You are interested in establishing or furthering your vocation in marketing. Well, the good news is that the marketing industry is expanding, and contemporary marketers can specialize in a diverse array of roles that are tailored to their individual skill sets.
What is the most suitable occupation for you?
The composition of each company’s marketing team is subject to change as the industry evolves, and you may be apprehensive about the direction you wish to pursue. In order to assist you in determining the position for which you are most well-suited, I have provided a comprehensive overview of nine prevalent marketing roles, the responsibilities of those in those roles, and the steps you can take to begin the process of pursuing that career. I have experience in various forms of marketing, such as content marketing and social media, and have sought guidance from other marketers, including former colleagues at Contently, to gain a deeper understanding of their responsibilities.
During the process of determining which area of expertise to pursue, it is important to maintain an open-minded perspective, as many of these areas overlap and require similar skills and qualities.
Search for all marketing positions.
1. Marketing through social media
It is not uncommon for individuals to attribute a brand’s off-color remark on a social media platform to “the intern running the Twitter account.” However, no responsible company would entrust the management of a brand’s Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feeds to an inexperienced intern. In reality, the social media staff of a larger brand is likely to be larger, with a greater number of senior-level marketers responsible for the brand’s social strategy.
I have experience working in social media strategy for brands such as Walmart, Amazon Prime Video, and Lionsgate Films. I have learned from each experience that social media marketers are frequently expected to consider themselves editorial professionals first, and brand strategists second. Even if a tweet is consistent with the brand, it is rendered pointless to all readers if it is composed in a manner that is either tedious or, in some cases, objectionable.
Although a social media marketer posts content that is informed by a brand’s style guide, it is crucial to recognize that they are not merely composing copy for the duration of the day. They are collaborating with other marketers to determine how a social strategy can support a brand’s other work, preparing an analysis of engagement data, planning future campaigns and approaches based on that analysis, and engaging with a brand’s audience in real time. Additionally, they frequently have ambitious KPIs (key performance indicators) to achieve.
Creating a professional online presence is the initial step in the process of pursuing a career as a social media marketer. You may also consider working on a project basis for small businesses or brands in order to develop a portfolio of multimedia elements and social copy. If that is not feasible, you may create a simulated social media strategy for a brand that you venerate, similar to a prospective television writer composing a spec script.
2. Email Marketing
Due to social media algorithms, only a small percentage of an account’s audience will be able to view their social media content. Consequently, organizations pursue alternative strategies to engage the majority of their target audience. The marketing industry continues to value email as a valuable commodity due to the fact that the subscriber base of a newsletter has opted in to the brand’s messaging. It is an inherently more confined and inquisitive audience, and email marketers who are able to capitalize on the opportunity to connect with users in their inboxes can achieve significant success.
Working in email marketing necessitates a delicate balance between editorial strategy and data analysis. You are frequently responsible for the following tasks: curating blog posts and links for inclusion in newsletters or promotions for subscribers, utilizing an email service provider to create and launch campaigns, monitoring open rates, click-through rates, and subscriber numbers, and conducting A/B tests and other experiments to enhance performance.
Independent email publications such as TheSkimm are excellent examples to examine if you are interested in email marketing. Additionally, you can subscribe to newsletters from publications such as The New York Times Cooking and brands like General Electric.
Additionally, you may acquire experience by initiating your own newsletter. It is as though the email newsletter is on the brink of becoming the new blog, as platforms such as Mailchimp and Substack have become increasingly popular among writers. Free of charge, it is possible to initiate a consistent correspondence with subscribers, acquiring a comprehensive understanding of each platform as you progress. In this manner, you will possess a portfolio of work prior to submitting an application for an email marketing position.
3. Brand Management
A brand manager ensures that the brand persona of a company or product line is realized by overseeing all aspects of communication, including internal and external ones. A brand persona is a compilation of customer experiences and messaging that conveys a company’s narrative (similar to the information you encountered on the “About” page a decade ago) across all platforms. Henry Bruce, former VP of Marketing at Contently, defines brand management as the comprehensive representation of the organization in the marketplace. A brand manager is accountable for the simultaneous maintenance of all four components of a brand persona: voice, tone, appearance, and feel.
In larger organizations, it is probable that a brand manager will be assigned to a specific brand or product line within the organization. For instance, this brand manager at Staples is responsible for the company’s TRU RED line. However, the same concepts are applicable.
Brand management is a profession that is partially creative and partially project management. According to Adrienne Todd, the communication manager at Celonis, a process mining company, brand management necessitates organizational skills and the ability to motivate and incentivize colleagues in various departments. “It is a fundamental principle of marketing that no single marketer is capable of (or should be capable of) carrying out a task independently,” she elaborates. “You must collaborate with designers, copywriters, digital marketers, marketing operations, and others, and this coordination is not an automatic process nor does it come naturally to individuals.”
Breaking into brand management is nearly impossible without any marketing experience. However, if you are a marketer who is already seeking to advance, consider volunteering for corporate strategy initiatives at your office. When interviewing for a brand manager position, it is important to be able to demonstrate a variety of scenarios in which you have put out a fire for a company, reworked a brand’s messaging to appeal to a specific audience, or developed a project with multiple team members.
4. Copywriting and Content Marketing
Content marketers are the authors and designers that brands employ to generate content in a manner similar to that of publishers or media companies. It is straightforward, correct?
According to Jordan Teicher, the editor-in-chief at Contently and a content marketer, the capacity to convey a narrative is essential for the position. “The hard sell is disliked by the majority of consumers,” he clarifies. “Narrative is a creative medium that engages and challenges consumers.” In recent years, marketers who compose blog posts, internal documents, e-books, PowerPoint presentations, op-eds, speeches, and other types of content have begun to focus their efforts on the concept of storytelling.
Before your content marketing career takes off, you may still require an education in branded storytelling, even if you are a proficient writer and marketer. Additionally, this is entirely typical. “Marketers can enhance their abilities by reading books that explore the mechanics of storytelling.” Although it may appear straightforward to recount a narrative, Teicher asserts that it is effortless to overlook the importance of the narrative when one’s primary objective is to promote a product. “Consequently, dedicate time to investigating the components of a compelling narrative.” Afterward, take a step back and evaluate the purpose of the narrative while you are listening to your preferred podcast or viewing television. You will begin to replicate this behavior in your own work after a period of practice.
The primary requirement for entering the field of content marketing is the ability to write. A substantial amount. You must demonstrate to recruiting managers that you are enthusiastic about the written word by composing a variety of materials, such as social media copy, video scripts, blog entries, investigative articles, zines, brochures, and fliers. While a marketing degree may appear appropriate for a content marketing position, a literature or creative writing degree will render you even more appealing as a candidate. Subsequently, it is imperative to possess an engaging narrative.
5. Product Marketing
Product marketers frequently serve as a crucial intermediary between the marketing team and their colleagues in engineering, sales, account management, customer service, and product management. They devote a significant amount of time to gaining a comprehensive comprehension of their target audience, their desires and requirements, and the process of “translating” information regarding the customer experience to those responsible for the development and promotion of a company’s products.
Product marketers must possess a high level of comfort with multitasking and collaborating with a variety of individuals in order to fulfill this set of responsibilities. They are the professionals on our list who are in the most dire need of establishing a rapport with other teams.
In Bruce’s words, “product marketing enhances the efficiency of a company’s sales team in converting interested audience members into customers.” The responsibilities of this position encompass the development and maintenance of sales playbooks and tools, sales collateral, and presentations; the execution of all product launches; the conducting of competitive/market intelligence and win/loss analysis; and the conducting of sales trainings.
Study the corporate success tales of brands that have rallied around a single eye-catching product, such as the Apples, Nikes, and Glossiers of the world, if you are interested in product marketing. Learn about the process of product development and promotion. Engage with product marketers within your organization or identify individuals to contact through your network. Ensure that your writing abilities are maintained at a high level. Additionally, if you are unable to locate any prior experience in the development of product marketing work for brands, you may generate your own materials on a custom basis.
6. Growth Marketing and Marketing Analysis
Engaging in a discourse with a contemporary marketer without discussing data is a challenging endeavor. In order to succeed, a marketer in any of the sectors on our list must have a basic understanding of numerical calculations. However, analysts are dependent on a company’s data. A marketing analyst or growth marketer is a professional who is dedicated to the internal presentation of their findings and the distillation and analysis of a company’s data in order to inform the marketing strategy of the organization.
For instance, suppose that you are employed at Walmart and your team has been assigned the responsibility of establishing a new blog for consumers. As an analyst, you may examine anonymous data collected by the brand’s web team, determine that the majority of individuals who read about Walmart products are women aged 30 to 50, and observe that the majority of users read during the day. You may determine that Walmart’s new blog should be targeted toward stay-at-home mothers. In this scenario, you would present your findings to the team and encourage them to become enthusiastic about this new demographic.
John Fernandez, senior vice president of marketing at Glia and a data-driven marketing analyst, asserts that “the individual who controls the numbers controls the narrative.” “As marketers, we are innate storytellers, which is why a marketer who is equipped with data is virtually unbeatable at the executive and board level.” In order to present a compelling argument, it is essential to be at ease with statistics.
By concentrating on growth marketing, you can further specialize once you have become an expert in the use of data and narrative. This is a segment of marketing analysis that conducts rapid growth initiatives in terms of users, customers, and/or revenue. Based on the outcomes of these nimble investigations, it provides recommendations to a company’s internal team.
For instance, if your supervisor assigns you the responsibility of enhancing the opportunity win rate of a company (the percentage of potential customers who actually make a purchase out of the total pool of potential customers), you will examine a variety of factors to ascertain the areas in which potential customers are deviating. Is the company’s purchasing process logical? Consider conducting an experiment to determine whether altering the arrangement of fields motivates a greater number of potential customers to finalize their transaction. Are the brand’s promotional emails inciting consumers to make purchases? You may collaborate with an email marketer to analyze the results of various messages, send times, and other variables in order to determine the most effective approach.
If you are seeking an entry-level position in growth marketing or marketing analysis, you may possess a degree or coursework in statistics, business, marketing, or other quantitative and technical fields. Additionally, it is imperative that you arrive at an interview with the ability to demonstrate both your quantitative and qualitative abilities. You should possess examples of brand messaging that you have customized for a particular audience. However, as your math teacher always advised, it is important to demonstrate your work. You must demonstrate your ability to synthesize specific types of information, such as user data, with your own ideas, and develop a promotional strategy based on the results. In order to exhibit those abilities, design your own experiments and write about them on a personal blog, or conduct a survey and visualize the data in an engaging manner, regardless of whether you have previously employed them.
7. Public Relations and Communications
Like numerous other positions on this list, a marketer who concentrates on corporate communications or public relations will collaborate with event marketers, content marketers, and social media marketers. PR representatives are frequently assigned the responsibility of promoting the content that a company’s marketers generate, as well as the brand and company as a whole. In order to perform their duties efficiently, they are frequently anticipated to possess a strong professional network upon entering a position.
As a communications professional, you will likely be responsible for the drafting of numerous press releases and the cultivation of relationships with industry journalists who may find your company’s updates to be noteworthy. In the field of public relations, you will be in constant communication with potential stakeholders, journalists, guest speakers, and communications professionals, whether through phone calls or at corporate events. Additionally, it will be necessary to be able to minimize certain aspects of your organization’s history while simultaneously generating enthusiasm for others. You may also attempt to ghostwrite op-eds for your company’s executives and submit them to prestigious publications if you possess the necessary writing skills.
To secure a position in public relations, it is important to establish a portfolio of work by conducting promotional work on a modest scale (e.g., for a friend’s side venture or a local political campaign). It is crucial to demonstrate the scope and depth of your abilities. Test your speechwriting abilities, generate promotional prose, and utilize your network in innovative ways to generate publicity.
8. Event Marketing
The event marketer’s focus is significantly influenced by the organization’s overarching objective. If you specialize in event marketing, you may find yourself thinking of viral “experiential” marketing tactics. These are the types of pop-ups that are popular on Instagram and are present in cities throughout the country. Think of public spectacles, mascot characters, pop-up shops, scavenger searches, and Red Bull’s Flugtag competition; these are all examples of event marketing.
Nevertheless, if your organization offers products to other businesses rather than consumers, you may become involved in the design of displays for corporate trade shows, the scanning of attendee credentials, the follow-up on potential leads, and the use of pamphlets, one-sheets, corporate souvenirs, and business cards.
This position necessitates exceptional interpersonal abilities. As an event marketer, you may also need to spend a significant amount of your working hours on the road, whether you are launching a company’s presence at a trade show or meeting with clients alongside your company’s customer service representatives. This necessitates resilience, a talent for organization, and a desire to collaborate with a variety of professionals.
In order to secure an entry-level position in event marketing, consider volunteering to assist in the organization of any social event, whether it be a series of movie evenings for a student organization on your college campus or for a networking group in your city or town. Promotions, social media campaigns, and team communications are considered portfolio-worthy. Additionally, it is important to emphasize your capacity to remain composed in high-pressure situations, engage in conversation with acquaintances, and contribute to any task that is assigned to you.
9. E-commerce and SEO/SEM
The concept of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) is that the majority of potential consumers conduct searches on Google prior to making a purchase. SEO is the process of customizing a company’s website and marketing content to meet the needs of search engines. SEM further refines this concept by utilizing paid advertising to target potential consumers who use search engines.
The field of search is both lucrative and thrilling, as the algorithms of search engines are subject to rapid change. As an SEO or SEM professional, your daily routine is likely to undergo significant changes. Marketers who specialize in SEO are constantly striving to align a company’s online strategy with a series of algorithms that Google and other companies may modify at any given moment. It is akin to pursuing a dragon, in that obtaining a satisfying search result can be addictive.
It is also possible to specialize in e-commerce as a marketer, which is a combination of product marketing, content marketing, and search engine marketing. E-commerce professionals supervise all online financial transactions between a company and its consumer base, including web stores and paid memberships. In essence, you will want to captivate readers with curated product lists and explainers, and you will also want to include links to the products you are describing in your copy. It is probable that your organization will generate affiliate revenue when readers click on these hyperlinks.
Despite the fact that marketers who specialize in SEO are certainly in demand, it is now nearly essential for any communications professional to have a basic understanding of search engine tactics. Google’s training programs have been made instantaneously accessible to anyone who desires them, which is fortunate for marketers. This means that the most comprehensive education in SEO and SEM is available at no cost. Google’s videos and tutorials are somewhat dull; however, the program’s certificate of completion serves as an excellent resume enhancement. Take your time.
If you are captivated by search, you may be able to expand your initial knowledge and potentially transition into a specialization in SEO or SEM, particularly if you are willing to peruse publications such as the SEMRush blog and Hubspot Academy. Developing a personal website and practicing the fundamental components of an SEO strategy is an additional effective method for refining and showcasing your expanding skill set. You will be able to demonstrate to a recruiting manager how you modified your website to increase traffic.
