Marketing has changed dramatically in the last five years; it is no longer a function in a department. Marketing of companies, products, and brands has become an all-encompassing role. This integration is critical in every aspect and touchpoint a business has with its staff, customers, and suppliers.
With all of these avenues opening up employment opportunities, marketing degree graduates are becoming sought-after commodities for a company.
Here are some of the new job roles you can consider with your newly acquired degree.
Marketing Analyst
Firstly, an online presence has become key in 2020. Over the last ten years, brands have been using online tools to listen to their customer’s requirements. Using listening tools, brands can do customer research quicker and more effectively than ever before.
Why is this important?
Understanding consumer needs and developing products to service those needs is what separates success from failure. Taking products to market in the hope that there is a need is no longer a strategy companies can afford to implement. This is where a Marketing Analyst comes to play. It will be your job to research how the company’s target audience acts and where and how the company can market to them. In a nutshell, you will tell your company, who would want to buy their product, the best places they’d look for the product, their competitors, and what price they’d be willing to pay for it.
Being interested in research, consumer behaviour, and product development is key to this business role. Coupled with a detailed understanding of marketing implementation, it can be the winning formula.
Marketing analysts will also be required to evaluate trends and make recommendations to the companies on a change of direction if necessary. Having a love for numbers, graphs, analytics, and insights is a must for this role.
Product Marketing Associate
Companies launch new products regularly. They aim their messages at multiple target market segments and on several channels. Product Marketing Associate manages the process from start to finish, from development to launching a new product into the market. They work to ensure the brands and products are consistent, aligned with the company’s values, and have the same tone across all platforms.
Sounds fancy, but what does it mean? Essentially a Product Marketing Associates will be in charge of getting customers attention and feedback, the positioning of the product or service and the branding of the company. It will be their responsibility to market and convert customers into loyal fans of the product. Product Marketing Associate will be in charge of acquiring new customers, increasing brand engagement, and maintaining retention of the relationships you’ve built with the customers.
Often, larger companies use multiple service providers or agencies to supply their marketing collateral. From product labels, adverts, messages on all the platforms, etc., which can turn into a fruit salad of messages and branding elements in no time. For this role, you want to ensure you have great writing skills to market the product online well, and even better presentation skills to pitch your product.
Digital Marketing Associates
In 2020, it’s safe to say that nearly everything is on its way to one or more digital sites. This can leave many of the senior members of current marketing teams who are not proficient in digital marketing on the back foot.
Cue your Digital Marketing Associates and Managers. Digital marketing is one of the most sought-after positions in the market. Every company is looking to improve its digital marketing presence as soon as possible.
However, digital marketing is not only about being able to post on social media here and there. It is about applying everything, including consumer behaviour and trigger points alongside the analytics and insights on campaigns on digital platforms to increase brand awareness, engagement, and conversions.
The world of marketing is constantly shifting to new and latest practices, and this is especially true for digital marketing. Strategies and implementation practices are always evolving there, and if you are not afraid of constant change and love to learn new things every day, specializing in Digital Marketing is an ideal position for you.
There are many specialities in this field. The more technical roles like web development, Google marketing, or SEO can suit someone who loves to solve problems. Creative opportunities are more along the lines of content producers for websites, blogs, podcasts, and social media channels. Other creative roles would be public relations managers, advertising managers, or brand managers.
There are opportunities for everyone, from the more analytical to the creative. It is all about finding your niche.
PR & Brand Marketing Associate
With a degree in marketing, you don’t have to necessarily focus on ensuring that “marketing” is in the title. You can choose a slightly different avenue that encompasses marketing and communications – Public Relations or brand marketing.
As a PR Associate, you will be in charge of how the outside world perceives the brand. You will be focused on where you can get the word out on your company, crafting press releases, and developing relationships to help further your brand. For a PR Associate, you will need to have excellent communication and writing skills, a knack for crisis management, proficiency in social media and email marketing and the ability to work with or manage multiple projects and people.
In the role of Brand Marketing, it will be your responsibility to ensure your company is creating and maintaining a consistent brand “voice” online and offline. You may be in charge of boosting campaigns designed to increase brand awareness such as lead ads, newsletters and social media channels. Similar to a PR Associate, you will need to have excellent communication and writing skills and an eye for detail!
Social Media Associate
Another avenue your marketing degree allows you to consider is becoming a Social media Associate. The explosion of social media channels in the last few years and the constant development of more every year has opened up job opportunities to specialize in social media marketing. Contrary to popular belief, running your own Facebook or Instagram page is not the job function. Understanding consumers, trends, analytics, campaign management, budgets, AB testing, and a willingness to work long and random hours is required to fill this role. Since social media is 24/7, if you want a 9-5 job, don’t look here. Social Media Managers need to be adaptable, quick on their feet and make changes and decisions on the fly. If you are bold and don’t mind change, this may be a good fit for you.
Business Leadership and Management
If a career in management is what you are looking for, then using your Marketing Degree to get you onto the leadership path is a good start—understanding that this is a process may take many years to achieve. Leading teams takes more than theory. A willingness to continually learn and develop yourself is as essential as developing employees’ teams to perform at their optimum levels. Additional labour law requirements, communications, skills development, and even soft skills like heightened EQ are needed to rock this role.
Consider supplementary business degrees or even an MBA as follow up learning options.
Final Thoughts
Having a marketing degree allows you to be quite versatile on which career path you choose after graduation. You can go into advertising, copywriting, business development, and more. Whatever industry you go into, you will be able to gain transferrable skills and move to another part of the marketing industry.
If you decide that marketing isn’t for you – your previous experience as a marketer will still set you up for success!
What are some other jobs roles you’d like to do with your marketing degree? Let us know in the comments below!
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