What does a Marketing Manager do?

Marketing managers analyze industry trends and demand for products and services then create a strategy to market the product or service. They often collaborate with sales engineers, financial staff, and advertising companies to ensure they have a successful strategy to implement. They would oversee their marketing strategy from start to finish and gather data surrounding it’s effectiveness.

How to Become a Marketing Manager

Though it is not a prerequisite, marketing managers often hold a bachelor’s degree in a related field, such as marketing, advertising, or communications. Since this position leads projects, people, and manages budget, business courses may also prove helpful. Since this is a leadership position, the candidate would also be expected to have experience in the industry.

Job Description of a Marketing Manager

Marketing managers may prepare estimates and budgets to run a marketing campaign and submit them for approval to their client. They may also work with advertising agencies and be involved in the negotiation and preparation of sales and advertising contracts. In addition, they would review any advertising material created, such as tv commercials, online advertisements, or print material for quality and effectiveness purposes.

Marketing managers must have a solid knowledge of various communication and marketing techniques and would also want to know their product’s intended audience. It would be important to be socially perceptive to understand the reasons people react as they do.

Free Teacher and Student Resources

Teachers: The Institute for Humane Education offers free activities for teachers (link opens in a new tab) to will help you teach advertising to students. Enjoy!

Free Marketing Course

Babson College offers a free Customer Centric Marketing for Entrepreneurs course on EdX.org (opens in a new tab) with the option to pay a small fee receive a verified certificate upon completion of the course.

By taking this course, you’ll learn:

• How to use customer discovery tools to identify market needs, problems and opportunities.
• Create customer profiles and personas that help you identify the right marketing channels to reach your customers.
• Respond to evolving customer needs using personal, digital, social and mobile spheres.
• Develop content and messaging that directly addresses consumer needs and drives brand excitement.
• Develop key performance indicators (KPIs), metrics and milestones to measure the success of your campaign.