A good online marketing professional:
- Constantly looks for ways to do his or her job more efficiently without anyone ever telling him to do so. S/he aggressively tests out new tools and implements them as they make sense. S/he has a strong bias toward automating rote tasks.
- Presents conclusions and recommendations instead of just presenting a mountain of data, thereby making the receiver interpret all the data.
- Is fluent in analytics and can back up his/her conclusions and recommendations. As the saying goes, "In God we trust - all others bring data."
- Is passionate about technology - s/he is always reading about new technologies that could impact his/her job, his/her product, and the world around him/her. S/he never waits for someone to tell him to read up on a subject.
- Recognizes that the online marketing world doesn't fit neatly in a 9-5 world. Sometimes the most interesting thing of the week will happen on Sunday morning, whereas things can be quiet during normal business hours. When it is quiet, go for the long bike ride you have wanted to go on. When you strike gold on a Sunday morning, sometimes you have to buckle down and start digging right then.
- A/B tests everything in life down to how s/he makes his/her coffee in the morning.
- Is intellectually curious. When s/he spots some interesting data, s/he always digs into it to see if it could improve his/her performance.
A bad online marketing professional:
- Blindly follows what has been done in the past. S/he never asks why it was done that way before.
- Acts like math is like cooties.
- Doesn't know how to lead people to conclusions. S/he usually presents no data or enough data to overwhelm a mathematician.
- Is afraid to take risks. S/he doesn't understand that what you do in online marketing this year cannot be what you did last year.
- Is scared of technology. Let's face it. Some parts of this job are technical - deal with it.
