This summer we are taking you back to school! We are focusing on education in Digital Marketing: what is the best education, what background is important? Questions you will see answered throughout the summer by those you can learn from the best: the experts. Those that already earned their stripes and are now willing to share with you how they got there and what you should do to get that far as well.
Today we listen Marcus Tandler, also known as the Mediadonis. Marcus is a Partner at the German-based Online-Marketing company Tandler.Doerje.Partner, which has a strong focus on SEO services for large companies and websites.
What type of education did you have?
I have a Master of Arts degree from the University of Augsburg as well as a diploma in media marketing from the Bavarian Academy for Advertisement and Marketing.
Is your education related to what you do now?
The marketing qualification is an integral part of what I do now, but I´m still a SEO with all my heart. There´s no real university education for SEO, the best way to learn SEO is still to to it yourself and gain experience what works and what doesn’t. You can sure learn the basics in a workshop or from reading a lot of books and blogs, but it´s just like the famous saying about poker: it takes a minute to learn, but a lifetime to master!
How did you get into digital marketing?
I started doing web design for SMB clients while being in university. Nothing fancy, we´re talking about HTML 3.2 type of sites back then. One of my clients liked the website I designed for him but his site didn’t show up in Altavista, which used to be the most important search engine at that time in Germany (Google started in 2000). He asked me if I could also help him make his site show up in Altavista. I had’t really played around with that yet, but it was surprisingly easy, since all you had to do was to submit your site 🙂
Curiosity became interest, interest became passion and passion finally became love.
Did you need extra schooling? If so, what type of extra schooling did you get?
There wasn’t really any schooling available back then. I just paid close attention to what other SEOs were doing and learned by doing.
How do you think the state of education in marketing is these days? Do marketers learn what they need to learn?
The core marketing principles stay the same, but there are loads of new channels, which need different approaches to marketing. Universities are lagging behind quite a bit, so you always need to stay on your toes.
How do you feel about online training courses?
I´m no real online training course kind of guy – I like to talk & learn face-to-face. But online training courses are definitely a great way to get started or to do further studies. Especially because you can watch online courses wherever you are at whatever time you like.
What is your tip for those that want to learn more?
Don´t just believe everything you read, better try it out yourself. SEO is all about experience these days.
[Tweet “SEO is all about experience these days – @mediadonis”]
What resources are best to learn marketing?
State of Digital is obviously a great source to stay up to date with what´s happening in the digital marketing space 🙂
In regards to really learning marketing, I would always choose a university course. There´s also some great books on marketing obviously. The Top3 marketing books imho are: “The Cluetrain Manifesto”, “Ogilvy on Advertising” and “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell.
What’s the last lesson in marketing you learned?
Stay agile!