Why become a marketing manager?
Do you even know why you want to become a marketing manager?
If you do, by all means, scroll ahead. If you don’t, get ready to fall in love because being a marketing manager is a lot of fun.
Good money
Marketing manager ranks No. 45 in U.S. News and World Report’s list of The 100 Best Jobs and No. 14 in its list of Best Paying Jobs.
Depending where you look — Glassdoor, Paysa, LinkedIn, or AngelList — salaries range from $68,000 to $185,000, with the average being around $72,000.
Easy and fast career progression
There’s no glass ceiling in marketing. So as long as you tie your salary to revenue, and get results for the business (by meeting and exceeding your KPIs), you’ll be able to continually increase your salary and move up to having a share in your company.
In-demand position
Marketing manager positions have a higher than average projected growth rate, according to both Monster and U.S. News and World Report. Therefore, it’s really not difficult to land a job as a marketing manager if you’re good.
Flexible lifestyle
Whether you want to freelance or work full-time, marketing allows you to work from anywhere in the world with the Internet connection.
It’s pretty easy to find flexible, remote marketing manager gigs all over the globe when you scour the right job sites.
Robot-proof
As of 2016, there were nearly 205,900 marketing managers, and by 2024, that number is projected to increase by nine percent.
So while everyone else’s job is getting automated by robots, marketing managers are here to stay — for a while at least.
In fact, we only have a 1.4 percent chance of automation, which means we’re “totally safe…” for now.
Transferrable skillset
Last but certainly not least, marketing managers have rich, transferrable skillsets, meaning they have skills that are useful for just about any job — including startup founder or entrepreneur.
Of course, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. Being a marketing manager can be stressful because you’re directly responsible for meeting challenging KPIs. And work-life balance can tilt in the work direction often.
Don’t let that deter you though. Marketing is more rewarding than not. I’ll prove it. Here’s exactly what they do everyday.
What does a marketing manager do?
Ask a marketing manager what they do all day, and you’ll probably leave the conversation feeling very confused — for two reasons.
- Marketers use lots of jargon.
- And marketers do a lot of different things every day.
Ask Google what a marketing manager does, and you’ll read a lot of outdated, trite answers based on what marketing managers did before the Internet existed.
So because you asked (and didn’t receive), we’re going to give you the the simplest yet most comprehensive, up-to-date answer ever to: What does a marketing manager do?
Ready?! Well, it totally depends.
It depends on whether or not you work for a large corporation or a small to medium sized business. If you work for a corporation, you’ll likely be a marketing manager who specializes in a specific channel, i.e. Paid Acquisition Marketing Manager or Social Media Marketing Manager. If you work for a startup or SMB, you’ll likely be wearing many more hats.
Instead of getting granular, we’re going to focus on the jobs every type of marketing manager does.
Marketing managers top job is to find ways to grow the business (ideas), execute those ideas (campaigns) and then analyze and report on those campaigns.
In jargon, job description speak: Implement and report on marketing initiatives.
These campaigns usually require additional resources; therefore, marketing managers do a lot of collaborating, outsourcing and managing.
“Marketing touches everything in an organization, so I have to make sure I’m connecting with the leaders of the various teams. For example, I need to be aware of the product roadmap and new features so I can schedule webinars to address questions and create new FAQ pages on the website,” Katie Hurst, OpenSesame marketing manager, said. “I also need to make sure our sales team is receiving enough relevant leads and that our content team has the tools to please our sellers.”
Which is actually a nice segway.
What do employers want in a marketing manager?
A lot of things. But first and foremost, employers want a marketing manager who can grow things.
I want a marketing manager who understands how to grow and keep an audience so that we have ongoing options to communicate directly with customers and prospects. That means understanding the messaging, the execution, the tools, and the consistency it takes to build a relationship with a group of people.
Joe Pulizzi, Founder @ Content Marketing Institute
At the end of the day, marketing comes down to growth — growing revenue by increasing customers. Increasing customers by increasing traffic, etc. In order to grow these things, marketing managers must have a foundational skillset (and toolset) under their belts. Here are the specifics.
