Why Marketing Professionals Make Great UX Designers
A UX Designer with a marketing background is always a plus to your team
Marketing folks tend to be jacks of all trades. They are detail-oriented and meticulous planners. They are agile project managers, developing efficient marketing campaigns that launch products and services to market successfully. They are adaptable ninjas who thrive in constantly evolving, fast-paced environments. And they are part-time firefighters, putting out business fires created by changing situations, emerging needs, and market opportunities.
Marketing Specialists are also active cat herders. When a panel or webinar is to be organized and promoted, marketing folks have mastered the art of getting people to respond and do their part to carry out a successful event. They move forward several initiatives and tasks simultaneously while collaborating with cross-functional teams as most things they do are multilayered. They know how to communicate well, set expectations, and develop content.
Marketing Professionals pivoting into UX Design bring a fresh perspective and a wealth of experience to the table. Below are the top 6 skills Marketing Specialists have that enhance and support their career pivot to UX Design.
1. Research & Market Analysis
Marketing Professionals and UX Designers are acutely aware that understanding your user, stakeholders, and the market you operate in is key to success
A good UX Designer empathizes with users, has a good grasp of the stakeholder’s goal, and also understands the market in which their client operates in. A Marketing Professional certainly does as well. Marketing folks are part-time researchers, conducting market intelligence analyses and using data to make decisions and create actionable plans that help the business prosper and better serve clients.
Knowledge gained from market research serves as a tool to strategize and make good business decisions. For example, when a company invests thousands of dollars to sponsor an event or conference, they do it because data tells them that that specific conference is the right place to showcase their product or service. Arriving at the “why” behind the decision to sponsor came from research done by the marketing team. Before the sponsorship was paid for, a marketing team analyzed the specific area of focus around the conference, compared the conference with its competitors, researched attendees, other sponsors, and participants, and conducted a price benchmark analysis in preparation to negotiate an amicable sponsorship price with the conference team.
2. Empathy
Marketing Professionals and UX Designers have the ability to understand and share another person’s expressions, needs, and motivations
Everyone knows how to listen, but not everyone knows how to be a good listener. Marketing Professionals and UX Designers are good listeners. Empathizing helps designers look deeper into situations in a way that helps them think and create solutions for problems. Similarly, marketing folks learn to carefully listen to their audience and stakeholders to develop customized campaigns that raise the profile and optimize the position of their product or service in the market. Marketing folks are human-centered; they understand cultures and context to devise efficient communications across a multitude of platforms that serve users and meet business goals.
When supporting an organization, marketing teams serve multiple people who are typically highly demanding, pressing the team with a wide range of needs and requests. To navigate the various forces pulling their attention, Marketing Specialists talk to, listen, and foster good relationships with their users and stakeholders. They approach each interaction with curiosity and use the insights gained from each conversation to hone their capabilities and create productive and safe spaces to share ideas.
3. Design Studio & Collaboration
UX Designers and Marketing professionals develop shared goals and visions of success to keep their teams focused and aligned
In studio sessions, UX designers collaborate to bring ideas together and share the development of the design. Leading a productive design studio requires the ability to moderate discussions, engage participants, carefully listen to ideas, and manage time efficiently. These are skills marketing professionals demonstrate daily as they lead both internal and external business development meetings.
Marketing specialists are creatives who find order in chaos. They orchestrate strategies that help reinforce business objectives, and work with cross-functional teams like finance, compliance, technology, design, communications, and external parties to craft initiatives and solutions that align with business plans. In preparation for planning or brainstorming meetings, they set goals, prepare agendas, and lead “design studios” in a structured yet flexible manner to create a space for everyone to share ideas and contribute to the meeting’s goals.
4. Design Systems & Visual Design
User Experience Designers and Marketing Specialists know that a unified visual language is key to a cohesive brand and creates consistency across products and channels
UX Designers create design systems to reduce redundancy, streamline work, and focus on tackling more complex problems. Similarly, marketing teams develop brand guidelines and templates that keep the message and brand image consistent across all channels. Marketing Specialists apply visual design principles to efficiently deliver the information they want to convey and they are mindful of visual layouts to ensure that their call to action is clear.
Marketing teams develop a wide range of templates that streamline the content production process and maintain a cohesive brand image, reducing the need to reinvent the wheel and mitigating the risk of unintended inconsistency. Whether it is marketing brochures, pitches and proposals, slide decks, email banners, or social media images, marketing folks are strategic and mindful about the layout and aesthetics of their content.
5. Iteration & Process Improvement
Marketing folks and UX Designers strive to improve existing affairs
Whether designing a new product, coming up with a new feature, or making changes to an existing product or service, a UX designer’s job is to improve upon the overall user experience. Similarly, marketing professionals actively reflect on and analyze projects to streamline and improve processes. Upon completion of major initiatives like promotional campaigns, business proposals, and events, marketing teams discuss lessons learned and identify gaps and opportunities to improve next time.
Marketing professionals collaborate with stakeholders and cross-functional teams to iterate and optimize business processes and strategies. For example, if a Marketing team loses a pitch, they often reach out to the client to gather feedback on their proposal and identify gaps in their capabilities. Then they use the information gathered to develop an actionable roadmap to improve their pitching strategy and better support clients.
6. Storytelling
Marketing folks and UX Designers know how to solidify abstract concepts and simplify complex messages to create compelling narratives
UX designers tell compelling stories that are rooted in data and leverage engaging artifacts. These stories are shared with stakeholders to advocate for impactful user experiences. Similarly, Marketing Professionals speak their audiences’ language. When speaking to stakeholders, they craft narratives that make connections between data and their approach to solving a problem or executing an initiative. When speaking to users, they leverage storytelling that resonates with users to develop deeper connections between the user and the brand.
When a marketing professional plans a marketing campaign, they use their storytelling ability to communicate a message and make their user feel something that inspires them to take action, whether it is opening an email, reading an article, sharing a post, or attending an event. Marketing professionals humanize brands and tell stories that foster trust between the product or service and the user.
Internally, when budget season comes around and it’s their turn to request thousands of dollars to support their marketing initiatives, marketing teams synthesize qualitative and quantitative data to craft a story that highlights the value of their initiatives to the company’s goals to persuade stakeholder buy-in.
You can count on a UX designer with a marketing background to be an asset to your team
Like UX Designers, marketing specialists understand the value and impact of user and market research on the success of a project. They are good listeners and have a refined ability to empathize with others. Marketing folks thrive off collaboration, developing shared goals and visions of success to keep their teams focused and aligned.
Marketing Specialists also know how to design a unified visual language that creates consistency across products and channels. They strive to streamline and improve business processes, and they are storytellers who know how to craft compelling narratives. You can count on a UX designer with a marketing background to be an asset to your team!
– Thanks for reading!
