Role in focus - Marketing Manager

Role in focus - Marketing Manager

Every day businesses have things they need to sell, services they want to offer, messages they need to convey. If that message is bland and uninteresting or aimed at the wrong audience then it is not going to be effective. That is where a Marketing Manager, comes in.  

 

What does a Marketing Manager do?  

While other sectors within a company will be great at coming up with new products and amazing in the services they provide, none of this is of use if the potential customers and/or clients don’t know about it. This is where the specialist skills of a Marketing Manager are imperative to the success of a business, bringing creativity and flair to promote the company, its products and its services, through a high performing marketing strategy.  

In a world where the internet means we are bombarded with choices, the marketing approach needs to be planned and designed to reach targeted audiences across multiple channels, online and offline, in a personalised way. The various marketing avenues that the Marketing Manager oversees include web-based content, search engine optimisation (SEO), social media marketing, copywriting, print marketing, direct marketing, and promotional marketing. The Marketing Manager must have a good knowledge of each and how they interconnect, ensuring all marketing channels are used effectively and cohesively.  

The Marketing Manager must collaborate with different departments within the business to gain valuable insight and knowledge. Their ultimate responsibility is then to lead the way to develop marketing strategies, putting them into practice to achieve results. This is a role you can really make your own, by improving and streamlining the marketing processes within the business.  

The average salary you can expect as a Marketing Manager starts from around £36,000. However, this can vary greatly depending on location, experience, and qualifications. To find out the average salary in your area, use our interactive pay rates tool

What are the responsibilities of a Marketing Manager?  

Given the wide range of the work, Marketing Manager responsibilities are diverse. As the Manager of the marketing function the role can be demanding, but the variety makes it an interesting and exciting job.  

Creating successful marketing campaigns involves many processes and it is your job as the Marketing Manager to implement and oversee all of those to continuously develop and improve the company’s outreach efforts. It is important to stay up to date with changes in marketing, especially in areas such as ongoing developments in search engine optimisation and social media algorithms.  

When creating short and long-term marketing plans, you as the Marketing Manager must liaise with senior Managers and executives to establish the goals of the campaign. You will also coordinate with members of other departments to uncover insights which can be used to create marketing and branding strategies.  

Once designed, the campaign must then be tested, tracked and the results analysed to ensure strategies are effective and goals are met. This is an ongoing process that has to be continually assessed and adapted to achieve optimum performance. 

As the Marketing Manager you will take on some of these tasks yourself, and you may have a team of marketing assistants, executives and senior executives to oversee helping to create, implement and test the marketing plans. As leader of the marketing initiatives within a business, you must clearly communicate the company marketing goals, motivating and supporting colleagues and team members in their work.  

Your success as a Marketing Manager can be measured in several ways. These can include parameters such as the development and delivery of the content plans, the quality of the output, audience engagement and the meeting of key performance indicators (KPI’s). A good Marketing Manager will encourage good workplace culture to achieve high performance both in their own output and that of their team, focussing on successful outcomes through working together. 

 

What are the key skills a Marketing Manager needs?  

A successful Marketing Manager will need to be creative, continually coming up with new ideas, new concepts, and innovative ways to execute and effectively optimise marketing strategies. They must be multitaskers, able to work on several projects at the same time. It is important to stay current with marketing concepts, continuously increasing their knowledge of marketing techniques through reading and research to keep ahead of the trends and the competition.  

The fast pace and continuous analysis and reporting of data mean that attention to detail and good time management are essential in a Marketing Manager job. It is important to be able to prioritise tasks and have confidence in your ability and your decisions. The entire marketing division is extremely important in fulfilling the promotional requirements of the business. As Marketing Manager, you need to be able to communicate effectively and have strong leadership skills to work with other departments, external agencies and, in many cases, your own team. 

 

What industries do Marketing Managers work in? 

The expertise of a Marketing Manager is required in almost all sectors and industries. This is extremely valuable to a company and your proficiency can be applied across a variety of industries. Certain marketing strategies will work better in different sectors, something that the Marketing Manager will be skilled at recognising through their knowledge and experience. 

For example, in engineering or manufacturing there are excellent opportunities to dabble in visual content marketing, such as video production and augmented or virtual reality. 

In retail and product-based industries, audience profiling, social media, SEO, ambassador affiliations and customer feedback are all effective marketing methods.  

Service based industries tend to use lots of content-based marketing such as blogs, case studies and printed materials i.e., brochures and leaflets. 

In the fitness and wellness industries, visual media, video, photography, ambassador affiliations and customer feedback all work well.  

With a rapidly paced, growing demand for digital marketing and the constantly evolving marketing strategies, Marketing Managers have exciting prospects ahead of them. 

 

Marketing Manager career progression 

Progressing in a career in marketing management requires enthusiasm and dedication. If you have both, then it really is an area with excellent prospects. With the continuous developments in marketing there is always something new to learn and different marketing methods to try.  

You could take your Marketing career a step further with a Master’s level qualification from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). The Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Marketing Level 7 will help you develop skills related to international marketing while the Leadership programme Level 7 is for experienced management level marketeers looking to strengthen their leadership skills.  

With most industries having a real need for marketing, there will always be opportunities to work across different sectors, building on your knowledge, skills and experience, working your way into bigger companies and sectors that interest you. Through maintaining a passion for self-development, along with 3-4 years’ experience as a Marketing Manager, you could step up into a Head of Marketing or Marketing Director role. 

 

Next steps 

Visit our Marketing Jobs area for new opportunities.  

For more information you can click here for Careers Advice, or to review our recruitment process click here.   

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