If someone was brand new at all of marketing, where would you send them to get educated?

[Crystalline_15]

If someone had no marketing education, where would you send them to get a thorough education covering all aspects of marketing/advertising? Would you say you have to go to school for that?  Would you recommend an online course set from CMI or MarketingProfs?  If so, which one?

Thank you

[LeeC]

To Moz, where else

If you've not already done so read these, from left to right.

The white board Friday video's a really good too, they are a little advanced, but as a beginner you can pick bits and pieces that can benefit you early on. Also the Moz blog, Rand's blog and member blogs.

Also ask as much as you like here, are some amazing people, willing to help you out

Have the willingness to learn and you'll learn lots here, in my opinion a lot more than at college or uni - what you learn on a course is usually outdated by the time you leave.

As to education and paricular courses, I'll leave that upto one of the seo pro's to advise.

Cheers and good luck Lee

[Crystalline_15]

Thanks, Lee.  I do love all the resources Moz provides!  And MozCon too!  I am thinking of an education that includes how marketing works into business a little more in depth.  Budgets, advertising, etc.  What should a marketing department in different sized businesses look like.

[MattAntonino]

I would start by picking a direction or even two or three.  But it's nearly impossible to "learn all of marketing" at once.

So ... SEO & SEM?  Advertising & PR? Content, email marketing or social media?  It depends where you want to go with all this newfound knowledge.

One of my favourite Moz images gives a good starting place for marketing channels: Marketing Channels

I would also suggest my own post on self education (even though it's about a plateau, the same ideas would apply at any level of business.)

Next, you're going to need a way to track & store information you learn. Sign up for Evernote and create a folder for each thing you may learn (email, SEO, social, analytics, etc.)

Sign up for Inbound and try to stay on top of what hits the top page or two. This will keep you fairly up to date on all the important happenings in inbound marketing.

Next, since we're at the end of 2014, it's a good time to catch up on all the "Best of 2014 Marketing" blog posts.

Throw in a couple great business books (Selling the Invisible, Never Eat Alone, Influence, ReWork, Purple Cow, Blue Ocean Strategy, The TIpping Point, The Slight Edge, Good to Great, etc.)

Keep up with at least 10 to 50 marketing blogs for the next 2+ years and whenever they get stale, change them out for something you don't know as well.

And, if there's time - sleep.

[RobertFisher]

Crystalline_15

You ask a very good question about marketing. Being that I run an integrated marketing firm with multiple disciplines serving our clients, I do have an opinion on this. First, get a marketing education and pay attention to discriminate when people are stating opinions as it is important to develop your own and there are fewer hard and fast rules in marketing than in just about anything.

I would suggest avoiding online education as collaboration (a big part of quality marketing IMO) is easier in a classroom type environment, but obviously we collaborate fairly well here on Moz. If you go the way of online, I would suggest trying to do the last year or two on a college or university campus. It does not matter where you go, it matters how dedicated you are to marketing as your profession to be.

In our firm, many people came to be _______, and yet today do different jobs. Our director of Bus. Dev. was hired to handle PPC for us (that lasted a few months only), our head of web development started out as our first intern, our head of local came to us without a marketing background and became a true rock star in Local over about 2 to 3 years. Our head of content and media started while still in college as a copywriter. Today she manages large branding accounts and recently produced a video for a major university.

I urge you to find work in an agency as opposed to a large corporate marketing department to begin with. The reason is that in an agency you have the opportunity to touch it all. By touching it all you come to learn what you like and what you want to do. There are a couple of cautionaries: most marketing firms work with businesses and those businesses trust you to bring them real results; marketing is their lifeblood. Their families and organizations depend on what we do and we must bring zeal to what we do and find ways to give them results that matter. Lastly, if you are not involved in a creative endeavor whether performance art, painting, sculpting, writing, etc. find something creative to do. It forces you to keep expanding your mind and that is what is needed in marketing: Creative talent that never quits learning and striving for real tangible results.

Good luck, and welcome to the ride of your life!

[Justian]

That depends..

Marketing is a huge area to cover so I would ask them for more information so i could give them the best possible advise.

In some cases a business school would be recommendable but in other cases like for instance online marketing, you need to be able to adjust all the time to all the new changes online. But they need to know the basics and a business school would provide the basic understanding (and more) so they had that part covered.

You'll Never stop being a student!!! - In my opinion it is of great importance to constantly be able to adjust to the marked and whats hot and whats not when it comes to marketing, you need to keep tabs on everything and try to figure out how to do your job better.. Read books / blogs and watch videos from prominent people in your field of business.

but anyways, back to your question, its hard to say that if you want to learn marketing you have to "do this" and you'll have success. I think you need to have a broader view on things and also really know what the person would need marketing for.. before you can give a satisfying answer

[GPainter]

Has been some fantastic advice here already I also wanted to point out http://www.lynda.com/ which has some excellent knowledge on for getting started. Don't forget things like internships or conferences or workshops they can be found all over the place. My advice get information from as many places as you can get your hands on and ask people it will never hurt! There are loads of different marketing courses but it depends on how you want to specialize.

[Crystalline_15]

Thank you for the resources!  I definitely wouldn't expect someone to learn all of marketing at once... but possibly an overview on how it is all supposed to work together.  Then, it would be easier to pick out the weakest areas to focus on, and make a plan.  But if someone doesn't know how it is all supposed to work together, then they don't know what areas they might be missing.

[Crystalline_15]

Thank you for the tips and encouragement!

[Crystalline_15]

That is definitely true about there being no one formula for marketing that leads to success.

I think my question is directed at how all the pieces of marketing and advertising for medium sized business should work together.  Once all the pieces have been identified, and the big picture is more clear, then it would be easier for someone to focus on certain areas at a time for more detailed education.