How to Become a Marketing Manager in 2024 [Step-By-Step Guide]

Marketing Managers are highly qualified professionals responsible for managing a company’s marketing activities. The obligations and responsibilities of a Marketing Manager differ depending on the size of the company and the industry. However, a business management job can be proven a rewarding career, particularly true when the work market is trending.

If you desire to become a marketing manager, firstly you need to be aware of the educational qualification, experience, and skills required for this type of job.

In this post, we are going to discuss all in detail, including job description, education qualifications, and work experience.

What does a Marketing Manager do?

A marketing manager is obliged to find and build a customer base for a company’s products. They need to work with the market research team closely, and the product development manager is liable for designing and executing the company’s marketing plan. It usually requires long hours and several years of experience; marketing managers are in huge demand that means there is a lot of scope in the upcoming time. 

How To Become A Marketing Manager

If you want to know how to get into business management or a marketing management career, several online guides can help you out. So, here are a few steps you need to follow 

1. Step 1: Get your Bachelor’s Degree
2. Step 2: Acquire Experience
3. Step 3: Get an entry-level job in marketing
4. Step 4: Obtain the necessary skills
5. Step 5: Join professional marketing associations

Let’s have a look at them one by one.

Step 1: Get your Bachelor’s Degree

The minimum education requirement for a Marketing Manager is a bachelor’s degree in marketing, business, advertising, communications, or other related fields. Numerous employers may also demand an MBA degree. It would help if you also consider participating in a management-training program or continuing education program at a business college to enhance your skills further and emphasize your commitment to career development.

Step 2: Acquire experience

Developing Marketing Manager experience by taking on an internship or following a marketing manager is a great way to understand more about the field and acquire knowledge while still in school. Leverage your marketing internship by gaining as much hands-on experience as you can. You may have to make copies and answer phones, but volunteer for other projects and show your eagerness to learn. An internship can also be an opportunity to network and make meaningful contacts in the industry which will be helpful when you desire to enter your company’s marketing department.

Step 3: Find an entry-level job in marketing

There are numerous different marketing careers you could follow as a marketer. Firstly, you need to start with a lower-level marketing job. For instance, Executive Assistant, Advertising Assistant, Marketing Assistant, or Sales Representative, to improve your background skills and acquire the necessary job experience to evolve as a Marketing Manager. Once you acquire enough knowledge, you can prepare a case of why you deserve to be promoted to marketing manager by pointing out how you have contributed to the department.

Step 4: Acquire the necessary skills

Marketing Managers demand strong communication, sales, and presentation skills. They must be creative and are capable of handling many projects at once. Knowing current or ongoing marketing trends is also necessary. In addition, they must have outstanding leadership skills and hire, train, and encourage team members. Strong internet and computer skills are also crucial for a career in marketing. The best way to acquire marketing manager skills is on-the-job training in an entry-level position.

Step 5: Join professional marketing associations

You can stay informed on the latest industry developments, procedures, and technologies by joining a professional marketing association.

 You will also acquire access to professional networking opportunities. Membership is available through different organizations, including the American Marketing Association (AMA) and the International Product Marketing and Management Association.

Why Become a Marketing Manager?

a) Easy and fast career progression

For the marketing manager, there is no top wall ceiling. So as long as you connect your salary to revenue and generate results for the business (by meeting and surpassing your KPIs), you can continually boost your salary and move up to owning a share in your company.

 

b) Good money

In U.S. News and World Report’sReport’s list, marketing manager ranks No. 45 amongst the 100 Best Jobs and No. 14 in Best Paying Jobs list.

According to Glassdoor, Paysa, LinkedIn, or AngelList — salaries range from $68,000 to $185,000, averaging around $72,000.

c) In-demand position

When it comes to marketing jobs, marketing manager is one of the most demanded positions that have huge growth potential. According to Monster and U.S. News and World Report, marketing manager positions own a higher than average projected growth rate. Therefore, it’s not challenging to land a job as a marketing manager if you’re good.

d) Transferable skills

Marketing managers include rich, transferable skill sets, indicating that they have useful skills for just about any job — including startup founder or entrepreneur. However, being a marketing manager can be stressful because you’re now accountable for meeting challenging KPIs.

e) Flexible lifestyle

Whether you work as a freelancer or do a full-time job, marketing lets you work from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.

It’sIt’s pretty effortless to find flexible, remote marketing manager gigs globally when exploring the right job sites.

Tools Every Marketing Managers Should Know

1. Marketing Automation

The idea behind using automation software is to automate redundant tasks, such as scheduling lead nurturing campaigns and sending emails.

Some Of The Best Automation Tools:

• NotifyVisitors
• HubSpot
• ActiveCampaign
• Zapier
• InfusionSoft
• Marketo

2. Email Marketing

Marketing managers make use of email marketing software to send one-to-many emails. While there are different levels of email marketing software out there, you can look at the below tools while considering email marketing tools.

• Newsletter software (Constant Contact, Aweber, Campaign Monitor)
• Form capture tool (Sumo, Leadpages)
• Drip email software (Drip)

3. SEO

SEO tools are really useful and effective because there is so much you can do with them. For example, marketing managers employ SEO tools for link building, keyword research, technical SEO,  rank tracking, content optimization, and backlink analysis.

Here are some of the most popular SEO tools:

• Ahrefs
• SEMrush
• DeepCrawl
• Majestic
• Moz
• Screaming Frog

4. Social Media Marketing

One of the most important social media marketing tools is the scheduling tool. Today, Hootsuite and Buffer are the marketing leaders in this category.

Other tools you’ll require may include:

• Social media influencer marketing (i.e., BuzzSumo)
• Social media analytics (i.e. BuzzSumo)
• URL shortener tools (i.e., Bitly)
• Social media ad management (i.e., Adespresso)
• Social media amplification (i.e., Quuu)
• Social media monitoring (i.e., Mention)

5. Design

As mentioned above, marketing managers should know about good design because one of their major responsibilities is to execute marketing campaigns, demanding marketing collateral.

Here’s a few common design tools marketing managers should use:

• Images for social media, blog posts and digital ads (Canva, Picsart, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, Sketch)
• Landing page software (i.e., Instapage, Leadpages)

6. Content Marketing

Since content marketing relies on SEO, social media, and email marketing, you’ll need some writing tools to plan, publish, manage, and promote your content.

• Content management system (i.e. WordPress)
• Writing and editing (i.e. Grammarly, Google Docs, Editpad )
• Syndication (i.e. Medium)
• Editorial calendar planning (i.e. Trello Software)
• Outreach (i.e. Reply.io, Mixmax)

7. Marketing Intelligence

Marketers have to be pro when finding the right information (i.e., researching). All you need is to:

• Find an important person’s [correct] email address (hunter.io)
• Know what their users are doing on their website (NotifyVisitors)
• Find more information on someone (CrystalKnows, Clearbit)
• Learn if someone opened (and clicked) your email (Yesware)
• Understand more about their competitors (Datanyze, Similarweb, Audiense, Spyfu)
• Personalization/Testing (Optimizely)

8. PR/Outreach

Marketing managers have to create content and also get the audience’s attention. One way they do this is via PR and outreach.

Here’s a few popular PR tools:

• Conduct outreach at scale (Buzzstream, Reply.io, Mixmax)
• Find people’s emails (hunter.io, headreach)
• Receive brand alerts (Ahrefs, Google Alerts, Mention)
• Get paid media coverage (Help a Reporter Out or HARO)

Wrap up

If you want to receive a marketing manager job, the first step is to get a degree that will equip you for a leadership role in the Marketing field. Also, you need to set goals for yourself to become a marketing manager in the near or possibly distant future. 

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