What is a Marketing Manager?
Marketing plays a very important part in how a company communicates and is perceived by its target audience and Marketing Managers have a crucial role in that process. Their responsibilities span across the entire business from the promotion of the company’s products or services to analysing data and setting a strategy for company growth.
Typically Marketing Managers are responsible for attracting more customers to the business to increase revenue and create brand awareness to position the company in their market as a recognisable brand. A successful Marketing Manager will have both a creative mind and a head for business. Strong communication skills are essential for this role as Marketing Managers are expected to lead and motivate a team and be comfortable and confident when making a decision when it comes to the creative direction for the organisation.
Responsibilities
The position of a Marketing Manager is extremely diverse and responsibilities can vary, below are some of the duties that you will be involved with:
- Working in partnership with the creative team, develop creative briefs and guide creative direction to meet objectives for all advertising and public-facing communications, including print, digital, and video assets
- Conceptualise and execute on multi-channel campaigns across the prospect and customer lifecycle, ensuring the alignment of communications and messaging across all channels
- Manage content and updates for customer and internal touchpoints, establish budget guidelines, participate in events, document business processes, and provide additional sales support
- Gather customer and market insights to inform outreach strategies, increase customer conversions, and generate more qualified leads
- Identify effectiveness and impact of current marketing initiatives with tracking and analysis, and optimize accordingly
- Present ideas and final deliverables to internal and external teams, and communicate with senior leaders about marketing programs, strategies, and budgets
Salary
Your salary will depend on a variety of factors including location, experience, skills, education and qualifications.
Rewards can be excellent for experienced Marketing Managers, with salaries starting at around £23,000 a year and rising to more than six figures for some roles. However, according to Glassdoor the national average salary for a Marketing Manager in the United Kingdom is £45,133. As mentioned, this will depend on the specific role and seniority.
Working hours and work location
Working hours are generally 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. However, you may need to work some evenings or weekends when organising or attending events or when working on a big marketing campaign. Marketing Managers can work up to 40 hours per week on average, especially when new products are about to launch or problems arise. You may also be required to travel.
What to expect
As a Marketing Manager, you should expect to be working in a fast-paced environment. You may either be an individual contributor or a team leader who manages other marketers. You might be directly responsible for creating marketing copy such as website content, company emails, social media etc., or you may be responsible for delegating and explaining this work to your team. Therefore, it is important to be organised and comfortable with directing more junior members of staff. You will be looked to for creative direction when it comes to marketing campaigns and will be responsible for leading brainstorms and ideas creation sessions. You will be expected to bring fresh ideas to the table and inspire those around you.
Being a Marketing Manager is a highly rewarding career choice for those with a rigorous work ethic, excellent communication skills, a creative heart and a head for business.
Qualifications
There are three ways to qualify to become a Marketing Manager, explore your options below:
- A university course
- An apprenticeship
- Working towards this role
- Applying directly
University
Marketing roles are open to graduates of all subjects. Some higher national diploma or degree subjects may be particularly relevant, like:
- Marketing
- Business management
- Digital marketing
- Advertising
- Psychology
With a degree, you could join a company graduate marketing management scheme. Depending on your degree, you may be able to fast-track through professional marketing qualifications. You can find out more from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Entry requirements
You’ll usually need:
- 1 or 2 A levels, or equivalent, for a higher national diploma
- 2 to 3 A levels, or equivalent, for a degree
Apprenticeship
You could take your first steps into marketing through a marketing assistant or marketing executive advanced apprenticeship. If you already have experience or level 3 qualifications, you could do a marketing manager higher or degree apprenticeship.
Entry requirements
You’ll usually need:
- 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C), or equivalent, including English and maths, for an advanced apprenticeship
- 4 or 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C) and A levels, or equivalent, for a higher or degree apprenticeship
Work experience
You could start as a marketing executive and complete a qualification while you’re working. You could also come to this role after working as a digital marketing manager or communications manager. With experience, you could take qualifications to help you move into management. These are offered by professional bodies, like:
- The Chartered Institute of Marketing
- the Chartered Institute of Public Relations
- the Institute of Data and Marketing
Direct Application
You could apply directly for management jobs if you’ve got experience in a related area such as:
sales management
advertising
communications
Skills
Being a Marketing Manager can be a very demanding role, depending on the size of the business and whether you are managing a team. While you will need specific skills for specific companies and industrrues, there are some top line skills that you will need to have to brean into the field. Below are a few of the must have skills you will need to develop before applying to a Marketing Manager role.
Leadership skills
Marketing managers often have to interact with different departments, coordinate meetings, present the plans to the higher management and get the strategies ratified before they could be implemented. All this requires effective leadership qualities.
- Ability to set strategic goals for the team
- Delegating tasks to the right people
- Ability to inspire their teams to accomplish the desired goals under stressful conditions
- Training young colleagues so that they can contribute significantly towards achieving the goals
Technical skills
With fast-evolving technologies and the ever-increasing use of social media and content as a marketing tool, a Marketing Manager is required to know the technical skills thoroughly:
- Creating content that ranks high in search results
- Effective use of email marketing
- Working through collaboration tools
- Website audits, curating social media handles
- Experience with SEO optimisation
Organisational skills
Organisational skills help a marketing manager create and execute achievable timelines, meet complicated schedules, and keep track of important information.
- Effectively managing various events
- Ensuring realistic timelines for campaigns
- Guide team for timely execution
Communication skills
Marketing managers communicate with a wide range of people, they also need to communicate ideas, expectations and demands clearly and effectively.
- Collaborate with the team to make decisions
- Handle client relationships
- Taking criticism positively
- Writing press releases
Creative skills
To be successful in the industry, marketers must capture and hold the attention of their audience.
- Brainstorming ideas with graphic designers and artists
- Evaluate the aesthetic appeal of marketing materials
- Design creative methods of promoting and distributing products
- Planning and execution of events and promotional activities
Work experience
Depending on the company’s requirements, a Marketing Manager needs to have demonstrable marketing experience on a national, regional or international level. A Marketing Manager should have broad marketing experience in pricing, promotion, process and people. They should also have experience in developing and executing integrated marketing campaigns to support a company’s sales activities.
Career prospects
Advancing as a marketing manager might look like a clear-cut career path, from the entry-level to manager to director, VP, and beyond
Rising to the managerial level or even director doesn’t require an advanced degree. Instead, it requires a core set of soft skills and the ability to produce results; drive traffic to websites, increase engagement on Instagram, or execute a big campaign. Beyond that, you may need an MBA to be seen as a competitive candidate for a C-Suite marketing role. Your path depends on the kind of business you’d like to work in. For example, you could start your own business after spending a few years in the marketing space. The internet is full of marketers who make money from their own operations. In that case, it’s all about results and making connections.
Employers
You could end up working with some of the biggest companies in the UK:
- Amazon
- Unilever
- Microsoft
- L’Oréal
- Sky
- Barclays
- HSBC
Related Courses
Marketing roles are open to graduates of all subjects. Some higher national diploma or degree subjects may be particularly relevant. Below are some of the courses on offer at that will help you get your foot in the door to the world of Marketing
Studying towards a BA (Hons) in International Business sets students up with the necessary skills to work in a range of professions. The course involves working closely with academic theory and practical case studies, allowing students to grasp how the theory can be applied in real business scenarios.
Within this programme, students will cover modules such as business studies, finance, human resource management, marketing, and economics. BA International Business takes a very hands-on approach to learning by incorporating workshops, guest lectures and field trips into the programme.
Other related courses
- BA (Hons) Marketing Management
- BA (Hons) Communication and Media Studies
- BA (Hons) Marketing with Advertising and Public Relations
- BA (Hons) Communications and Public Relations
FAQ Summary
Marketing plays a very important part in how a company communicates and is perceived by its target audience and Marketing Managers have a crucial role in that process. Their responsibilities span across the entire business from the promotion of the company’s products or services to analysing data and setting a strategy for company growth.
Your salary will depend on a variety of factors including location, experience, skills, education and qualifications.
Rewards can be excellent for experienced Marketing Managers, with salaries starting at around £23,000 a year and rising to more than six figures for some roles
There are four ways to qualify to become a Marketing Manager, these are: a university course, an apprenticeship, Working towards this role or Applying directly
