Well, it’s amazing how a casual conversation with a friend can lead into a deeper questioning into professional existentialism. My friend Jeremiah, asked me about my definition of “marketing evangelist” title on my blog and that led me to thinking about who I am, as a marketer. Good for me, my web meanderings led me to this great post on the Six Degrees of Marketing Organizations by John Moore on his blog – Brand Autopsy, where John summarizes recent findings by Constantine Von Hoffman (Booz Allen Hamilton) on the 6 types of marketing organizations.

I know the article talks about marketing organizations, but it made sense to identify the type of marketer you are, depending on which of the following 6 groups you belong to:

1. Marketing Master (Strategic): These are the marketing gurus within each company. They are not involved in strategic decision making nor in business development but mainly are authoritarian figures. Are you a Marketing Guru?

2. Senior Counselor (Strategic): For starters this category doesn’t sound like fun, but could be for those experienced strategists who assist the top brass of the company in defining the strategic path of the company. The “Senior” part, even though makes it sound like “Senior citizen” is a good indicator of the experience you possess and how you can share that with existing leadership teams in your organization.

3. Service Provider (Tactical): John refers to it as coordinators of “… advertising, promotion and public relations at the request of the company’s brand and product teams.”

These are the various marketing agencies which (for e.g.) work as an extended arm of the company’s marketing organization to provide content and design expertise in the creation of marketing pieces. This role is replaceable with the below role of brand builder which is in-house.

4. Brand Builder (Tactical): This probably refers to the teams and individuals who are responsible in the tactical creation of marketing services such as development of marketing collateral, event booth placements, white papers, etc… It probably refers to the marketing content and design teams that make it possible.

5. Best Practice Advisor (Strategic): They help maximize effectiveness of marketing strategies & tactics with well-thought out best practice suggestions.

6. Growth Champion (Strategic & Tactical): They lead efforts in Business Development & service innovation (best practices). Also involved in strategy regarding new market penetration.

(Source: John Moore’s blog post. Thanks, John for helping out with my professional existential dilemma!)

To answer the question “Who am I?”. Well, I am a Growth Champion for my agency and Best Practice Advisor to prospects-customers & that’s where my “marketing evangelist” title sprung from. I believe I evangelize the latest & greatest marketing practices to individual and organizations who can benefit from the latest and greatest in marketing communications (eg. web 2.0 marketing, RSS Marketing, podcasts, etc…). It’s not necessarily a description of my job, it’s a description of who I am.

Now, the question is: WHO ARE YOU?