Education & Career Trends: May 24, 2024
Curated by the Knowledge Team of ICS Career GPS
- Excerpts are taken from an article published on indeed.com.
Marketing can help brands increase consumer engagement and awareness, which can lead to growth. If marketing interests you, there are many career paths you can choose. Effectively providing pathways for brands to reach higher returns on investments is valuable, but it may take specific knowledge or skills.
Marketing is the practice of promoting brands, products or services. It can include many specialised areas of expertise, such as brand or communications management. The specific tasks you engage in may depend on your role. For example, a marketing advertisement buyer might have different daily duties than a marketing social media manager. Common duties marketing professionals or teams might handle are:
- Buying advertisement placements
- Developing promotional campaigns
- Maintaining social media platforms
- Managing strategic communications
- Implementing brand updates
9 Career Paths in Marketing
If you’re interested in starting or growing your career in marketing, there are many career paths to consider. Here are nine examples of common marketing career paths:
1. Public Relations Specialist
Public relations specialists work to maintain positive perceptions about the brands they manage or the individuals they represent. For example, if a brand or individual is hosting a public event, you might promote it through various media channels to persuade people to attend. Other specific duties you may handle in this role are:
- Writing and helping present official press releases
- Understanding the client’s target audiences and using the best approaches to engage them
- Answering media questions and providing information
- Helping clients maintain positive relationships with the public through strategic communications
- Arranging promotional interviews for clients
- Assisting with fundraising efforts or donor relations
2. Market Research Analyst
Market research analysts help brands better understand target audiences to ensure they produce informed products or services and promotional efforts. This can include conducting different research sessions with consumers, such as:
- Collaborative focus groups
- Independent surveys
- Individual empathy interviews
For research, you may need to produce structured protocols prior to the sessions to share them with participants. This is important if you plan to record your sessions to complete permission forms. Once you’ve gathered your research, you can analyse the data to determine common consumer trends, thoughts or feelings.
3. Paid Advertising Buyer
Paid advertising buyers work to identify and purchase advertisement placements for brands. These advertisements can be traditional, digital or both. Here are some examples of the placements you might buy:
- Newspaper or magazine print advertisements
- Television or radio commercials
- Website advertisements
- Streaming service advertisements
- Social media promoted posts or advertisements
To determine what advertisements are best to purchase, you can reference market research or current consumer trends about your target audiences.
4. Media Coordinator
Media coordinators usually focus on making sure the brand has all the multimedia assets it needs for its promotional efforts. For example, if a brand purchased an upcoming commercial slot, a media coordinator might help produce the commercial or coordinate video production and editing operations. Some examples of other media types these coordinators can manage include:
- Digital designs for graphics
- Print banners or signage
- Photography for images
These professionals may work directly with designers, print producers, photographers and videographers. Usually, media coordinators work in all specialised teams in marketing departments to ensure all assets are ready when needed.
5. Brand Strategist
Brand strategists typically work under the direction of brand managers to ensure all brand communications and visuals meet style guidelines effectively. Examples of duties you might manage in this position include:
- Developing style and tone for your brand
- Researching competitor brands
- Referencing research about consumer perceptions of your brand
- Collaborating with other marketing teams to meet brand goals
- Implementing brand updates or comprehensive refreshes as needed
If you work in a marketing agency, you can also present unique brand strategies to each of your clients to help guide their brands to higher levels of success. The primary goal of a brand strategist is to grow brand awareness and increase customer bases through the strategic positioning of brands.
6. Promotions Director
Promotions directors work to develop strong marketing campaigns to reach and engage target audiences. Specific duties these professionals might manage include:
- Developing promotional campaigns
- Consulting with external clients or other internal marketing teams
- Implementing promotional campaigns
Another duty is establishing promotional budgets yearly to ensure that marketing teams avoid overspending on campaigns. You can collaborate with financial teams within the company you work for internally or within your client’s company.
7. Digital Marketing Strategist
Digital marketing strategists focus on strategically placing brands in online spaces. For example, you might manage analytics for your brand’s website. Other types of duties you can manage in this role include:
- Documenting web-based analytics
- Designing web-based advertisements
- Implementing updates on brand websites
- Managing strategic email communications and campaigns
Typically, as a strategist, you can also use search engine optimisation (SEO) best practices to help ensure all digital content is searchable for target audiences. For example, if digital content uses SEO, then it may show up in more search results and allow more consumers to engage.
8. Social Media Manager
Social media managers oversee a brand’s social media accounts, including posts and interactions. Some daily tasks you might perform in this role are:
- Creating diverse content for all social media platforms
- Posting content to social media accounts
- Interacting with followers
- Monitoring how consumers mention your brand
- Researching current social media content trends
If you’re working as a social media manager, you may consider using various resources. For example, maintaining a content calendar can help you organise content by date and platform as you develop posts. You might also use scheduling tools to arrange posts for release in advance or social media listening software to monitor mentions of your brand.
9. Account Executive
Account executives manage client accounts and relations. Primarily, you can find these roles in marketing agencies because their business model focuses on serving multiple clients at a time. Duties you can expect to engage in as an account executive include:
- Facilitating meetings with clients about brand marketing
- Strategising how to stay within client budgets and meet their needs
- Presenting plans or providing updates to clients
- Communicating as a liaison between clients and other marketing teams
Another duty you might handle is maintaining strong customer partnerships over long periods of time. This can entail answering the client’s emails, communicating with them throughout the production process and addressing any potential content concerns. If you have good communication and organisational skills, then being an account executive career may be ideal for you.
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Have you checked out yesterday’s blog yet?
Three Different Types of Careers in Finance
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article mentioned above are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ICS Career GPS or its staff.)
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