GB Ep 3: The Truth Behind Whether Modern Marketers Should Know How to Code

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Welcome to another edition of Growth Bites. Today we’re talking about if coding is really necessary or not for the modern marketer. Is it a must-have skill? I’ll also dive right into what it takes to be a great modern marketer.

Show Notes:

Part I

• Don’t worry if you don’t have coding skills. I previously worked at an online technology start-up that taught people how to code and do web design, but I actually didn’t have any of those skills. [1:25]
• I wanted to help grow a company that was trying to help change the world, while learning how to do coding and web design at the same time. [1:42]
• To date, I only have basic CMS and HTML skills. So my short answer to whether or not modern marketers need coding is “No.” [2:02]
• Many marketers I know like Neil Patel, Noah Kagan, Sean Ellis don’t know how to code. [2:14]
• You need to understand the objectives of a product and a good user experience. [2:31]
• Go on sites like Product Hunt to understand the nuances and how things are changing. [2:49]
• A great marketer is understanding the new trends going on and what your competitors are doing. [3:00]
• Knowing how to code and make small changes to your website can save some time, but can also break things and is taking a big risk. [3:10]
• Hire specialized talent like designers or developers to do the work for you and go into depth. [3:45]

Part 2

• How do you become a good modern marketer? You need to go out and get your feet wet. [4:29]
• I started my career in search engine optimization before all the crazy Panda updates came out. [4:37]
• I went on to study other disciplines in marketing like paid advertising, conversion and content marketing among others. [4:57]
• Start-ups need well-rounded people with a variety of marketing knowledge. The ideal growth hacker understands multiple disciplines and decent at all of them with a speciality in at least one. [5:24]
• It’s up to you as the growth hacker to make things work from management to metrics. [5:30]
• Growth hacking requires hungry learners who can act as Jack of All Trades. [6:30]
• To get started as a modern marketer, focus on one specialty work. [7:11]
• Continue to read and absorb everything about growth hackers like GrowthHackers.com, Inbound.org, Redditt marketing, Quibb, OKDork,  Andrew Chen. [7:19]
• If you’re a marketer; test, test, test and be able to figure out if people are b.s’ing you. [8:15]

Selected Links from this Episode:

• Neil Patel
• Sean Ellis
• Product Hunt
• GrowthHackers.com
• Inbound.org
• Redditt
• Quibb
• Noah Kagan’s OK Dork blog
• Andrew Chen

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