The role of the marketing manager is a very important one. While the actual focus of marketing is quite narrow, the effects felt by its failures and successes are company-wide. What exactly is a marketing manager and what do they do?
The Field of Marketing
First, in order to fully understand the role of a manager in marketing, it is essential to understand the field of marketing itself. In marketing, the primary, driving goal in all day-to-day activities is advertisement and the subsequent results of that advertisement. Promoting a product, setting a good public opinion, and subsequently benefiting from these efforts is the aim of any company’s marketing department.
Marketing and the workers responsible for it are very important to a company’s overall success. In a company where marketing has failed, you are likely to see stagnated growth and an unaware customer-base. You may also find that competing companies and environmental happenings decide the public view of the brand more than the company itself. In the end, the death of the business often follows.
The Manager of Marketing
As with any important department within a company, the marketing department will often have several if not many employees. Everyone in the department works on a specific part of the marketing campaign. The marketing manager sits atop of this group of workers, heading marketing efforts and the overall direction they may be taking.
Those in this management role may accurately be described as a crucial “middle-person” of sorts. It is the body of the marketing department as a whole that indeed does the majority of the work – developing advertisement campaigns, talking to the public, working at street level. Two steps up the ladder, corporate management formulates goals based on company interests.
Between these two realms is where the manager of marketing operates. Corporate goals are received and interpreted here. As a result, a marketing plan is formulated by the manager and then delegated to the body of the marketing department for implementation. Continued oversight and guidance is then provided by the manager throughout the process.
In the end, a final product, the overall marketing campaign is completed and put before the public. Now, the remaining work of the manager and team will revolve around campaign maintenance and adaptations. This is all dictated by consumer response of the initial marketing efforts.
A Statistical Look
We’ve covered the basic functions and importance of this role. However, to glean a little more information, let’s take a look at a few statistics on this vocation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- The median annual wage of a manager in marketing is around $128,750.
- Until 2024, the profession is projected to continue experiencing a period of rapid growth at the rate of 9%.
- A Bachelor’s Degree is the typical educational requirement needed to enter the profession.
- As of 2014, around 31% of all managers in this field were employed specifically by advertising agencies, while the remaining 69% were employed by various other industries.
- California, Texas, and Pennsylvania were among those with the highest rates of employment and highest pay rates for the position.
Related Resource: Human Resources Management
Those tasked with managing the marketing efforts of a company are truly at the helm of control for public opinion, brand identity, sales rates, and much more.
