The Trials of the Full Stack Marketer

As I near the close of my marketing education in college, I am compelled to reflect on the my new self. Once an amorphous blob of clay, my mind has been shaped by WWU professors, smoothed by countless hours hitting the books, and strengthened in the furnace of my innate passion for the subject. Pursuing knowledge in marketing has changed my perspective on past and current events in my life: I now have branding observations coursing through my brain 24/7, and I can think critically about contemporary approaches to marketing from popular firms. Although I'm confident in the knowledge I've attained thus far, this realization is made only with consideration of the road ahead of me. My education in marketing is far from complete, and in many ways the subject can never truly be mastered.

One notion that resonates with me is the idea of becoming a "full stack marketer." Essentially, I aim to gain familiarity and proficiency in several layers of work, including the work that is done leading up to and after the marketing process. One such component that has especially piqued my interest is coding, understanding the fundamentals of the websites in which I implement my content strategy.

Coding? Why??

There is a strong conceptual base to marketing, and some students choose the major specifically to get away from perceived tedious technical tasks. Guess what? No matter how deep into the psychological side of marketing you are, it is always a wise choice to have some coding knowledge in your pocket. Coding has proven to be a valuable skill: web developers and computer scientists are in high demand these days. There are even educational boot camps solely devoted to the acquisition of coding skill. No frills, no college degree, but cold hard coding experience, and projects to show for it. These earned qualifications are legit; the average student that completes the course sees a $20,000+ pay raise.

Code boot camp students take on extremely concentrated curriculum to gain coding skill.

 Feeling inspired to get my hands dirty and work with some code, I utilized online resource Code Academy to start from scratch and record my progress over a few hours. I chose to learn a bit of HTML and CSS. After two hours of tutorials, I must say that I had fun. HTML is a simple coding language involving the activation of text to contain hyperlinks to other webpages. The structure of a coding sequence is a satisfyingly symmetrical spectacle. Logically, every function you perform must be denoted by an initiator and a counterpart closer. Through Code Academy, I was able to practice setting up hyperlink coding structures, as well as various formatting techniques, like modifying font, size, color of text, s well as text and image links. Here's a juxtaposed comparison between ground zero and 2 hours in:

No HTML experience

2 hours of HTML tutorial

Clearly, I made some tangible progress in my endeavors. The educational experience was smooth and streamlined. On the left side of the page, Code Academy provided instructions and helpful tips on how to get through the exercise. Concepts were very broken up, so the completion of one segment represented the acquisition of a new piece of the puzzle. Exercises within a module built on each other, and I ended up finishing each segment with a confident understanding of the material.

Another piece of technology I worked with was the creation of a web page on SquareSpace. This effort was somewhat of an antithesis to working with Code Academy. While HTML teaches you about the structure of a website, SquareSpace is more concerned with creating a visually engaging web homepage for your firm. I ended up creating a page for my (brilliantly named) fictional start-up, Accompany. Accompany is a small premium service of professional musicians, hired to follow an individual about their day, playing triumphant melodies and passionate choruses to musically illustrate their every step. One positive aspect about SquareSpace is its selection of beautiful web design templates for customers to sample, they were really inspiring opportunities for digital content. Unfortunately, what ever joy I felt for this site was quickly negated by its infuriating editing system. Basically, to effect any sort of change on the website, you have to hover your mouse over the section you want to change, and pray that an option to edit will pop up. Once you make that editing selection, you can only edit that specific piece of content until you escape the edit menu, despite its lack of navigational direction. Another thing that irks me is the inability for trialists to change any major elements of the text, namely text color. With a bright background, it is very difficult to see the white-texted link to "our story," which leads to a great offer on Morgan Freeman life narration. I mean, I get that it's a free demo, but come on.

All in all, the experienced gained through working with both pieces of technology brought new perspectives to my world of marketing. There are processes that exist before and after me, and it is important to know and understand them.