How to Break Into Marketing: 40+ Resources for Starting & Advancing Your Career

While I love being a marketer, there’s no denying that marketing is a rapidly evolving domain thanks to constant shifts and advancements in technology, consumer behavior, and data collection. Additionally, I’ve always felt that the term "marketing" itself is incredibly broad, encompassing endless subdomains like product marketing, SEO, content strategy, brand management, and many more. For those new to the field or looking to switch into marketing, it can feel overwhelming to stay current with trends, techniques, and best practices. This guide is built for marketers eager to learn quickly and maintain an edge by leveraging insights and resources from industry leaders. It combines an unscientifically curated and non-exhaustive list of fantastic marketing leaders and resources to follow and learn from with a great starter kit of tools to help you find (and flourish in) your marketing job.

As a marketing professional with over 10 years of experience in the field as well as a highly qualified marketing coach who has helped many aspiring individuals land jobs at top companies, these are my top recommendations for marketing resources that will help you build marketing skills and land your dream marketing job.

To help you on your career journey, Leland provides a marketplace for ambitious individuals to access coaching, classes, and community resources to launch and accelerate their marketing careers. Feel free to connect with me on my Leland coaching profile for an intro call to chat about any of the below resources or talk through your marketing career goals!

*Where possible, I tried to give credit to the author and the site on which the piece was hosted.

The Different Types of Roles in Marketing

Marketing roles can range from generalist to highly specialized, depending on the size and structure of the organization. A general rule of thumb is that the smaller the company, the more generalized the marketing job description will be. At a startup or small business, marketers can often wear many hats, managing multiple channels and responsibilities such as content creation, social media, email campaigns, and analytics all at once. These roles require versatility and adaptability, as they often involve crafting strategies and executing them hands-on.

In contrast, larger companies tend to have more specialized roles, with team members focusing on specific areas like SEO, paid media, branding, or even marketing to a certain segment of customers based on industry alignment, product, or geography. These positions might call for deeper expertise in a particular channel or strategy, often working as part of a larger team to execute comprehensive marketing campaigns.

Another consideration for marketing careers is understanding whether you want to be an ‘in-house’ marketer or work on the agency/freelance side of things. One key factor to help inform this decision is your appetite for variety. While there’s plenty of exceptions to this rule, if you’re steadfast about using your marketing skills to help a particular business grow, then perhaps going ‘in-house’ and joining that company’s marketing team makes sense. On the other hand, if you enjoy deploying your SEO or copywriting skills for multiple businesses, then perhaps joining an agency with a particular industry or skillset focus is a better route. There’s no right answer, it’s just about working to align a role with your aligning your skills and passions.

Comprehensive List of 40+ Marketing Resources

As you start to make your transition into the exciting world of marketing, I thought it’d be helpful, to share a list of 40+ resources that cover everything from books and blogs to podcasts and career advice, providing actionable insights and tools for marketers of all experience levels looking to enhance their careers.

Marketing Books

Marketing books offer deep dives into essential topics, from growth frameworks to positioning and metrics. These reads are ideal for developing foundational knowledge, exploring advanced strategies, or staying current on trends in the field.

• Traction (Gabriel Weinberg) — framework for testing/scaling growth
• Obviously Awesome (April Dunford) — A fantastic guide on messaging & positioning
• The Sales Acceleration Formula (Mark Roberge) — A great read on all things sales & sales ops
• Data-Driven Marketing (Mark Jeffery) — The primer on marketing metrics
• Strategic Marketing Management (Alexander Chernev) — practical strategy frameworks
• The Next CMO (Peter Mahoney, Scott Todard, Dan Faulkner) — Great tips and frameworks for building a marketing strategy
• Hacking Marketing (Scott Brinker) — A breakdown of how to apply agile frameworks to marketing

Quick tip: Want to better understand how your sales teams/leaders think? Check out the sales acceleration formula

Marketing Blogs, Newsletters, and Operators to Follow

Blogs and newsletters are excellent for staying up-to-date on industry trends and gaining practical insights. Many are written by seasoned operators who share firsthand knowledge of marketing successes and failures. Following these newsletters or thought leaders l will keep you informed on the latest strategies, tools, and real-world applications in marketing.

• MKT1 — “Helping early & growth SaaS startups build marketing functions”
• Exit Five — “The #1 Community for B2B Marketers”
• TL,DR Marketing — A daily dose of marketing news and resources
• Contentment — Weekly newsletter by Tracey Wallace, Director of Content Strategy at Klaviyo, about how to produce scalable content
• Superpath — The leading content marketing community
• Jonathan Martinez — A “growth marketer who has worked on the growth teams for various hyper-growth startups”
• Janessa Lantz — “Building the marketing team at dbt Labs”
• Kevan Lee — Product-led growth & SaaS leader
• Dave Gerhardt — Former startup marketing exec, head of Exit Five
• Eric Doty — “One-man product-led content band”
• Barbara Galiza — Growth + Marketing Analytics freelancer

Quick tip: MKT1 constantly churns out incredibly well-written and detailed deep dives on all things marketing, I can’t recommend them enough!

Marketing Podcasts

Podcasts provide an accessible way to learn on the go. Whether you're commuting or working out, you can tune in to hear industry leaders share actionable tips, discuss marketing trends, and explore case studies.

• Growth Hub Podcast — “The podcast for all things B2B SaaS marketing”
• Marketing School — “10 minutes of actionable marketing advice every single day”
• Marketing Over Coffee — “Weekly podcast bringing you the latest in marketing and technology”

Marketing Job Boards

For those looking for their next opportunity, job boards tailored to marketing roles can be invaluable. Beyond popular platforms like Linkedin, Indeed, etc, these sites aggregate open positions across industries and often include remote roles, startup opportunities, and specialized listings for B2B or SaaS marketing.

• Exit Five — B2B Job Marketing Board
• Swipe File — ‘The best marketing jobs in tech”
• MarketingHire - A leading marketing job board and career site
• NoDesk - remote marketing jobs
• AMA Job board - job board from the American Marketing Association
• MKT1 Jobs - startup marketing roles from the MKT1 community

Quick tip: Some of these job boards allow you to set a reminder/search filter when certain roles become available, but if not, just set your own calendar reminder to pop in every once in a while

Additional Resources for Your Marketing Careers

• ”Marketing Career Advice” (Alex Kracov)
• “Crafting Your Personal Positioning Statement” (Kevan Lee)
• “How to Craft a Professional Profile to Guide Your Marketing Career Search” (Will Crowley)
• “Godlike CMO — Godlike CMO — The Chief (Or VP) Marketing Requirements Cheat-Sheet (Yoav Vilner)”
• “My advice to a young marketer” (Craig Miller)
• “Going Beyond ‘Do You Know Of Any Open Positions?” (Dewan Ahmed)
• “How to Write a Compelling Marketing Resume” (Regina Borsellino / The Muse)
• “A Framework on Career Decisions” (Conor Dewey)
• “10 Free Digital Marketing Certifications” (Prerna Katyal)

The Bottom Line

Hopefully, you found these resources helpful as you navigate your marketing career. There are tons of marketing resources out there, but it can be difficult to wade through the noise and find what’s most relevant to your career path and goals.

As always, I’d love to help you land a marketing internship/job, prepare for interviews, build skills, or anything else you need! Check out my coach profile here.

Check out these other resources next:

• An Expert’s Guide to Resumes: Five Tips to Make You Stand Out
• How to Nail “Tell Me About a Time…” Interview Questions
• 20+ Best Questions to Ask at the End of an Interview
• To Be a Jack of All Trades or Master of One?