International companies, businesses, specialized magazines, job search app reports, advertising and marketing agencies, and mainly technology companies agree that there is a lack of marketers.
But to define marketing, we must start by making the distinction that we are not referring to those who have specialized in digital marketing tools.
What is in short supply today, in Miami, in California, in Colombia, in Argentina, and above all in Central America and in many areas of Mexico, is Strategic, Integral Marketing professionals.
Why is this happening?
The first big reason is due to a serious universal error, during 2017 until the beginning of 2022, given the boom in social networks and Google, resources that focus on the use of digital marketing techniques and tools are prioritized. It is clear that today the so-called online world continues to be the protagonist, but without strategy, without brand culture, without comprehensive planning, without Marketing experience, without Merchandising, without what is called Cross Marketing, Digital Marketing will not only have many shortcomings, but it will also have many edges of the life of a company, of a brand, uncovered.
The second big reason is that they stopped paying what a marketing expert is worth, the stars became programming and digital marketing resources and many times these professions covered and replaced positions of Integral Marketing professionals.
The big reason is that somehow, the market, the advertising and marketing industry couldn't show its value, in front of an app that instantly shows a result.
But what happens now with the Strategic Marketing Resources?
Post-pandemic, an appreciation for the natural, the physical, the face-to-face has been awakened in consumers... that does not imply that they press a button on their phone to buy, but today they do if they had a physical experience as well.
The resurgence of the "physical" implies that stores are a priority, the digital shopping experience is not enough and more "humanity" must be added to it, the "Customer Journey" also receives feedback from those who bring in a van plotted with the brand and with uniform and a lot of kindness what was bought on a phone, in a branded box with an additional gift and with an ecological print of value.
Influencers generate reach at a low cost, but nothing replaces a product placement in a movie or a video or nothing sells more than a fair, a live event, so now Live Shopping is "the new" cross evolution of e- commerce, evolution that is booming in China.
Technology is extremely effective, it arrives, full of data, it achieves answers, but the conversion is increasingly low, due to more effort from a world legion of "influencers" who say all day long that they have the magic recipe to convert short videos from Instagram into millionaire sales.
Technology companies pay very high salaries to personnel trained in programming areas to lead all Marketing and relations with their clients and their employees, but things are not going well there.
The "Head of Culture" of large technology companies require an understanding of technology for their role, but in reality they have a much broader range of skills, where they can manage areas of public relations, integrated communication, branding, merchandising, spacing, graphic design. , crossmedia (on/off line) and above all experiential marketing.
According to the World Federation of Advertisers and MediaSense, the next few years will be very difficult because cross marketing increasingly requires the ability to integrate online, offline, multi-channel, soft tools, and that implies more extensive training. and wide, diverse, inclusive.
The post 40 and post 50 resources are beginning to be highly valued, since they mostly have extensive training and if they manage to update their skills in the digital world, they will clearly be "all-court players", but the big problem remains The payment. The resources of MKT, Advertising, even Sales, are remunerated between 50% and 300%, less than those of programming, for example.
Both types of resources are increasingly scarce compared to the needs, but it seems that neither the resources of the Strategic MKT, nor those from creativity manage to noticeably raise their remunerations. There is resistance to paying in the offline world, so the digital world takes advantage and integrates them, but there is usually a big problem, they are not allowed to do what they know, and since they are not Directors or Area Managers, since they do not have "physical" weight ”, they end up doing little Strategic MKT and a lot of digital marketing.
This trap does not seem to be easily unlocked, because there is a lot of imbalance even in the assessment of things, it is a problem of observation, which the immediacy and instantaneity of online generated and that the breadth of Management, the skills in soft skills and the sense of the common market must exceed.