In short, marketing management covers everything under the scope of a company’s marketing department. This includes every aspect of the way a business interacts with its customer base, from promotional launches to social media communication. Managers in this department lead marketing teams, approve or revise marketing plans, and direct the flow and tone of the media pieces the company shares.
Read on to learn more about the roles and responsibilities of a marketing manager.
What Is the Role of a Marketing Manager in a Business?
A marketing manager’s precise roles can vary from one company to another, with the size of the business and the scope of the team’s marketing efforts being two important factors that affect a manager’s responsibilities.
Overall, though, the role of a marketing manager is to oversee the flow of communication between the company and its customers or audience members. The marketing material a business publishes will most often be finalized and approved by the marketing manager.
Marketing managers are directly responsible for developing and implementing a company’s marketing policies and strategies. Following these tasks may include market research, creating target audience profiles, developing marketing language that “speaks” to the company’s target audience, and analyzing the company’s marketing data to find more ways to succeed.
How Much Does a Marketing Manager Make?
The average salary of a marketing manager is around $135,000 per year. However, first-time marketing managers or marketing managers who are working for smaller companies might only make around $80,000 per year. On the high end, some marketing managers make closer to $150,000 per year.
Types of Marketing Managers
Marketing managers may have roles that encompass one or more types of management focus. Some marketing managers specialize in serving as a single type of manager while others work in somewhat of a hybrid position.
Common types of marketing management include the following:
- Product Marketing Management: Product marketing specifically focuses on developing the best methods for promoting a product. Managers in this role aim to ensure that a product the company produces finds a way to garner attention from the right audience.
- Marketing Information Management: This marketing specialty is data-focused. A manager in this role collects, analyzes, and reports on data related to the company’s performance.
- Marketing Channel Management: Channels refer to the various platforms a company uses to advertise itself. Managers who specialize in this role monitor and adjust routines and strategies used in each of the company’s marketing channels.
- Brand Management: Brand management focuses on implementing and perfecting techniques that establish the brand in question as one of authority and a positive reputation.
- Content Marketing Management: This marketing type aims to create, organize and promote content that appeals to the target audience. This includes ensuring that website design and content creation follow SEO guidelines, analyzing search engine metrics, and determining the best content creation practices to follow.
- Social Media Management: Social media managers oversee everything under the umbrella of the company’s social media presence, including the creation of posts, audience interaction, linking to blogs or articles, and regularly analyzing performance metrics for various accounts.
- Digital Marketing Management: Digital marketing includes everything the brand does online. It’s an umbrella term that often involves strategies and actions that occur in each of the above-mentioned marketing types.
What Do Marketing Managers Do?
Marketing managers handle a great many things as part of their daily tasks and responsibilities. Some of the most common elements of a marketing manager’s job include:
- Developing and coordinating marketing strategies to implement across various marketing channels
- Monitoring the company’s SEO strategy and making necessary improvementsCreating and testing an array of marketing messages, themes, articles, posts, etc.
- Managing professional relationships with media outlets and vendors
- Guiding and educating marketing employees
- Creating new promotion efforts based on market research trends
- Determining positive and negative marketing actions and correcting efforts that underperform
- Leading the company’s social media presence
- Budgeting for new marketing campaigns and initiatives
- Creating analysis reports on the results of various marketing and advertising efforts to determine positive and negative ROIs
What Skills Make a Good Marketing Manager?
Marketing managers need to harness a diverse set of skills in order to ensure the growth and success of the company they’re promoting. To be an effective marketing manager, the following skills are essential.
- Leadership: Managers are often tasked with training and directing other members of the marketing team. They’re expected to educate, motivate, and drive positive performance.
- Finance: Financial intelligence is crucial for a marketing manager, as they assess financial data, create budgets, and keep track of marketing and advertising expenses.
- Communication: Managers communicate in several ways with a wide variety of people on a given day. As such, they need to be able to communicate clearly and effectively in order to provide accurate information and details.
- Technology: Managers need to be tech-savvy. So much of a company’s marketing efforts take place online or through digital means, so managers need to know the ins and outs of various tech spaces.
- Data: The ability to interpret data is a must for marketing managers. Part of their job involves pulling analytical reports and using them to determine the best marketing practices to follow.
- Logic: Managers need to be able to make sense of the information they receive in order to make meaningful decisions and adjustments to current marketing practices.
- Trend Perception: A marketing manager should always have his or her finger on the pulse of what’s trending in their industry. Doing so helps to develop marketing strategies that effectively address the needs of consumers.
Marketing Manager Education and Qualifications
Most marketing managers will usually need to have a four-year degree in marketing or a related field (business management, communications, public relations, etc.), plus several years of experience working as a marketing professional. When building marketing experience, aspiring managers learn valuable skills they can use to climb the corporate ladder.
Some marketing managers learn through experience and slowly work their way from a marketing team member to a management level with time and effort. Other managers choose to enhance their skills and streamline the moving up process by achieving various professional certifications through training and coursework.
The route taken to become a marketing manager can differ somewhat from one professional to another. Marketing is a fluid career in a way, as the skills required to become a successful marketing manager can be developed through a variety of pursuits. A combination of educational background, training and experience, natural skill, and continuous research is often the foundation for an effective marketing manager.
