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Marketing Manager Job Description
Salary, Skills, Certifications, Duties and more…
It is amazing how the definition of “Marketing” changes almost every 5 years, and tools and techniques used in your previous job are obsolete!
One of the most sought-after roles in any company, marketing management is on everyone’s radar, be it recent graduates or experienced professionals. The reasons are not hard to guess: Working potentially on more fun projects (think celebrity photo shoots or working with creative agencies for a TV ad), ability to visibly impact a company’s revenues, working with cutting-edge tools and ability to show your innovative side with out-of-the box ideas that will drive more users.
Although the term “marketing” and what it encompasses in terms of job description changed drastically in the last 50 years, one thing remains the same: marketing is the lifeblood of every organization, from recently funded hot startups to behemoths like Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook(Meta), Apple and Google (Google, or Alphabet, has a special place in the world of marketing and we will touch that further below).
So let’s dive in and find out why this role is so popular, what are the necessary skills to get hired and become a good marketer and salary information.
It is not always about ideas, as a marketing manager, get ready to do some heavy number crunching!
Do you have a marketing manager job interview coming up? Search for highly rated related job interview support services on our website that have the latest questions, answers, and more useful info from recent hires and employees.
WHAT IS MARKETING AND WHAT DOES A MARKETING MANAGER DO?
In a very concise definition, marketing is attracting customers to your business. The longer (and somewhat scary) definition goes like this: Marketing is the process of exploring, analyzing, creating and delivering the necessary means of communication and processes to attract the target segment of a business and includes the selection of the proper audience, themes, campaigns, designs, promotions and price points to influence the decision of a consumer.
If you have been working as a marketer or have friends doing so, you’ll realize that even the longer definition above does not cover all the responsibilities a marketer can cover. In many companies, marketing and PR functions are overlapped or work very closely with each other since “raising brand awareness” is commonly seen as a responsibility of both.
In the age of communication (or over-communication should we say) responsibility of a marketer can come in many shapes and sizes due to the nature of the sheer size of communication channels and mediums growing in numbers every day.
Nowadays, when you see a marketing manager job post, you’ll realize that the company will try to be very specific on what the role is about: Online ads manager, TV marketing manager. New media (yes, TikTok is inevitable) marketing manager, marketing analytics manager and so on.
WHAT ARE THE TYPES OF MARKETING MANAGER JOBS?
Unique to marketing management, growth in the number of competitors for any business and new marketing opportunities has led to a big diversification of marketing-related roles and their functions in a company in the last 30 years. At the end of 19’s and beginning of 20’s, the marketing function was well defined: Manage the ads a company has in TVs and newspapers and somehow try to measure the impact of the ads and return on investment.
In the last 10 years, we saw exponential growth in online ads (Google) and mobile ads and new measurement techniques that allow near perfect understanding of return on investment changed the landscape of how companies spend their marketing budget.
An interesting fact: As of 2022, amazon.com is the world’s second big online advertising platform with product ads the sellers use on the platform.
In general, marketing manager responsibilities can be listed as follows. Depending on the size of the company, these can each be individual roles within that company:
- Campaign Management / Online Ads Management
- Content Creation
- Customer Success Management
- Market Research
- Marketing Analytics
- Marketing Assistant/Coordinator
- TV Ads Manager
- Influencer Marketing Management
- Promotions / Royalty Management
- Social Media Management
- Telemarketing / Offline Marketing
WHAT ARE THE MARKETING MANAGER’S DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES?
Generally, if you are the head of marketing, marketing director, or the chief marketing officer of a company, your main task will be managing the teams that are responsible for the tasks mentioned above. For each of these sub-roles, general requirements vary greatly and may include detailed analytics / technical knowledge:
Campaign Manager
Campaign manager’s main responsibility is to run online advertising campaigns based on a budget and optimize them to get the best return of investment.
Content Creation
Content creation managers either act as creative directors, producing the necessary visuals for all the functions of the company or as account managers who deal with creative agencies for the creation of visual materials.
Customer Success Manager
Customer success managers are front-facing employees who in the very basic sense of the term, try to make customers happy by various initiatives and technical developments.
Market Research & Marketing Analytics
These roles almost always require people with technical prowess and expect them to create reports that will be useful for the other parts of the marketing organization.
TV Ads / Influencer / Sponsorship Management
These managers will act as account managers, mostly dealing with creative agencies for planning, producing relevant events and ad campaigns.
WHAT SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS ARE NECESSARY FOR MARKETING MANAGERS?
Since the role of a marketing manager varies greatly depending on which function you are in, companies are hiring marketing managers from a wide variety of backgrounds.
Nevertheless, nowadays knowledge of online advertising (made indispensable by Google in the early 2000’s), retargeting, and measurement techniques is a must. If you are interviewing for a more traditional marketing role such as sponsorship management or TV Ads management, previous job experience and knowledge of production, event organization will come in handy.
While it is common for companies to hire marketing managers with a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (PR, Marketing), candidates with engineering or even general science-related backgrounds are getting hired more by day, due to the heavy analysis requirement of these roles.
Companies who hire marketing managers will look for these skills:
- Strong data analysis skills
- Having an innovative personality
- Knowledge of online advertising concepts (cpm, cpa, retargeting, video ads etc.)
- Good communication skills
- Team working skills
- Multi-tasking skills
- Adaptability to strict deadlines
- Prioritization
- Spreadsheet proficiency
- Analytical aptitude
- Good knowledge of related regulations within the advertising industry
What about the Certification and/or Training that is Required for Marketing Managers?
For marketing managers, the standard education required is Bachelor’s Degree (BS) in Marketing or Public Relations. Having said that, more and more people find marketing jobs by taking certifications from Google and relevant companies to show their online advertising and relevant knowledge.
Here are some good resources for advertising-related certifications and training:
Marketing Certifications on Coursera
When hiring experienced marketing professionals, some companies will also be looking for a post/secondary degree and mention an MBA or a related degree (master’s in marketing) as a plus in their job descriptions. As expected, having an additional/second degree will help you go get ahead of the other candidates in a job interview (or even when you work for the company).
MARKETING MANAGER SALARY
According to PayScale, the average salary of a marketing manager in US as of 2022 is 68K USD (base salary). While the salary of a marketing manager will vary a lot depending on the experience and the marketing function you are working in, these ranges should be expected:
- Experienced marketing manager: 83K – 150K USD
- Entry-level marketing manager / associate: 35K – 43K USD
- Chief Marketing Officer: 150K – 600K USD
- Entry-level marketing analytics manager: 40K – 50K USD
Note that extra benefits / compensation will vary greatly between companies. So make sure you ask for that information when negotiating your salary!
TIPS AND TRICKS FOR YOUR MARKETING MANAGER JOB INTERVIEW
For a successful interview, first of all, examine the marketing manager job description given in the job post, as it provides the necessary information that the company is mainly looking for (remember: marketing managers responsibility can vary greatly depending on the team/function you’ll be working in). The recruiters simply give the job description, role, or position summary and try to find which applicant best fits the accountant job. Analyzing thoroughly what is required in the role will be beneficial during your interviews..
An important thing is to underline your relevant strengths in the skills and the qualifications mentioned in the job description. Telling about your past experience on your skills and what you learned about that (a kind of self-assessment) is always impressive for recruiters. So, showing off your communication and reconciliation skills is a wise idea.
For sure, knowing about the company well and highlighting your enthusiasm for the role are also important. As a general rule, being on time, being kind and polite, bringing your CV, cover letter, and references to indicate organizational skills are critical in a marketing manager job interview as in other types of job interviews.
If we wrap up, you can find the definitions and guidelines (skills, requirements, education, training and certification etc.) for a Marketing Manager above. We hope it helps to give you an overview and shows which path suits you more.
