Wondering What to Do With Your English Degree? Why a Career in Marketing Isn't a Plot Twist

It’s an English major’s rite of passage: that awkward conversation when you tell your family and friends you’ve decided on a major.

You’re sitting around the Thanksgiving table, eager to get into Aunt Beth’s cranberry sauce, when someone from across the table asks, “How’s college going?”

“Great,” you chirp, reaching for the cranberry sauce.

A voice from the other end of the table calls, “Have you picked your major yet?”

“Yup. I just declared an English major.”

Silence.

“What are you going to do with that?” Uncle Ted asks, probably already preparing his next joke.

The most annoying part of this initiation rite? The truth is, you don’t know exactly what you’re going to do with it. You do know that you want to follow your interests. You love beautiful literature. Maybe you’ll be a teacher? You’ll share the great writers with eager students. Or perhaps an English degree is just an enjoyable first step in your post-secondary education. Maybe you’ll go on to law school?

But as graduation approaches, you begin to realize that teaching isn’t for you. And while binge-watching Suits was a good way to kill a rainy weekend, you’re not that interested in the legal system (or spending the coin to get a law degree).

This is where your adventure begins.

Sure, you could spin into a graduation-induced existential crisis. Or you could become your own hero; a marketing hero. If you choose this path, a journey awaits you, filled with new challenges and surprises. Along the way, you’ll probably find that you’re not such an unlikely marketing hero after all.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “What does marketing have to do with English?” The connection may not seem obvious. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Essentially, marketing is an umbrella term that covers several different aspects of the business activities that strive to bring buyers and sellers together.

One of the largest segments under the marketing umbrella is communication. This segment can be broken down into niche disciplines that range from advertising, to sales promotion, to publicity and public relations (P.R.).

This is where you come in. The communications sector of marketing is full of various career opportunities that require excellent communication skills, chiefly, writing skills. Within this array of job opportunities, you can find yourself drafting press releases, writing online content, or penning eye-catching advertising copy.

“But,” you’re thinking. “Don’t universities offer degrees in marketing?” They do. But want to know a secret?

Colleges don’t teach marketing students to be content creators, or even skilled writers. The focus is more on dry business practices. At one time, a focus on business strategy was highly desirable. Even through the Paleolithic period of the internet, there was a strong focus in the marketing world on SEO and display ads.

While SEO, analytics and business strategy are still important (we’ll talk more about that in a minute), modern marketing has shifted away from the colder marketing tactics of the past. This is the era of content and relationship building, which is problematic for traditionally trained marketers, who don’t see themselves as media creators. In today’s marketing landscape, the ideal marketer is half tech nerd and half creative genius. To survive, companies need well-assembled marketing teams with individuals who can offer compelling content and copy, while simultaneously using the tools available to inform and guide their marketing choices.

Now you’re probably wondering, “How am I going to work in marketing? I don’t know the first thing about it.”

Get ready for your training montage, kid. Just like Luke Skywalker, Frodo and Rocky Balboa before you, this epic adventure comes with a learning curve. Modern marketing is for bootstrappers, DIYers, and the self-empowered. Don’t know anything about marketing? Great! Learn.

Luke had Yoda, Frodo had Gandalf and Rocky had Mickey. Who’s going to be your mentor? You are. With the help of the best minds in the business, you’ll learn the ropes through books, podcasts and whatever else you can get your hands on.

Like many career fields, most of the technical skills can be learned on the job or with simple self-guided study. There are a plethora of resources available, from books to blogs, online courses and tutorials. You can even get access to many great resources from your local library. (Yes, libraries still exist and are very relevant.) When in doubt, Google is a great place to start. Before you know it, you’ll have more resources than time to read.

After a few months of self-guided study, you can be well versed in the basics of marketing best practices and putting together a portfolio of work that can land you a great job in the field. And guess what? Once you’ve landed a job in marketing, the learning doesn’t stop there. Your first job is just the beginning. You’ll learn new skills, ones you may not have been able to teach yourself, meet new mentors and grow your body of work.

Plus, the marketing world is ever-evolving. You’ll be learning and re-sharpening old skills throughout the entire course of your career. Being a lifelong learner is what will keep you at the top of your game, no matter what career field you work in.

Think no one will take you seriously if you’re self-taught? Former English majors will find themselves in good company in the marketing field. A degree in marketing is helpful, but some of the most influential marketers in the industry have degrees in English or other fields of study. Some don’t have a degree at all.

The great thing about the creative side of marketing is that it’s not about arbitrary accolades. Your success comes down to demonstrating your ability to do the job. In this field, the self-empowered get ahead and they get the luxury of having control over their own career. Sure, there are gatekeepers. But if you put in the work to educate yourself and demonstrate your skills, doors will open for you.

If you think self-teaching your way into a career sounds impossible, remember that everyone was once a beginner. Bond Halbert, son of copywriting legend Gary Halbert, and a copywriting legend in his own right, said on The Copywriter Club Podcast that “expert is relative to other things. If you read four or five books, you are an expert at something” by comparison to those who are unfamiliar with the subject.

But there’s some good news. Your training actually began the day you declared yourself an English major. Your degree in English has been preparing you by developing your writing skills, and an understanding of something that’s highly desirable in today’s marketing landscape.

You know how to tell a story.

Storytelling can be used for more than lulling children to sleep. It’s actually a highly profitable tactic used in marketing, especially in advertising. Don’t believe me?

What comes to mind when you think of Apple? What kind of person uses Apple products? I bet you have a pretty vivid image in your mind. Or perhaps you’re familiar with the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign, which seeks to realign the media’s beauty standards with reality and help women gain confidence and self-esteem?

These examples were made possible through the use of storytelling in marketing.

So, what exactly is it? Storytelling is applied when a company or organization creates a narrative to inspire their customers to better themselves, their community, or the world, with the use of their product, service or idea. It creates a mutually beneficial arrangement, showing consumers how they can partner with a brand to reach their highest potential.

Not only that, it breeds the kind of fierce brand loyalty that companies would kill Tony the Tiger for.

This approach to marketing has gained in popularity for its effectiveness in creating strong brands, but has been applied in the advertising world since the dawn of the crowded marketplace.

At one time, many products and services stood alone as the only players in the game. With little to no competition, advertisers could simply highlight the features and benefits of their product or service. Products nearly spoke for themselves.

But eventually the marketplace began to grow and products were easily replicated. With shelves lined with near-identical products, the strongest brands were those that harnessed storytelling to differentiate themselves from the competition. They had to align themselves and their products with meaning.

In their book, The Hero and The Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes, Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson explain how aligning a brand or product with meaning differentiates them from their competition in the minds of consumers. The meaning of a brand is its most precious and irreplaceable asset. Whether you’re selling a soft drink or a presidential candidate, what your brand means to people will be every bit as important as its function (if not more so) because it’s meaning that tells us “this one feels right” or “this one’s for me.” Meaning speaks to the feeling or intuitive side of the public; it creates an emotional affinity, allowing the more rational arguments to be heard.

There’s more to this journey than learning new skills. For an English major walking the path of a marketing hero, it means tapping into some of the skills and concepts you’ve learned all throughout your higher education. But the exciting part is learning how those skills and concepts are applied in the real world, and the psychology that drives people to act and react. Considering that the study of literature is a soft study on the human condition, most English majors are prepared and excited to explore how this element ties into the role of storytelling.

So, are you ready for this journey into the epic world of modern marketing? Are you ready to become a marketing hero? Sure, there will be work involved. You’re going to play catch-up, learn marketing best practices and put together a portfolio that will impress your future employer or customers. It will take determination, self-motivation and true grit.

But the work will be worth it when you get the rare bragging right of actually using your Liberal Arts degree. Not to mention the satisfaction of having a career that allows you to take ownership of your success and move out of your parents’ home post-graduation.

Next Thanksgiving, you’ll be sharing tales of your exciting career. You may even work in how your English degree was instrumental in preparing you. Uncle Ted will have to go back to making jabs at the dry turkey.