Marketing is a skill that demands continuous improvement. It is a process that will require you to augment your knowledge with new tools and methods to remain competitive. For a marketer just entering the industry, getting your degree put you on the path, but learning how to stay relevant will keep you there.
Marketing As A Moving Target
It is no longer enough to master a handful of marketing processes and assume those skills will carry you through an entire career. Writing a press release, placing media buys, or designing a newsletter may once have felt sufficient, but the profession has evolved into a complex ecosystem. Today’s marketing departments are often made up of specialists in digital, social media, multimedia design, and regional campaign management, all under the guidance of a director. Each of these roles demands ongoing growth—standing still means falling behind.
For directors and managers, it is not enough to understand these roles at the surface level. Leadership requires knowing not only what each team member is capable of, but also how to align those capabilities with the tools and strategies available. What worked last year may not be enough to compete this year. Social media, once considered an add-on, is now central to most campaigns. Search optimization, digital streaming, mobile platforms, and now artificial intelligence have all reshaped the way we reach audiences.
At its core, marketing is an industry of adaptation. No professional can rely on a fixed set of skills and hope they last a lifetime. The willingness to learn and integrate new tools not only ensures relevance but also makes us better at what we do. Growth, in this field, is not optional. It is the foundation for long-term success.
A Personal Lesson in Adaptation
One of the first important skills I picked up as a young marketer in the music industry was the ability to be resourceful. During my early years operating as an independent promoter I often found new ways, mostly free outlets, to reach the right audience. At the time, social media was still taking shape, pulling in massive numbers of young people. Major brands hadn’t yet figured out how to use these platforms effectively, but for independent promoters it was a goldmine.
Being an early adopter, I relied on social media to be a part of my marketing toolkit, which quickly set me apart. This early advantage landed me a job with Pace Concerts, which would eventually become Live Nation Entertainment. First as a Marketing Coordinator, I was able to transition into the role of New Media Coordinator, where my primary job was digital marketing: social media promotions, online ad campaigns, and email marketing. The title came with a surprising amount of autonomy, not because I was a seasoned expert, but because management didn’t fully understand these systems. They couldn’t provide much direction, and in some cases may have even overestimated the value of what I could produce.
In reality, I was learning by trial and error. There were no online courses, step-by-step tutorials, or blogs to lean on, because digital marketing itself was still evolving. Another limitation was the audience you could actually reach online. Promoting legacy artists from the 70s or 80s still required traditional methods: print, radio, and TV were the surest ways to connect with fans who weren’t spending time online.
But here’s where I fell into the same trap as my managers. I became complacent. I knew the new tools and platforms, but I stopped pushing myself to grow beyond them. I wasn’t exploring how viral content could boost exposure, or how email subject lines and design could dramatically improve open rates and clicks.
My managers, for their part, were used to old rhythms: placing ads, getting localized assets, and syncing TV, radio, and print buys for a big concert announcement. In many ways, they were functioning less like marketers and more like media buyers. Looking back, I realize we were all guilty of believing that what we knew at the moment would be enough to carry us forward. The truth is the opposite.
The State of Marketing in Organizations
Marketers who once relied on above-the-line campaigns, brand building, and long-tail strategies now find themselves forced to repurpose those approaches in response to a fast-moving landscape of customer expectations. This shift has been driven by clients demanding quick wins, competitors chasing short-term advantages, and organizations focused on metrics and conversions.
Marketing has shifted from a discipline based in understanding root causes and addressing underlying consumer needs to a world dominated by quick fixes and tactical maneuvers—often out of necessity. — Jay Mandel MarTech
That tension echoed my own experience as a New Media Coordinator. Even though I was hired for my digital expertise, much of my work still followed the top-down, pre-scheduled, “one-size-fits-all” playbook that had been used for decades. Legacy brands and promoters applied the same model to every product or event, regardless of how audiences were actually consuming media.
The reality is more complicated. Customers don’t fit neatly into predefined boxes, and treating them as interchangeable “types” often misses the real signals they’re giving off. A campaign built on a single big-box idea might be efficient, but it risks losing relevance when audiences are scattered across platforms and interact with marketing in vastly different ways.
The mistake would be to interpret this as a call to abandon traditional marketing altogether. Long-term brand health is still essential, and it must be balanced against short-term, performance-driven activations (Read: The Long and Short of It). The pressure of constant measurement can tempt us to prioritize campaigns that deliver immediate, quantifiable results while neglecting the slower, harder-to-measure work of strengthening brand equity.
My position is that marketers must live on both ends of this spectrum. Short-term, responsive creatives drive measurable impact, while brand building creates awareness and trust that make those activations more cost-effective.
For event marketers, this means thinking not only about the big message, how to enhance your reputation as a promoter or producer. But as a brand who will deliver quality experiences by relying on a tactical mix required to reach audiences. That mix might include traditional media for broad reach, paired with digital tools, guerrilla tactics, mobile promotions, or even subtle website design choices that influence behavior on a granular level (Read: The Scientific Approach to Brand Growth).
The Case For Continuous Learning
As marketers, it’s our responsibility to research, evaluate, and adopt the tools that can genuinely improve our work. That doesn’t mean chasing every shiny new toy. It means filtering through the noise, understanding what the industry says about a given tool, and deciding whether it fits our product, service, or audience.
Budget and time play a big part in this. Event marketing especially runs on limited resources, so you often lean on proven tactics. But sometimes, you need to step outside your comfort zone. Is geofencing a competitor’s event worth the spend? Should you invest in an experiential activation at a trade show or street fair? Or is it more practical to update free online calendars and hand out flyers? The right choice depends on how you prioritize your time and the way you measure impact.
This applies to leadership as well. Suppose you manage a digital marketer tasked with improving SEO. Do you fully understand the activities that go into creating an effective, SEO-compliant website? For most managers, the answer is no. SEO is not a quick fix, it’s an ongoing process, often taking months to show results. Just like brand building, it requires patience and consistent effort. The same goes for online advertising, interesting creatives, or viral social content strategies.
What should you learn? Though providing learning resources isn’t the point of this post, I’ve provided some general examples so that you can get a rough idea of where you could look for areas of self-improvement. If you’re running digital ads on Facebook or Google, pay attention to how those systems are changing, because they change constantly, often in subtle ways. Instagram has reduced the weight of hashtags, but they still play a role. Facebook has rolled out an AI system known as Andromeda, leaving advertisers scrambling to figure out formulas that deliver results once achievable under older methods.
Beyond digital marketing, building familiarity with creative and design tools can be just as valuable. Knowing how to edit short-form video in Premiere Pro with After Effects, or creating a prototype in Figma before handing it off to developers, can add depth to your contributions. If you’re in a leadership role, you don’t need to master the software, but understanding how it works gives you an edge in guiding your team. You don’t always need to create from scratch. Using Pinterest can spark design ideas, while SEO companies like Ahrefs or Ubersuggest can provide keyword insights for your next Google Ads campaign.
A manager doesn’t need to be an expert in each area, but they should learn enough to understand the fundamentals. That awareness helps set realistic expectations for both results and the people responsible for delivering them. Continuous learning is what equips you to prioritize effectively: what tasks can be accomplished, what needs must be met, and what tools best serve your objectives.
More importantly, it makes you a professional who goes beyond the “one-size-fits-all” approach. Settling for what you already know does a disservice to your organization and limits your own growth. Marketing is ever-changing and if you want to thrive in it, you have to change with it.