Marketing isn’t a field that’s commonly associated with shit jobs. After all, we get to do arguably creative work with sometimes clever people—and since everything is digital we don’t even have to wear pants (verify this at your own discretion).

However, just because marketing is a good, oft-pantsless industry doesn’t mean it’s immune to the shit. In business as in life, there’s a lot of shit to be had. And since you’re reading this—clearly making you a glutton for punishment—we’re going to lay some of that shit out for you now.

You know when you’re out for drinks and you’re all talking about your jobs (because at 25+ what else is there?) and your friends start to give you that look like you’ve just been speaking in tongues? If you answered no, you’re clearly not a marketer.

Marketing is a weird, wide world of duties—from upstream strategic level planning to downstream comms level execution—and for most non-marketers (“normies” as we call them) that is just too much nuance to grasp, much less appreciate.

…which brings us to our next point.

A lot of the hard, important work that can mean the difference between a brand’s success or failure is performed by marketers. If a campaign is solid, if audiences respond, if sales are up—it all looks easy and obvious.

But when the chips are down, everyone thinks they can do it better—and they aren’t shy about letting you know that.

Linda: “So, what do you do exactly?”
Marketer: “Well, I keep us on-brand, in part by producing quality content that’s relevant to our audiences—both our customers and the search engines they rely on.”
Linda: “What? That doesn’t just happen? …I feel like I could do that.”
Marketer: No, Linda, it does not just happen. *hiding the pain* …by the way what brings you to my desk today?
Linda: “I need you to send me a new pdf, this one is sideways.”

Strangely enough, everyone thinks they can do your job until they try—and then it becomes painfully obvious they can’t. In some cases, that means hiring a marketer. Finally some acknowledgement, hooray!

But then we see the other side of this poo-coin. They begin to ascribe magical powers to you—as if your marketing fairy dust were capable of spit-shining their 600-word-spec-sheet-pumpkin into a 400-word-blog-post-carriage—all while expanding on their bullet points, and using 500 keyword variations. Bippity boppity boooooooooollshit...

Marketing exists in this strange purgatory between sales, art, strategy, science, schmooze, and sheer witchcraft. It’s the red-headed stepchild who’s got her issues—but dammit—she’s the glue that holds this family together. But as in any modern domestic arrangement, conflict happens.

Other departments (obviously jealous) have a habit of picking battles with marketing (looking at you, sales). But this is wasteful and it makes your mother cry at the dinner table.

Ideally marketing and sales work symbiotically—supporting each other with insights, data, and collateral. With mutual respect, marketing and sales departments could close the functional and informational gaps that plague most organizations, and create an environment where everyone wins. If only.

Despite all of this, we still love our jobs. Do we sometimes have beef with how things go? Yes. Do Mondays still inspire a Garfield-level rage in our hearts? Absolutely. Do we sometimes yearn for the day when we can retire to a beach, destroy our phones, and drink Moscato all day? GET OUT OF OUR HEADS.

Until then, we’ll keep taking shit one day at a time. We’ll keep doing what we do—mainly putting words in a different order, and shitposting. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

At GhostCMO, we know how important it is to put your best verbal foot forward. From branding and positioning, to messaging and copywriting—we know what it takes to create powerful results for your business.

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