WHY FULL STACK MATTERS AS A DIGITAL MARKETER?

New digital marketers are always concerned about their niche. What they don’t realize is that success typically comes to those with a “Stack” of skills. That’s why the full-stack digital marketer is starting to dominate.

AI is a factor

Hey, what's up everyone, Rich UX here from richandniche.com.

Today, I want to talk about why full stack matters, why you want many skills and to dispel this idea that specialization is the only way in this industry and maybe even not even the best way at all.

And I think that I'm going to make a pretty strong argument as to why you really need to develop multiple skills.

And not just rely on a single specialization.

All right. Let's discuss the full stack of skills. And why it's the preferred methodology as a digital marketer, as opposed to say specialization?

I'm going to bring up a point right off the bat here about AI. I've been observing the industry very closely over the last decade.

And in the last, I'd say 18 months, maybe 24 months, I've seen such a rise in the quality of AI based tools. AI based software.

And someone was just asking me yesterday to interview, like how I see AI changing the marketplace.

And, personally, I like using AI, as someone who has a full stack of skills, as someone who does many things, it's like AI helps me speed up the process.

Full stack likes AI

AI supports me on my business journey. I don't feel like I'm in competition with AI. If I'm a copywriter. I'm going to feel a bit stressed out that AI is starting to become great at writing copy. If I'm a video editor, I'm going to feel really like nervous that, AI is getting good at editing video.

So right off the bat, I see that there's this like mental state of, if you're full stack, you like AI, you can utilize AI. You're excited about AI. If you're a specialist, you're like, oh my God, I hope AI doesn't do this. And it's oh, AI is not even that good. It's AI is. It's really good. And I'm excited that to, to let it be good and to utilize it because there's so many tasks we do as marketers.

There are so many tasks we do as business owners. You want to save time; you want to make your life easier. So, I see AI as playing this key role. And what I was saying to this person, in this interview was that, what AI helps in the business landscape of things is that we're going to have more one person businesses.

More small businesses

We're going to have more micro businesses. We're going to have very small businesses. We're going to have a very flat. Landscape of, economy, we're going to move slightly away from this pyramid shape economy. We're going to move away from all corporations. We're going to move away from that into a lot more lifestyle businesses, a lot more freelancers, a lot smaller businesses, online businesses, e-commerce shops.

You're not going to have to rely on the big conglomerates, the big enterprises nearly as much because of AI. The one-person business can do a lot more than they used to be able to do and be successful, right? If you're selling a product, but you don't know anything about market, suddenly you have AI copywriting, AI, video editing, AI photo design, AI, social media posts.

Like it's like you have a team, right? So, you first need to understand how the industry is shaping up to realize why the full stack matters. And I think that. It's fine to specialize. There's nothing wrong with that. But there are some risks in the long run because you don't know where AI is going next.

Digital Marketer can be a CEO

So, I think where I want to go next with this is understanding that, as a digital marketer, you have this unique ability to start your own business, to build your own brand. If I'm like an independent accountant, If I'm an independent human resource, freelancer, if I'm, some of these other business functions, I don't necessarily have the skills to get a business out in the world.

I don't necessarily have the skills to promote my business. Like the best CEOs in the world. Think like Steve jobs think Elon Musk they're like great at marketing. Marketing is the underlying skill that brings business to life. So, all the digital marketers I train, I would hope that their long-term aspiration is not to be a, an in-house marketer, but to either have their own marketing business or a business, unrelated to marketing and to utilize all of their marketing.

So I think that the digital marketer should aspire long-term to have their own business of some sort, to truly break the income ceiling, to truly gain full control of their life and lifestyle design. And I think that if you want to have a business, you certainly can't specialize.

Business Owner needs to stack skill

There's no such specialization as I own a business, if you're going to own a business, you need to have an understanding of multiple elements. You need to stack skills and not just marketing skills, sales skills, product skills, customer relation skills, and a lot of those fall under the marketing umbrella, right?

The customer journey, the customer experience, delivery, excitement, promotion, all of these elements. Off the bat. I feel very strong about this argument. I don't see how the specialist is taking over in 2030. I think they're wiped out. And I think the full stack marketer is absolutely thriving.

If you want to put them up one-on-one today on the specialist skill, let's say we put up a full-stack marketer against a Primo copywriter. I am not going to be surprised if the Primo copywriter can close a few bigger deals, but let's look at these exact two players, 10 years down the line.

I don't know for sure that the copywriter ever got to the next level. I know for sure the full-stack marketer kept going up, kept stacking skills, kept gaining experience. Okay. I think that the problem with specialization in an AI based context in a can I build my own business context is specialization has risks and has walls and ceilings that may be, you might not be able to break.

And that's fine. I think that specialists should start adding more skills. They should become more in-depth adept at, building a business and understanding some of these different elements, business is a complex thing. And it’s very sort of dynamic now it's changing and it's easier and it's harder at the same time.

It's easier because there's so many tools to help us and it's harder because there's more people doing it. So, you might have more competition. That's why it's important to pick a really tight niche. Absolutely dominate your niche and then expand from there over time. Now the final thing I want to say.

First of all, we talked about the risks of specialization and why full-stack can help. And then we talked about, over 10 to 20-year period, who's going to be more successful. And I think it's important to understand that skills are essentially investments. The more investments you make the better off you're going to be in the long run.

Short-term, you might have to pay those skills back. You're going to learn something. You might have to take a step back and then take two steps forward. But in the long run, adding skills is going to be a big powerful investment that pays off for you. And then if you can add experience to the mix with those investments, you are going to have success for sure.

Skills are investments

The thing about skills and experience is it only goes up, as the kids like to say in the Bitcoin world, these days up only, your chart is going up and to the right. Okay. It's something that just keeps growing and developing like experience and never takes you down.

Adding a new skill never brings you down. It only adds on as time goes on. So if you look at it just really logically, again, you might not close the biggest deal without a specialization without a hyper clear offer. That's not even a sure thing. I think that the full stack marketer with enough experience ultimately becomes that general contractor of the project manager, the pocket CMO, like I love using the building a house analogy, it's so accurate.

General Contractors

Like the specialist installs the electricity, the specialist installs the plumbing, but the general contractor makes the most. He does the lease work. He relies on the network. He relies on project management skills. He relies on customer and client relationships and just lives a really powerful life. And isn't always necessarily worried about how houses are changing over time. What kind of flooring is popular today? What kind of roofing is popular? Do they want solar power? Do they want natural gas? Are they trying to get heated floors? It's I don't care. I can always find a specialist to work with me. I can always subcontract someone to work with me, but I'm going to have this really nice understanding of what it takes to take a house from foundation to complete because I've gained experience because I know a little bit of everything. I just think it's more, future-proof, it's more well-rounded it's going to serve you as a business builder and not just a marketer, quote, unquote, it's going to be the pathway.

That sort of sets you up for the best life. I That's what I've experienced so far. I've never really classified myself as any specialization. I definitely classified myself as a full-stack marketer, as a consultant, as someone who can manage your project as someone who can advise you on any element of your digital marketing campaigns and I'm going to continue to do I just simply think it's the best way. So, I don't know what you guys think. Why don't you let me know in the comment? And leave a like if you liked this video and helped you get clarity on what you're going to do. And yeah. Don't forget to share this content, make, let people know out there that you believe in the full stack that you're going for, that sort of a career. Hope you enjoyed it. I will see you guys in the next one.

This article was written by:

Rich+Niche