Is it true that most people who work in marketing started out working in sales?

[foodyum]

I see a lot of marketing grades doing social media as a first job.

[Humanista]

Originally Posted by jade408

There is a hypothesis now that the only people who can handle the new more data-driven marketing are engineeers.

When I finished school - the desired skill set for the new kind of marketer was one that understood sales so you can do lead generation/demand generation. As the saying goes, marketing was the make it pretty department.

Now marketing has a lot more technical roles on the team too, so some companies are pulling from the engineering ranks. There are pros and cons. Digital marketing can be enhanced with the logical and systems orientation that engineers have.

The key for today's marketing team is proving what is effective with results that tie back to business objectives (revenue, customer retention, adoption etc)

But in other marketing roles it is important to have that hands-on experience in the field running programs and interacting with your customer base.

I don't anticipate that the next crop of CMOs are going to come from a digital only background. But understanding statistics, databases and SQL are good skills to have as marketer now. To lead the marketing org you'll need a tour of duty in most of the disciplines. Including the technical roles and the customer facing ones.

jade408 is correct about her/his comments regarding my path to marketing. Granted, I landed in digital marketing after stints in commercial insurance (the Chem e degree was required because I had to understand large risks such as chemical plants), warehousing/distribution, and digital media.

I've done many roles at the digital agency from strategy to analytics, to PMing, UX, and pitches. I have not done creative, but have been on many of the client facing teams. I decided to go client side because the role was in my passion industry and it was a perfect fit, but I loved digital marketing. One thing I think you have to get beyond is that what your degree is in doesn't matter as much if you can prove you can logically think through problems and develop a rapport with clients. The people at my digital agency were more senior so I wasn't really aware of their backgrounds. Of the people on the more traditional side of the agency, I knew people with diverse backgrounds such as International Relations. I did know people who got their MBAs and they would occasionally focus in marketing, although not always. My MBA is in finance and strategy.