content.)

Perhaps not everyone can create and fine-tune high quality content. If this isn't you, then by proxy, find an agency or company that is doing this already. Be their financial guru, analyst or developer. Find a niche for yourself.

You can apply the same exercise by looking at the top-performing S&P 100 companies and study the trends. What changed in the past six month and to last year? What industries have increased (medical device, pharmaceutical, life sciences) and where is the growing demand for services? The waves are there, and it may take practice, but with timing, a combination of luck and your community, you might catch that wave and ride it.