INBOX INSIGHTS, January 8, 2025: Rooted In The Basics, Marketing Jobs Report - Trust Insights Marketing Analytics Consulting

INBOX INSIGHTS: Rooted In The Basics, Marketing Jobs Report (2025-01-08) :: View in browser

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Rooted: to Establish Deeply and Firmly

I know a lot of people have New Year’s traditions. We at Trust Insights are not excluded from that. As Michael Scott said, “I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.”

Every year, I choose one word, one theme that will guide us throughout the year. It’s an anchor to bring us back to where we want to be and keep us moving in the right direction.

It is by no means an original idea; I won’t pretend that it is. What I can say is that it’s an exercise that has worked well for us over the past few years. It gives us something to look to when we need to redirect.

In 2024, our word was “Focus.” I chose that word because I knew it would be the hardest thing for us to do. When we started the company in 2017, we were trying to be everything to everyone. We were reaching deep into our collective catalogs of skill sets just to bring in clients. Since that time, we’ve grown more confident in the work we do and have been able to narrow things down. We’ve also been able to partner with other agencies for the work that we don’t offer.

When generative AI hit the mainstream market, I had a deep sense of dread. Not for what the technology would do to the industry, but for what it would do to us as a company. We like to experiment, tinker, and innovate. Doing this means you have to shed the guardrails and be a bit more free in your thinking. Creativity and experimentation, while important, don’t always pay the bills. We had to find a balance between work and play. I am happy to say that because our guiding theme was “focus,” I believe we did just that. We found focused time to test and play in the sandbox, as well as time to put our heads down and get the real work done. We focused on being focused. The experiments had a purpose. The sandbox became pre-production. We managed to balance work and play.

Moving into 2025, our theme is “Rooted.” We’ve only just scratched the surface of how generative AI will shake the industry and the work that we do. To weather the storm that will inevitably come, we need to stay rooted. Rooted in who we are and rooted in what we do best.

The basic definition of the word “root” is to establish deeply and firmly. When I think about how that applies to Trust Insights, it means to rely on the basics. To refine and perfect them. To use them as the springboard for introducing new ideas and tech. Shiny objects like Local AI sound new and daunting, but at the end of the day, are just more software. If you have a handle on the software development lifecycle (SDLC), integrating Local AI shouldn’t be problematic.

I won’t pretend to know what this year will bring or how we will stay rooted. What I do know is that we’ll have this theme to fall back on when things feel uncertain. And they will. If 2024 was a rollercoaster, then 2025 will be a full-speed tilt-a-whirl. We’ll get through it together. And we’ll stay rooted.

What is your driving theme for 2025? Reach out and tell me, or come join the conversation in our free Slack Group, Analytics for Marketers.

– Katie Robbert, CEO

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In this episode of In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, Katie and Chris discuss local AI and its implications for your business. You’ll discover how to protect your sensitive data by keeping it within your own systems. You’ll learn to reduce costs associated with large-scale AI tasks. You’ll find sustainable practices that reduce your environmental impact. You’ll see ways to maintain business continuity even when popular AI services are unavailable. Watch this episode now to gain control over your AI future!

Watch/listen to this episode of In-Ear Insights here »

Last time on So What? The Marketing Analytics and Insights Livestream, we walked through our 2025 Marketing Trends report. Catch the episode replay here!

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In this week’s Data Diaries, let’s kick off the new year (which somehow simultaneously feels like minutes ago and months ago) with a look at the marketing job market. How did 2024 end? How are things shaping up now? Let’s take a look at the big picture, a snapshot of professions, and then dig deep into marketing.

The Big Picture

Here’s the overwhelming but high level view of the entire USA job market; note this data specifically is the USA. This is market demand for jobs in specific industries, derived from data provided by Indeed.com. The horizontal black line represents demand as of February 2020.

While in aggregate it’s a lot to look at, we see the ebb and flow of the pandemic years and then what the USA job market has looked like since. Most professions had sharp layoff in early and mid 2020, followed by a hiring spree through mid-2022 to rehire all the people that companies laid off. Since 2023, things have reached something of an equilibrium.

Hot Jobs Right Now

Now, let’s dig into where specific professions are in the USA today.

What we see is that therapy, physicians, surgeons, nurses, home healthcare, civil engineering, and veterinary professionals are most in demand now; therapists are at 86% over pre-pandemic levels and have been in the top 3 most in-demand professionals since early 2023.

At the very bottom is software development, which has been in bottom place since 2023. Software development is in a tough spot right now thanks to generative AI; AI enables existing developers to be 2-5x more productive, which means companies don’t need to hire more developers to achieve more results.

Marketing Jobs

That brings us to marketing. Let’s zoom out a little to a slightly more global view – the 6 nations that Indeed.com provides data on:

What we see is a similar pattern to software development. Marketers have been below pre-pandemic levels in the US, UK, and Canada since mid-2023; Germany and France fell below those levels in 2024. The only country with above baseline hiring demand for marketers is Australia.

When we look more closely, USA marketing jobs are at 75% of pre-pandemic levels and stayed at that level for almost all of 2024. There’s no indication that’s changing.

What does all this mean? As Katie said in the introduction, there’s no way to predict what’s going to happen this year. What’s clear is that demand for professions overall that require significant person to person interaction is high and probably going to remain high, at least in the near-term. Information jobs, knowledge worker jobs, those seem to be falling below pre-pandemic levels – and in some cases, things like generative AI can be causal, but that’s not universal.

For companies that are hiring, especially in marketing, chances are you have access to a great, highly-qualified pool of talent now, so make decisions and acquire talent while the opportunity is clear.

For job seekers, it’s a tough market right now and has been in some cases for multiple years now. Use every means at your disposal to identify companies that are hiring, and connect with those inside who are decision makers and hiring managers.

If you like, take our completely free, on-demand course on how to use generative AI to land your next job.

Here’s a roundup of who’s hiring, based on positions shared in the Analytics for Marketers Slack group and other communities.

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