A very broad and difficult question. But after quite a few years in the profession, I think I can summarize the key points.
Difficult vs complex: the fundamental distinction
There are "difficult" but not complex jobs. Technical, administrative jobs with repeatable processes and protocols. Often extremely hard, but well framed within a certain scope.
Marketing is the opposite: it is a job that is not always difficult, but of a monstrous and almost ridiculous complexity. Because it is not codified, because practically everything is your responsibility, because there are no real workflows, because there is a mountain of noise created by charlatans and gurus, because there are dozens of channels to understand and manage, because almost nobody truly understands what it is for.
Every morning is a TV series
If you want to live as if you were in a TV series, follow this path. Seriously. From the moment you wake up, you will need to solve problems and discover you must deal with things you know nothing about — and you must do it professionally. You generally have no more than two hours to learn.
That is why without a degree you are finished before you start: rapid learning only happens if you have the right mental frameworks. And those frameworks come only from university plus very long experience.
The three big lies of Italian trainers
Italian trainers who know little about marketing, in order to sell their courses, convince you that the best professionals are entrepreneurs, young and smart, with no degree. Three lies useful for attracting the least savvy targets.
The reality is dramatically different. An entrepreneur running a different business cannot learn marketing beyond the basics.
Easy in theory, devastating in practice
Most of marketing is, taking individual activities one by one, simple: a few months for Facebook Ads, a couple of years to be decent at Google Ads. All true — if you think like a reductionist. Then you discover that:
- Your Facebook Ads campaign does not convert. You do not know why.
- Google Ads has high CTR but low ROAS.
- The WordPress site works, then the form breaks, Google slams your indexing, plugins conflict.
- The newsletter following "ninja copywriter" advice is terrible and nobody reads it.
- The magic funnel costing 5-10k brings zero clients.
- You do PR, but journalists ignore your press release.
Multiply those sub-points by 100 and you understand what marketing is. Extremely easy in essence. Something that destroys your life and brain in practice.
The salary problem
Its perceived simplicity means low barriers to entry. Lots of competition. Very low salaries, remote chances of career advancement.
The bottom line
Do it if you thrive in complexity, if you have excellent stress management, if you love to fight from morning to night and if you need constant adrenaline. Knowing that in this discipline, one in a thousand makes it.
For now, I have made it, but I know perfectly well that everything could change, my friend.
