Marketing manager

Marketing managers carry out the implementation of efforts related to the marketing operations in a company. They develop marketing strategies and plans by detailing cost and resources needed. They analyse the profitability of these plans, develop pricing strategies, and strive to raise awareness on products and companies among targeted customers.

The following job titles also refer to marketing manager:

promotions manager
product marketing manager
sales and marketing manager
market manager
advertising sales manager
marketing executive
telemarketing manager
market development manager
marketing and promotions manager
marketing director

Bachelor’s degree is generally required to work as marketing manager. However, this requirement may differ in some countries.

ISCO skill level is defined as a function of the complexity and range of tasks and duties to be performed in an occupation. It is measured on a scale from 1 to 4, with 1 the lowest level and 4 the highest, by considering:

• the nature of the work performed in an occupation in relation to the characteristic tasks and duties
• the level of formal education required for competent performance of the tasks and duties involved and
• the amount of informal on-the-job training and/or previous experience in a related occupation required for competent performance of these tasks and duties.

Marketing manager is a Skill level 4 occupation.

These occupations, although different, require a lot of knowledge and skills similar to marketing manager.

category manager
promotion manager
sales manager
chief marketing officer
marketeer

These occupations require some skills and knowledge of marketing manager. They also require other skills and knowledge, but at a higher ISCO skill level, meaning these occupations are accessible from a position of marketing manager with a significant experience and/or extensive training.

This knowledge should be acquired through learning to fulfill the role of marketing manager.

Pricing strategies: The techniques, theories, and commonly accepted strategies regarding pricing of goods. The relation between pricing strategies and outcomes in the market such as profitability maximisation, deterrence of newcomers, or increase of market share.
Corporate social responsibility: The handling or managing of business processes in a responsible and ethical manner considering the economic responsibility towards shareholders as equally important as the responsibility towards environmental and social stakeholders.
Market research: The processes, techniques, and purposes comprised in the first step for developing marketing strategies such as the collection of information about customers and the definition of segments and targets.
Brand marketing techniques: The methods and systems used in researching and establishing a brand identity for marketing purposes.
Content marketing strategy: The process of creation and share of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers.
Marketing mix: Principle of marketing that describes the four fundamental elements in marketing strategies which are the product, the place, the price and the promotion.
Market pricing: Price volatility according to market and price elasticity, and the factors which influence pricing trends and changes in the market in the long and short term.

These skills are necessary for the role of marketing manager.

Integrate strategic foundation in daily performance: Reflect on the strategic foundation of companies, meaning their mission, vision, and values in order to integrate this foundation in the performance of the job position.
Plan marketing strategy: Determine the objective of the marketing strategy whether it is for establishing image, implementing a pricing strategy, or raising awareness of the product. Establish approaches of marketing actions to ensure that goals are achieved efficiently and over a long term.
Study sales levels of products: Collect and analyse sales levels of products and services in order to use this information for determining the quantities to be produced in the following batches, customer feedback, price trends, and the efficiency of sales methods.
Evaluate marketing content: Revise, assess, align, and approve marketing material and content defined in the marketing plan. Evaluate written word, images, print or video advertisements, public speeches, and statements in accordance with the marketing objectives.
Manage profitability: Review on a regular basis sales and profit performance.
Create annual marketing budget: Make the calculation of both the income and expenditures that are expected to be paid over the coming year concerning the marketing related activities such as advertising, selling and delivering products to people.
Analyse consumer buying trends: Analyse buying habits or currently prevalent customer behaviour.
Define measurable marketing objectives: Outline the measurable performance indicators of the marketing plan such as market share, customer value, brand awareness, and sales revenues. Follow up on the progress of these indicators during the development of the marketing plan.
Track key performance indicators: Identify the quantifiable measures that a company or industry uses to gauge or compare performance in terms of meeting their operational and strategic goals, using preset performance indicators.
Coordinate marketing plan actions: Manage the overview of the marketing actions such as the marketing planning, internal financial resource granting, advertising materials, implementation, control, and communication efforts.
Analyse internal factors of companies: Research and understand various internal factors that influence the operation of companies such as its culture, strategic foundation, products, prices, and available resources.
Plan marketing campaign: Develop a method to promote a product through different channels, such as television, radio, print and online platforms, social media with the aim to communicate and deliver value to customers.
Impart business plans to collaborators: Diffuse, present, and communicate business plans and strategies to managers, employees making sure that objectives, actions, and important messages are properly conveyed.
Integrate marketing strategies with the global strategy: Integrate the marketing strategy and its elements such as the market definition, competitors, price strategy, and communication with the general guidelines of the global strategy of the company.
Collaborate in the development of marketing strategies: Work together with a group of professionals to develop marketing strategies performing market analysis and financial viability while staying aligned with the company’s goals.
Analyse customer service surveys: Analyse results from surveys completed by passengers/customer; analyse results to identify trends and draw conclusions.
Analyse external factors of companies: Perform research and analysis of the external factor pertaining to companies such as consumers, position in the market, competitors, and political situation.
Identify potential markets for companies: Observe and analyse market research findings in order to determine promising and profitable markets. Consider the firm’s specific advantage and match it with markets where such value proposition is missing.
Align efforts towards business development: Synchronise the efforts, plans, strategies, and actions carried out in departments of companies towards the growth of business and its turnover. Keep business development as the ultimate outcome of any effort of the company.
Perform market research: Gather, assess and represent data about target market and customers in order to facilitate strategic development and feasibility studies. Identify market trends.
Analyse work-related written reports: Read and comprehend job-related reports, analyse the content of reports and apply findings to daily work operations.

This knowledge is sometimes, but not always, required for the role of marketing manager. However, mastering this knowledge allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

Customer insight: The marketing concept referring to the deep understanding of the customer’s motivations, behaviours, beliefs, preferences, and values that help understand the reasons why the way they do. This information is then useful for commercial purposes.
Keywords in digital content: The digital tools to conduct keyword research. The information retrieval systems identify the content of a document guided by keywords and metadata.
Sales argumentation: Techniques and sales methods used in order to present a product or service to customers in a persuasive manner and to meet their expectations and needs.
International trade: The economic practise and study field that address the exchange of goods and services across geographic borders. The general theories and schools of thought around the implications of international trade in terms of exports, imports, competitivity, GDP, and role of multinational companies.
Customer segmentation: The process whereby a target market is divided into specific sets of consumers for further market analysis.
Business intelligence: The tools used to transform large amounts of raw data into relevant and helpful business information.
Web analytics: The characteristics, tools and techniques for measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of web data to get information on the users’ behaviour and to improve the performance of a website.
Telemarketing: Principles and techniques of soliciting potential customers over the phone to perform direct marketing of products or services.
Behavioural science: The investigation and analysis of subject behaviour through regulated and lifelike observations and disciplined scientific experiments.
Below-the-line technique: The marketing technique used to let consumers get into contact with products by tasting, touching and experiencing them on the selling site and in that sense, closing the selling deal.
Social media marketing techniques: The marketing methods and strategies used to increase attention and website traffic through social media channels.
Merchandising techniques: The selling techniques to attract customers and increase sales.
Social media management: The planning, development, and implementation of strategies aimed at managing social media platforms, the publications, the social media management tools, and the image of organisations in them.
Public relations: The practice of managing all aspects of the image and perception of a company or individual among stakeholders and the society at large.
Store design layout: Fundamentals in layout and store design in order to achieve an optimal product placement.
Marketing management: The academic discipline and function in an organisation which focuses on the market research, market development, and the creation of marketing campaigns to raise awareness on the company’s services and products.
Contract law: The field of legal principles that govern written agreements between parties concerning the exchange of goods or services, including contractual obligations and termination.
Market entry strategies: The ways to enter a new market and their implications, namely; exporting via representatives, franchising to third parties, collaborating joint ventures, and opening of fully-owned subsidiaries and flagships.
Project management: Understand project management and the activities which comprise this area. Know the variables implied in project management such as time, resources, requirements, deadlines, and responding to unexpected events.
Market participants: The businesses, relations and opportunities of different participants in the market.
Cost management: The process of planning, monitoring and adjusting the expenses and revenues of a business in order to achieve cost efficiency and capability.
Statistics: The study of statistical theory, methods and practices such as collection, organisation, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data. It deals with all aspects of data including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments in order to forecast and plan work-related activities.
Financial capability: Financial operations such as calculations, cost estimations, budget management taking relevant commercial and statistical data into account such as data for materials, supplies and manpower.
Accounting techniques: The techniques of recording and summarising business and financial transactions and analysing, verifying, and reporting the results.
Consumer law: The area of law that regulates the relationship between consumer and businesses providing goods or services, including consumer protection and regulations on irregular business practices.
Employment law: The law which mediates the relationship between employees and employers. It concerns employees’ rights at work which are binding by the work contract.
Channel marketing: The strategies and practices, including channel sales, that involve distributing products directly and indirectly through partners in order to bring the products to the end consumer.
Trading law: Field of law that states and regulates the affairs and legal practices for trading goods and services.
Information confidentiality: The mechanisms and regulations which allow for selective access control and guarantee that only authorised parties (people, processes, systems and devices) have access to data, the way to comply with confidential information and the risks of non-compliance.
Teamwork principles: The cooperation between people characterised by a unified commitment to achieving a given goal, participating equally, maintaining open communication, facilitating effective usage of ideas etc.
Conflict management: The practices concerning the resolution of conflicts or disputes in an organisation or institution. It encompasses reducing the negative aspects of a conflict and increasing the positive outcomes of it by learning from the errors made.
E-commerce systems: Basic digital architecture and commercial transactions for trading products or services conducted via Internet, e-mail, mobile devices, social media, etc.
Sales department processes: The different processes, duties, jargon, role in an organisation, and other specificities of the sales department within an organisation.
Online moderation techniques: The strategies and methods used to interact online and moderate online users and groups.
Authoring software: The software that provides pre-programmed elements which allow the development of interactive multimedia applications in order to edit, structure and lay out content intended for publication.
Marketing principles: The principles of managing the relationship between consumers and products or services for the purpose of increasing sales and improving advertising techniques.
Sales strategies: The principles concerning customer behaviour and target markets with the aim of promotion and sales of a product or a service.
Content development processes: The specialised techniques used to design, write, compile, edit and organise digital content, such as text, graphics and videos for publishing purposes.
Search engine optimisation: The marketing approach which promotes webpage presentation by affecting the specific structures of the website which impact its visibility in unpaid search results.
Company policies: The set of rules that govern the activity of a company.
Communication principles: The set of commonly shared principles in regards with communication such as active listening, establish rapport, adjusting the register, and respecting the intervention of others.

These skills and competences are sometimes, but not always, required for the role of marketing manager. However, mastering these skills and competences allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

Create solutions to problems: Solve problems which arise in planning, prioritising, organising, directing/facilitating action and evaluating performance. Use systematic processes of collecting, analysing, and synthesising information to evaluate current practice and generate new understandings about practice.
Perform online data analysis: Analyse online experiences and online data for purposes of understanding user behaviour, triggers of online attention, and other factors that could optimise webpage development and exposure.
Manage feedback: Provide feedback to others. Evaluate and respond constructively and professionally to critical communication from colleagues and customers.
Perform multiple tasks at the same time: Execute multiple tasks at the same time, being aware of key priorities.
Communicate with customers: Respond to and communicate with customers in the most efficient and appropriate manner to enable them to access the desired products or services, or any other help they may require.
Translate requirement concepts into content: Develop digital content by following given requirements and guidelines.
Manage schedule of tasks: Maintain an overview of all the incoming tasks in order to prioritise the tasks, plan their execution, and integrate new tasks as they present themselves.
Manage event structure installation: Plan and monitor the assembly of structures such as stages, connection to the electricity network, lighting and projection equipment. Make sure the employees work according to customer’s requirements and safety regulations.
Identify suppliers: Determine potential suppliers for further negotiation. Take into consideration aspects such as product quality, sustainability, local sourcing, seasonality and coverage of the area. Evaluate the likelihood of obtaining beneficial contracts and agreements with them.
Implement marketing strategies: Implement strategies which aim to promote a specific product or service, using the developed marketing strategies.
Ensure customer focus: Attitude that puts customers at the centre of the business in all cases.
Forecast sales over periods of time: Calculate and estimate the expected sales of products and services over different periods of time in order to determine their profitability.
Integrate headquarter’s guidelines into local operations: Understand and implement the guidelines and objectives provided by the headquarters of a company into the local management of a company or subsidiary. Adapt guidelines to the regional reality.
Perform risk analysis: Identify and assess factors that may jeopardise the success of a project or threaten the organisation’s functioning. Implement procedures to avoid or minimise their impact.
Coordinate events: Lead events by managing budget, logistics, event support, security, emergency plans and follow up.
Forecast catering services: Foresee the need, the quality, and the quantity of food and beverages for an event depending on its scope, objective, target group, and budget.
Manage budgets: Plan, monitor and report on the budget.
Motivate employees: Communicate with employees in order to ensure that their personal ambitions are in line with the business goals, and that they work to meet them.
Assist in the practical actions for developing marketing campaigns: Provide assistance and support in all the efforts and actions required to implement a marketing campaign such as contacting advertisers, preparing briefings, setting up meetings, and shopping around for suppliers.
Promote event: Generate interest in an event by carrying out promotion actions, such as placing ads or distributing flyers
Prepare exhibition marketing plan: Develop marketing plan for upcoming exhibition; design and distribute posters, flyers and catalogues; communicate ideas with photographers, graphic designers and printers; prepare articles for online and printed media; keep website and social media up-to-date.
Carry out sales analysis: Examine sales reports to see what goods and services have and have not sold well.
Manage staff: Manage employees and subordinates, working in a team or individually, to maximise their performance and contribution. Schedule their work and activities, give instructions, motivate and direct the workers to meet the company objectives. Monitor and measure how an employee undertakes their responsibilities and how well these activities are executed. Identify areas for improvement and make suggestions to achieve this. Lead a group of people to help them achieve goals and maintain an effective working relationship among staff.
Present arguments persuasively: Present arguments during a negotiation or debate, or in written form, in a persuasive manner in order to obtain the most support for the case the speaker or writer represents.
Maintain relationship with suppliers: Build a lasting and meaningful relationship with suppliers and service providers in order to establish a positive, profitable and enduring collaboration, co-operation and contract negotiation.
Use different communication channels: Make use of various types of communication channels such as verbal, handwritten, digital and telephonic communication with the purpose of constructing and sharing ideas or information.
Use content management system software: Use software that allows publishing, editing and modifying content as well as maintenance from a central interface.
Estimate profitability: Take various factors into account to calculate the cost and potential revenues or savings gained from a product in order to evaluate the profit that could be generated by the new acquisition or by a new project.
Arrange event needs: Ensure that event needs such as audio-visual equipment, displays or transportation are met.
Manage distribution channels: Oversee distribution channels with regards to the requirements of customers.
Hire human resources: Manage the process of hiring human resources, from identifying potential candidates to assessing the adequacy of their profiles to the vacancy.
Evaluate performance of organisational collaborators: Evaluate the performance and results of managers and employees considering their efficiency and effectivity at work. Consider personal and professional elements.
Research website users: Record and analyse website traffic by distributing surveys or using e-commerce and analytics. Identify the needs and preferences of target visitors in order to apply marketing strategies to increase website traffic.
Interpret financial statements: Read, understand, and interpret the key lines and indicators in financial statements. Extract the most important information from financial statements depending on the needs and integrate this information in the development of the department’s plans.
Negotiate terms with suppliers: Identify and work with suppliers to ensure quality of supply and best price has been negotiated.
Evaluate advertising campaign: Assess the performance of the advertising campaign after implementation and conclusion. Check if objectives were met and if the campaign was successful.
Apply social media marketing: Employ website traffic of social media such as Facebook and Twitter to generate attention and participation of existing and potential customers through discussion forums, web logs, microblogging and social communities for gaining a quick overview or insight into topics and opinions in the social web and handle inbound leads or inquiries.
Recruit personnel: Carry out assessment and recruitment of personnel for the production.
Organise on-site amenities: Ensure that necessary daily amenities for visitors, vendors, expositors, and public in general are given and functioning properly. Ensure provision of reception, parking, toilets, catering, and accommodation amenities.
Approve advertising campaign: Check all advertising material such as leaflets, websites, television commercials and newspaper ads to make sure they comply with the advertising strategy and customer requirements. Approve the way of distribution.
Create media plan: Determine how, where and when advertisments will be distributed in various media. Decide on consumer target group, area and marketing objectives in order to choose the media platform for advertising.
Use analytics for commercial purposes: Understand, extract and make use of patterns found in data. Use analytics to describe consistent happenings in observed samples in order to apply them to commercial plans, strategies, and corporate quests.
Abide by business ethical code of conducts: Conform and follow the ethical code of conducts promoted by companies and businesses at large. Ensure that operations and activities do comply with the code of conduct and ethical operations the supply chain throughout.
Apply strategic thinking: Apply generation and effective application of business insights and possible opportunities, in order to achieve competitive business advantage on a long-term basis.
Manage personnel: Hire and train employees to increase their value to the organisation. This includes a range of human resources activity, developing and implementing policies and processes to create an employee-supportive work environment.
Negotiate sales contracts: Come to an agreement between commercial partners with a focus on terms and conditions, specifications, delivery time, price etc.
Use theoretical marketing models: Interpret different academic theories and models of academic nature and make use of them to create the marketing strategy of the company. Employ strategies such as the 7Ps, the customer lifetime value, and the unique selling proposition (USP).
Liaise with advertising agencies: Communicate and cooperate with advertising agencies in transmitting the goals and specifications of the marketing plan. Liaise to develop an advertising and promotional campaign that represent the aim of the marketing plan.
Examine advertisement layout: Examine and approve the layout of advertisements to ensure that they are according to customer and target audience requirements and specifications.
Teach marketing principles: Instruct students in the theory and practice of marketing, with the aim of assisting them in pursuing a future career in this field, more specifically in courses such as sales strategies, brand marketing techniques, digital sales methodologies, and mobile marketing.
Write work-related reports: Compose work-related reports that support effective relationship management and a high standard of documentation and record keeping. Write and present results and conclusions in a clear and intelligible way so they are comprehensible to a non-expert audience.
Analyse supply chain strategies: Examine an organisation’s planning details of production, their expected output units, quality, quantity, cost, time available and labour requirements. Provide suggestions in order to improve products, service quality and reduce costs.
Manage content metadata: Apply content management methods and procedures to define and use metadata concepts, such as the data of creation, in order to describe, organise and archive content such as documents, video and audio files, applications and images.
Select optimal distribution channel: Choose the best possible distribution channel for the customer.
Negotiate improvement with suppliers: Build a good relation with suppliers in order to improve knowledge and quality of supply.
Conduct search engine optimisation: Execute optimal marketing research and strategies on search engine processes, also known as search engine marketing (SEM), in order to increase online traffic and website exposure.
Plan events: plan programmes, agendas, budgets, and services of an event according to customers’ requirements.
Inspect data: Analyse, transform and model data in order to discover useful information and to support decision-making.
Develop online community plan: Create the community’s plan to grow the online community, build usage, retain recent users and increase the user’s participation.
Manage inventory: Control product inventory in balance of availability and storage costs.
Manage content development projects: Plan and implement the creation, delivery and management of digital or printed content, develop a system that describes the entire editorial content development and publishing process and use ICT tools to support the process.
Produce sales reports: Maintain records of calls made and products sold over a given time frame, including data regarding sales volumes, number of new accounts contacted and the costs involved.
Ensure cross-department cooperation: Guarantee communication and cooperation with all the entities and teams in a given organisation, according to the company strategy.
Implement sales strategies: Carry out the plan to gain competitive advantage on the market by positioning the company’s brand or product and by targeting the right audience to sell this brand or product to.
Show entrepreneurial spirit: demonstrate a proactive attitude and determination to achieve success in business
Provide written content: Communicate information in written form via digital or print media according to the needs of the target group. Structure the content according to specifications and standards. Apply grammar and spelling rules.
Identify market niches: Analyse the composition of the markets, segment these into groups, and highlight the opportunities that each one of these niches represent in terms of new products.
Develop professional network: Reach out to and meet up with people in a professional context. Find common ground and use your contacts for mutual benefit. Keep track of the people in your personal professional network and stay up to date on their activities.
Report accounts of the professional activity: Recount events and facts which happened in professional contexts in a trustworthy manner.
Prepare visual data: Prepare charts and graphs in order to present data in a visual manner.
Manage the handling of promotional materials: Plan and prepare the production of promotional materials with third parties by contacting printing companies, agreeing on logistics and delivery, and making sure that deadlines are met.
Define geographic sales areas: Determine the different areas and reach that the company has in terms of sales, in order to segment and divide those areas geographically for a better approach.
Investigate customer complaints: Investigate customer complaints in order to determine the non-satisfactory elements in food products that lead to complaints from customers.
Set sales goals: Set sales goals and objectives to be reached by a sales team within a period of time such as the target amount of sales made and new customers found.
Perform project management: Manage and plan various resources, such as human resources, budget, deadline, results, and quality necessary for a specific project, and monitor the project’s progress in order to achieve a specific goal within a set time and budget.
Supervise sales activities: Monitor and oversee the activities related to the ongoing sales in the shop to ensure that sales goals are met, assess areas for improvement, and identify or solve problems that customers could encounter.
Perform product planning: Identify and articulate market requirements that define a product’s feature set. Product planning serves as the basis for decisions about price, distribution and promotion.
Analyse data about clients: Study data about clients, visitors, customers or guests. Gather, process and analyse data about their characteristics, needs and buying behaviours.
Capture people’s attention: Approach people and draw their attention to a subject presented to them or to get information from them.
Identify ict user needs: Determine the needs and requirements of ICT users of a specific system by applying analytical methods, such as target group analysis.
Create content” title: Come up with an appealing” title that draws people’s attention to the content of your article, story or publication.
Manage accounts: Manage the accounts and financial activities of an organisation, supervising that all the documents are correctly maintained, that all the information and calculations are correct, and that proper decisions are being made.
Assess financial viability: Revise and analyse financial information and requirements of projects such as their budget appraisal, expected turnover, and risk assessment for determining the benefits and costs of the project. Assess if the agreement or project will redeem its investment, and whether the potential profit is worth the financial risk.
Develop business plans: Plan, write and collaborate in the implement business plans. Include and foresee in the business plan the market strategy, the competitive analysis of the company, the design and the development of the plan, the operations and the management aspects and the financial forecast of the business plan.
Conduct mobile marketing: Conduct mobile marketing using a mobile device e.g. tablet or smartphone. Gather personalised information and transfer it to customers in order to promote services or goods.
Liaise with managers: Liaise with managers of other departments ensuring effective service and communication, i.e. sales, planning, purchasing, trading, distribution and technical.
Make strategic business decisions: Analyse business information and consult directors for decision making purposes in a varied array of aspects affecting the prospect, productivity and sustainable operation of a company. Consider the options and alternatives to a challenge and make sound rational decisions based on analysis and experience.
Carry out forum moderation: Supervise communication activity on a web forum and other discussion platforms by assessing if the content adheres to forum regulations, enforcing rules of conduct, and ensuring the forum remains free of illegal material and conflict.
Follow up online user requests: Take feedback from online visitors and take actions that address their requests according to their specific needs.
Develop product design: Convert market requirements into product design and development.
Liaise with distribution channel managers: Liaise with managers in distribution points in order to plan and agree with them promotional events aimed at promoting the brands and products that those distribution channels sell.

1221 – Sales and marketing managers

 

 

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References

1. Marketing manager – ESCO