Internet Marketing Professionals: Is Education a Requirement?

So check it out…I recently came across a forum posting on Ad Gabber where a member was posing the question of whether attending an ad school would enhance her career options. The reason that her post struck a chord with me is that during my winter break from class at Full Sail University‘s program I’ve actually been doing lots of reflecting on the exact same topic.

Here’s the thing that I think gives this particular topic an additional wrinkle-the marketing industry itself. I think that historically marketing has been an industry where professionals have been judged almost solely by how well one’s concepts are liked by the end users. Just think about it…At its core marketing is about persuasion and up until recently we have been taught that persuasion is an art. If you follow this logic then it sort of follows that either one has it (the art of persuasion) or they don’t.

This is one of the reasons why the marketing and advertising industry, in the past, has been so closed and exclusive to industry outsiders. Ok, so that being said let’s fast forward the discussion back to today-the age of no borders…the age of conversation. One of the members who responded in the forum made an insightful response post to the question on whether education was relevant in the ad industry. Basically, he said that since advertising is one of those things where location doesn’t really matter advertising professionals in the US whether knowingly or unknowingly are often competing with their highly educated counterparts in places like India.

When it comes to Internet marketing we might as well just underline this comment two times because its probably twice as likely that if you are engaged in any one of the Internet marketing fields that you will be competing with someone from another country than domestically. And oftentimes the overseas competitors are able to offer rock bottom rates while providing a similar level of service-think SEO.

In addition to the global competitiveness factor there is also another-the digitalization of marketing. Mr. Arora, President of Sales Operations, Google says,

“The whole idea of online advertising is going to go away in the next few years,” he says. “We’ll stop talking about online advertising and talk about advertising. Radio, print, TV are all getting distributed over [internet protocol], so those distinctions will vanish at some point in time.”

I do believe that Mr. Arora’s vision of where marketing is headed is an accurate assessment of what’s already happening. While one does not necessarily need an advanced degree to comprehend the drivers behind this trend, I’ll be honest-some advanced learning on some of these topics definitely couldn’t hurt.

Additionally, here’s another point. Its not that education defines your intelligence. But rather in an age where decisions must be made on the fly different levels of education allow bosses, investors, and etc. If you look at how education is structured in modern societies it starts off very generalized and then progresses to gradually give the student a more and more specialized skill set. This allows decision makers to quickly be able to look at one’s credentials and put that individual into nice neat little boxes that look something like this:

1. This person has the basic and general life skills necessary to allow them to matriculate through and contribute to society.
2. This person is able to complete a task and has demonstrated that they are prepared to enter the professional work force in any number of fields that they choose.
3. This person has mastered field “A” and should be prepared to step into some form of leadership role in field “A”.
4. This person has not only mastered field “A” but they are also actively contributing to the body of knowledge in field “A”. Although this person is prepared to step into a top leadership role in field “A” this person’s work is so authoritative and specialized that it might be more suitable for this person to teach others at the graduate level on field “A”.

In a field as vast as Internet marketing that has so many different facets:

• Paid Search
• Organic Search/SEO
• Affiliate Marketing
• Gaming
• Pay Per Click
• Display Advertising
• Online Community Building
• Online PR/social media
• Interactive Branding
• Interactive Design
• Mobile

Now of course, this isn’t fool proof. There are countless examples of individuals that have risen to the top of their professions, particularly in the marketing fields, that have little or no education. Additionally, there are also alternative forms of education that one can pursue to help hone their Internet marketing skills. It also depends a lot on how you learn. I chose a more formal program because I felt that with my short attention span, if I ever really wanted to seriously sink my teeth into Internet marketing, a more structured educational program would offer the best opportunity to advance my understanding of advanced Internet marketing strategies. For me, the premium is placed upon the knowledge and insights gained from the program more so than the degree because of my confidence that this knowledge will allow me to compete with anyone in my field.

At the end of the day I’d say that as marketing and the Internet become more and more intertwined there is the possibility that the discipline will gradually become more scientific and less artsy. So while advanced education may not be a make it or break it qualification for Internet marketers today I can foresee a time in the future where it will become more of a standard.

I’m really curious though to hear someone else’s perspective on this topic. Got an opinion, lemme know!