Marketing Professions

Information compiled by the GradSchools.com team - last updated December 2010

Do you know what people want? Marketing may be the career for you.

Brand management

The core of brand work is brand strategy. Brand managers must decide how to increase market share, which markets and demographic groups to target, and what types of advertising and special promotions to use. And at the very heart of brand strategy is identifying a product’s “brand identity.” Brand groups then figure out how to exploit brand strategy, or, in some cases, how to change it. For example, Coach has taken its traditionally-styled, high-quality brand of leather goods and turned it into a high-fashion purveyor of not only handbags but clothes, accessories and shoes. TBS, a popular cable television network, rebranded itself as the “very funny” channel featuring reruns of “Sex and the City,” “Seinfeld,” “Friends” and “Everybody Loves Raymond.” In both cases, the brands have benefited from a shift in brand identity, and consequently, a shift in their market.

Brand identity is normally created and confirmed through traditional print, radio, and TV advertising. Advertising is usually produced by outside agencies, although brand insiders determine the emphasis and target of the advertising. In a typical brand management organizational structure, positions are developed around responsibility for a particular product rather than a specific functional expertise (i.e. you’re an assistant brand manager for Cheerios). This structure enables you to be the “master of all trades,” acquiring an expertise in areas such as manufacturing, sales, research and development, and communications.

In brand management, the marketing function is responsible for key general management decisions such as long-term business strategy, pricing, product development direction and, in some cases, profit and loss responsibility. Brand management offers a terrific way to learn intensively about a particular product category (you could be a recognized expert on tampons!) and to manage the responsibility of running a business and influencing its performance. Some liken a brand manager to a hub at the center of a hub and spoke system,with the spokes going out to departments like finance, sales, manufacturing, R&D, etc. It is the job of the brand manager to influence the performance of those groups - over whom he or she has no direct authority - in order to optimize the performance of his or her brand or product line.

Communications - other

This is a broad industry term that covers a number of different jobs and career paths, all of which center around the principle of - you guessed it - communication. People in communications are the interface between organization and public. If you have a way with words and the gift of gab, Chatty Cathy, this might just be the field for you.

Customer database management

The keepers of the customer database management systems must be fairly adept at computer programming and data manipulation (segmenting, profiling, producing lists and analytics). The department is related to that of customer relationship management, but deals more strictly with a system's capacity and capabilities, and depends on the input of top-quality data (i.e. contact information plus demographic stat plus buying habits, etc.).

Customer relationship management

The keepers of the customer relationship management (CRM) systems must have a decent programming background, but probably have more marketing smarts than those in customer database management. A successful CRM director uses stored data to keep current clients engaged while targeting prospectives, hopefully in new and inventive ways. However, the CRM approach to tracking contacts and activities isn't strictly limited to sales; CRM techniques can be used to improve areas such as billing and order fulfillment, as well as back-end relationships with vendors.

Customer service

As a customer service representative, you are the direct point of contact between the customer and the company, and it is your job to make sure that customers – whether individuals or companies – get whatever help they require. Communication happens via telephone, email, fax, regular mail or in person and representatives may handle general, routine issues or specify in a specific area of expertise. Generally, only a high school diploma is required, but an associate or bachelor’s degree might prove necessary as employers become more demanding in the current economic climate.

Direct mail management

Direct Mail Marketers obtain customer databases and buy or rent mailing lists from list compilers to target the most likely consumers of their client/company’s product or service. They then oversee the development, printing, packaging, sorting and mailing of a marketing communication piece such as a catalog, postcard or mailer.

Direct marketing

Direct marketing truly means what it says: it is any marketing that is directed specifically to you. In industry terms, it is commonly referred to as ‘one to one’ marketing, whereas television, print, billboards, etc. are referred to as ‘one to many.’ Pottery Barn, for example, sends you a catalog. Amazon.com sends you an e-mail announcing a promotion. These are sent to you directly because you fit a certain set of criteria that they have defined as their target market.

Product marketers determine these criteria through demographics, psychographics and by using third-party customer databases. Let’s say you just purchased some dishes at Williams-Sonoma and you signed up for their catalog. Williams-Sonoma also owns Pottery Barn, and the folks at Pottery Barn think you might be interested in purchasing some other furnishings for your home. That’s how you came home to a Pottery Barn catalog in your mailbox. At Amazon.com, you browsed for some books and placed some in your shopping cart. Based on what books you purchased, you received specific offers for products that other people who bought similar books also purchased.

Those offers are sent to you directly based on your specific behavior. That is the goal of direct marketing - speaking to the specific user in a more targeted way. Unlike some brand marketing, the effect of which can be difficult to measure, direct marketing allows you to see the results of any particular campaign by its response rate. (Believe it or not, in many cases, one percent is considered a very good return!) Like brand marketing, however, direct marketing can be expensive.

Division information officer

A divisional executive who is responsible for managing his/her company’s technologies. He/she is responsible for taking note of how these technologies can be beneficial to his/her department. Ultimately, the DIO’s goal is to improve his department’s output while keeping costs low and increasing profit.

Division marketing executive

This person is in charge of marketing his/her department’s products or services. It is essential that the Division Marketing Executive knows all about the department’s products or services, as well as market trends. This person should be good at networking and should utilize his/her contacts to sell the department or company’s product.

Economics / market research analyst

Research Analysts are the people who actually design the surveys and other procedures, such as commercials, promotions and brochures, that serve to obtain the consumer data their companies need. They compile and evaluate the data and use their findings to make suggestions to their client or company. At least a bachelor's degree is required.

Event marketing

Most simply, event marketing handles promotion and practical arrangements for events such as seminars, corporate meetings and the like. In other situations, it means promoting brand awareness -- securing customer engagement and media attention -- through "buzz" events or stunts. Two examples would be Levi's "white" promotion held in Times Square, and a bed-jumping exhibition sponsored by InterContinental Hotels to announce a contest with 5 million free rooms available. Event marketers must be organized, detail-oriented and ultra-creative.

Interactive marketing

The new version of the old term "customer engagement" is interactive marketing. Marketing managers proficient in this discipline get their customers to invest in the product psychologically by, say, incorporating their favorite recipes into the community area of a food related website, getting their colleagues to sign up for promotions, or using Twitter to alert their friends when they use the product. (Or think of it as, "Let's pull the customer towards us with clever emotional appeals," versus the outdated "Let's push all manner of traditional advertising toward them and see if they bite.")

Market research

Market researchers gather statistical data, survey responses and other information on consumer opinion, which is used to help companies properly market their products and figure out what people want and at what price. At least a bachelor's degree is required, and more opportunities will abound for those with a master's or PhD in marketing or a related field.

Marketing communications

In this role, you support your agency and client by conducting research, preparing client reports, and collecting industry intelligence. Additionally, you’d work with the client and creative team to help address the client’s needs. A bachelor’s degree is the norm for most entry level positions.

Marketing strategy

Marketing Strategy refers to the part of a business plan geared towards getting your company’s or client’s products and services to the consumer. A marketing strategy should be centered around the key concept that customer satisfaction is the main goal. In this role, you will have to research the target market and competition, understand the product expertly, and oversee pricing, distribution, advertising/promotion and market timing.

Marketing / product management - other

Product managers develop products and then create marketing strategies using input from clients, sales tracking data, and research on the competition. The aim of a product manager is to build and strengthen a brand.

New product development

This is a process creating a new product or service, putting it together, doing market research, and prepping the product/service for sale. As with so many aspects of marketing, the product development team’s goal is to keep their development costs low and make a profit off their new product/service.

Product development

Use creative and analytical skills to develop and plan marketing strategies. Market research, sales forecasting and promotional planning are vital components.

Product management

Product managers develop products and then create marketing strategies using input from clients, sales tracking data, and research on the competition. The aim of a product manager is to build and strengthen a brand.

Promotions

Promotions managers create programs geared to increase sales through advertising and purchase incentives. They utilize various methods such as direct mail, telemarketing, traditional advertising, in-store displays, contests, coupons, discounts and special events to establish closer contact with purchasers. Some travel may be required. Extremely creative college graduates with related experience and strong communications skills will have the best job prospects.