Marketing Mechanics:

Learning what’s at the heart and soul of the typical day behind the scenes

Personal Preamble

Most of the elders in my family have some sort of mechanical ability whether it be fixing cars, building homes, fabricating boat & cargo trailers, or architecture. Even the cooks in the back of the restaurant were considered creators of great things. In other words, there was a lot of hands-on, get dirty, work hard and revel as you sit back and stare at what you did. It was a part of my life and I am grateful to have gotten a few traits from some of them.

Robert with Grandfather building a wooden model plane

I started in Information Technology, then Network Topology, then on to Network Engineering. In my late 20’s I decided that there was a creative itch in me that couldn’t be scratched, so I decided to completely switch careers and move on to the creative side of computing. Back then, there wasn’t much of it going on, and I was still writing code for an IT company in the heart of Philadelphia. I asked to be transferred to the web group (they called it the ‘dot-com group’) and suddenly I found myself designing the look and feel for the very same information I was coding.

It was an interesting time for me since I was on the other side of the fence for so long. It was an absolutely massive learning curve. However, I wasn’t too proud to stand on the shoulders of my new beloved group and, as a result, I picked up Photoshop, Illustrator, ColdFusion (remember ColdFusion?) and more. I felt better on this side. I became a UX designer and was proud of it.

The Many Faces of Marketing

The Unnamed CMO

I can’t begin to describe how many different types and levels of marketing there are. It’s such a broad and overused term, that it doesn’t even have much meaning anymore.

However, the non-marketing layman would probably associate it directly with magazine ads, television commercials, event networking and general sales. They aren’t wrong at all – it certainly is all that, but more – way more. There are coordinators, specialists, designers, printers, copywriters, managers and coders just to name a few. I once met a CMO (Corporate Marketing Officer) but oddly enough, he didn’t really know much about marketing at all. I found that perplexing, but I suppose they’re also a part of this complicated puzzle.

So What is a Marketing Mechanic?

Is this a marketing mechanic?

Let’s take the term marketing away for a minute and just concentrate on mechanic. According to the dictionary, a mechanic is ‘a person who repairs and maintains machinery.’ We all understand that. But when you add the word marketing, it skews the entire interpretation of the word mechanic. Two completely different things in one title. Weird.

Our team is just that.

I’ve been asked to describe, in my own words, what a marketing mechanic really does on a daily basis. My answer is not a simple one — I better get some coffee.

In medium to larger organizations, management or officers of a company decide to either bring a new product or service into fruition, or to maintain the engagement of the company or products that already exist. That then trickles its way down to middle management with memos, meetings and perhaps even sketches or mock-ups of their ideas. Middle management will then formulate a staff, budget and a time line. Let’s not forget the critical decision whether to hire an outside firm or build a staff of your own to tackle these ideas sent from above.

Client videos rendering during an Internet outage

Now draw a line from left to right horizontally with your finger. Everything that happens above that line should happen in-house of said company. However, the mechanics below the line, in my opinion, should be a trustworthy, affordable outside firm. A firm that tackles the actual mechanics, graphics, coding, video production, web development and social media strategies. They know where and how to get the attention of your prospective clients and maintain those machines every day. It’s what they do.

CaddisArt has two offices and four employees that are the glue that serves as the conduit between the client and the ‘wired-in’ staff who handle the production work. The coordinator is a complete necessity if the people in the garage (so to speak) need to concentrate on building the R.B.T. (really big thing – whatever that may be).

Understand that there are many flavors of a marketing mechanic, but for the purposes of this article, let’s use CaddisArt as an example. After all, this is a marketing article, and we’re about to invoke a shameless plug. Please place your trays in the upright position.

The scope of services that we provide is staggering. On one hand, it’s great to show that you’re capable of handling so many tasks that a company may need, but there’s that side that people interpret that you’re not a specialist in any one given area. Granted, we’re better at some things than others. However, we would never advertise that we can do something when we have no experience doing it.

The LAN, the WAN and the UGLY

CaddisArt hosts over 153 terabytes of important client data

By trade, I was a network topologist. I built computer networks for businesses, schools and government agencies – mostly in different parts of the United States. I installed servers, ran cable, installed software and trained those who had to use it every day. Absolutely hated it. Screw blueprints. Hashtag flammable.

I found myself again, building and maintaining a rather massive network for our company. No blueprints needed. However, the network that I had to build for ourselves was very different partly because of the sheer amount of data that is stored due to video production, graphics, huge document printing formats, etc. The Roebling office of CaddisArt in itself hosts over 53 Terabytes of data that need to be easily accessible, have redundancy and have backups of backups. After all, this is our client’s data.

The network here is a maze to anyone trying to come and figure it out. Network Attached Storage devices, UNRAID servers, Windows® Virtual Machines, Routers, Switches and even a 10GBASE-T backbone. We wrote programs and scripts to run differential processes every night to be sure everything is in sync and redundancy is maintained. This office could blow up tomorrow, but we’ll still have the data and means to keep working.

The computers are all hand-built to our needs and specifications. Some were easy and inexpensive (some even recycled) while the workhorse editing stations are extremely expensive, big and require extreme cooling. All this, plus some other essentials will operate even when we have no power or internet due to a very heavy set of redundant battery backup systems.

Welcome to 5:00 AM

I’m at my workstation, gulping coffee, staring at Skype.

Conference Call with Laurie, Our Executive Vice President

Our typical day starts with a recap and look forward with our Executive Vice President, Laurie Steidle, usually over Microsoft Teams or the VOIP. That usually lasts about 45 minutes. I have my project software loaded up with my tasks for the day. I didn’t enter these tasks, but I know they have to be done. Procrastinator I am not.

Event flyer design by 9, e-blast coding by 11, video editing at 3. More artwork due by 9am tomorrow. Better do that soon. Emails begin trickling in about 8am with requests that have to be inserted into my already carefully planned schedule. No problem. We do this every day.

There’s a hard drive clicking in the NAS next to me that can no longer be ignored. The console tells me that it’s failed it’s health (S.M.A.R.T.) test and needs to be replaced. Should I do that now? It’s going to slow down the device because it has to be re-striped. Or should I just leave it be and try to handle it at the end of the day?

Oops, the Internet just went down. Nothing I can do about that. I have a brand new drive in the cabinet. Let me replace the drive while I’m waiting for the network to come back online. I can also set the last video I edited to render now, since that doesn’t require Internet. It uses 100% of my CPU, so let’s get that out of the way since I can’t really use the computer right now anyway.

As you can see, we handle a lot during the day, from hardware, to graphics, to video production all the way over to email marketing, delivering engagement reports to the client, generating a mailing list for an upcoming mailing and more. There’s a very large umbrella here at CaddisArt.

And that’s only my day. Laurie, Kelly and our other staff members have their own regiment that is just as involved and perhaps even more confusing.

It’s not a normal day if something doesn’t go wrong!

The Recap

You could have just scrolled past all the babble to get to this: A marketing mechanic designs graphic materials, programs and scripts applications, moves data across networks, secures said data, processes reports, coordinates with vendors, sends proofs, presents ideas, automates repeated processes, builds servers, backs up client data, creates domains and websites, builds scripts to pull data and more. Much more.

This is typically not something an in-house marketing department can handle.

Welcome to the production studio at CaddisArt Incorporated.

Would you like a cup of coffee?