The Whole Marketer by Abigail Dixon is a force to be reckoned with.

This book is packed full of everything a modern marketer needs to know for their professional and personal growth. It pin-points the skills needed now as marketing continually evolves and talks about the fact that technical skills are only half of the story – modern marketers need to bring forth their soft skills to function and successfully lead.

I started reading The Whole Marketer page to page but soon found myself dipping in and out of the many turned down pages as it’s jam packed full of expertise. Sections such as understanding the factors shaping the industry’s focus, the importance of storytelling as well as chapters on self-discovery to help you understand your own beliefs and approach felt like I had a personal coach as well as expert sharing their wealth of experience.

The chapter containing 'Mining data to develop actionable insights' allowed me to analyse my own roots with data and how I might not be asking the right amount of questions to arrive at the truly actionable one. Another example of real examples to apply right now was the briefing section - I immediately reviewed my template and added those all important aspects I was missing.

As a self confessed KPI fanatic, I thoroughly enjoyed reading through the breadth across channel and it started me thinking more broadly about how PR/comms can contribute, support and impact the overall marketing results in a more overt way.

Undoubedtly, The Whole Marketer has had me review the role, need and function of PR and comms within the bigger picture, how I can support CMO and Marketing Directors better, just by having a more astute understanding from brief to insights to KPI setting to client servicing.  It is undoubtedly a book I will be referencing for a very, very long time.

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