Does the idea of pursuing a career in marketing thrill you? Are you in need of a concise yet, well-packed pocket guide on this subject? You need not look further! Grab a seat, some drink, and get ready to learn all you need to know right on these pages!
It is no news that marketing is fast evolving. As more companies/firms are being registered, more brands of the same products or services are made available. This means more marketing experts are needed for brand awareness.
With the present state, it is the best marketer, i.e., the one who employs adequate, well-informed, and well-timed marketing strategies that eventually catch the buyer’s attention and sustains such. It is the survival of the fittest.
What Is A Career in Marketing All About?
Marketing involves all activities carried out by a company to promote sales of its products or services. It begins with the products and services rendered by the company or business to its pricing and place, then to its promotion and awareness. Therefore, the marketer’s job is to carry out marketing activities and campaigns. The marketer plays a leading role in:
- Raising Brand Awareness
- Generating about high-quality leads
- Developing and maintaining a good relationship with prospects & customers
- Researching the market trends and price system
- Raising and mentoring brand ambassadors for the company.
The marketer is invaluable with ever-increasing roles. Thus, the marketer must always be at the top of his game by being a lifelong learner.
Career Positions Available in the Marketing Industry
The field of marketing is broad! Therefore, specialization is key. However, general knowledge of the functions makes a marketer versatile. The following are some of the positions available:
Product Marketing Manager
Product Marketing involves communicating products’ benefits to prospects, customers, industry analysts, and to the public in general. Therefore, product marketing managers determine the target market and it’s size. They are also main value propositions and critical decisions makers on positioning and sales performance. Other important roles of a marketing manager include:
- Working hand-in-hand with the product manager to ensure market-friendly products are released to the market.
- They develop and implement strategies, tools and campaigns that appeal to both potential and regular client’s.
- They develop Marketing Strategy Communication and execute training of sales persons on effective ways to sell the products.
- They create necessary materials and document for product description and Marketing.
The functions of product marketing manager are not fixed, as each is dependent on the organization and products involved.
Growth Marketing Manager
Growth marketing managers are indispensable in most organizations. Growth to a marketer is simply the process of acquiring, activating, retaining, and reactivating both new and old customers. Growth Marketing makes use of the traditional method of marketing and modern/digital marketing tools to support and analyze results. Growth Marketing helps to define customers or prospects by the use of marketing tools that engage and convert customers. Other Critical roles include:
- Technical analysis of data to monitor customer experience and conversion rate, and seek ways to improve it.
- Use of digital marketing models such as A/B testing, SEO optimization, etc., to measure the growth of a marketing strategy.
- Set company’s sales goals and implement necessary procedures to see that are achieved.
Demand Generation Manager
Demand Generation Managers supervise and control all ideas, methods, and tactics that helps to cultivate and maintain long-term relationship with customers. Primarily, they focus on getting customers excited with the company’s products or services. They also focus on increasing brand awareness and product education. Other important roles are:
- Draft demand Generation plans and goals, and give a feasible approach to ensure they are achieved.
- Seek new market opportunities and strategically launch into it.
- To promote products and services and create a Buzz in the existing market for the company’s brand.
- Drive up demand and increase distribution of products to all channels.
- Ensure contents reach the appropriate quarters at the right time.
Content Marketer
Content Marketing is the act of creating and sharing online materials or documents such as videos, articles, social media posts and so on, in order to stimulate target customers’ interest in a product or service. The marketing content is to convince the reader, viewer or listener as the case may be (a prospective buyer), that the product or service being offered is the best. Ultimately, the goal is for them to take an action. A good content must be clear and easy to understand. Only authentic information about the product or service to be offered should be included. Though it could be in any form, educational, entertaining or promotional.
Other career options include Content Strategy Marketing, Web and conversion Optimization, Influencer Marketing, Video marketing, database marketing, and growth hacking. If you consider any or all of these, you are driving your marketing career to a climax.
Things You Need to Do to Advance Your Marketing Career
- Select your field(s)
If you don’t know what you want to do, you can’t know how to do it. You have to get a seat and think to discover your passion in Marketing. Out of those mentioned or discussed above, which of them matches your current or dream job in marketing or works best for your company’s products or services. Choose your area(s) of specialization but have generalized knowledge of other fields in marketing.
- Research and Learn
People who desire growth dig deep. They are those who go beyond what the average marketer knows. Research and continuous learning are very crucial to advancing your career. Things keep changing, and new things keep evolving. If you must select the right marketing campaign and meet the current standards, you must be ready to study hard. You can learn a lot from free or paid marketing courses online or get a personal mentor. Be aware of the latest trends!
- Creativity
To succeed in Marketing, you have to be creative. Creativity, they say, is the mother of all innovation. As the competition becomes intense, only those who are intelligent enough to bring out a creative copy, generate better keywords for their SEO, think of better ways to avoid their marketing emails being spammed, and so on will make it to the peak. Think of better ways to bring about brand awareness and generate more leads. Then you will stand out among your marketing colleagues.
- Networking
This is indispensable for every marketer. There are different ways to network, such as social media networking, casual networking, customer service networking, etc. Your business network will determine the number of people you would have to reach out to. For instance, if you are a social media marketer, make sure you keep getting more followers or connections. This would determine the number of people you can reach via social media. Networking is the only way you can develop a solid local and digital presence.
- Understand Digital Data Analytics
If you want to be a step ahead in marketing, you should understand how to use data analysis. This would help you analyze customer behavior. And you can use that to generate new sales opportunities and methods and eradicate ineffective campaigns. Key data analytics tools include:
- The click-through rate
- The bounce rate
- Customer engagement rate
- Customer retention rate
- The Return on advertising spend
- Cost per click.
Conclusion
The ball is now in your court! Put your hands on deck, research, learn and grow. Wishing you a successful career!
