6 Skills You’ll Need To Become a Marketing Manager
Marketing Managers perform a complex role in the company. It’s more than just ordering about the underlings and keeping track of all the activities a company is undertaking for their marketing. They have a lot of competing priorities and a lot of pressures coming from different sides of the company.
They need to know how to build brand awareness, stay on top of trends in the industry and utilise new technologies to get the word out about their campaigns.
What is a Marketing Manager?
A Marketing Manager works for a company as the leader on all marketing activities. Depending on the size and structure of the company, they may work under a marketing director or report directly to the owner of the company.
What do Marketing Managers do?
Marketing Managers are responsible for managing marketing activities. This includes coming up with marketing campaigns that promote the business, organising the promotion for roll out of new products or services, managing the brand identity and assisting the sales department by generating leads. They have to manage budgets for the marketing department and deal with advertising contracts.
Marketing Managers often manage a team of other marketing specialists such as social media managers, digital marketing experts, brand specialists and copywriters. They also work closely with the graphic designers to get visuals and collateral for the marketing campaigns and the website.
Where do Marketing Managers work?
Marketing managers are needed in every industry, because every business has to market it’s products and services. There are roles for Marketing Managers in all industries. You could work in; law, business, academia, fashion, beauty or the medical industry, for example.
It all depends on which area you’ve specialised in and what your passions are.
How much do Marketing Managers make?
Marketing Managers are in high demand. In a world where we are constantly met with marketing and advertising, being able to push through that barrier is valuable. According to talent.com average marketing manager’s salary in Australia is $110,000, most entry level positions start at around $90,000 and at the top of the salary range they can earn up to $145,562.
How kind of skills do you need to work as a Marketing Manager?
There are lots of different skills that can help you to excel as a Marketing Manager. Here are some of the softer skills you’ll need to do well in this role.
Leadership
Working as a Marketing Manager is a big role and you’ll need to be comfortable taking charge and delegating to other staff and departments.
In this role you’ll have staff working under you such as social media managers, copywriters and marketing assistants and coordinators and it’ll be your job to make sure they know what tasks they need to complete and when they need to be done by.
You’ll need to have excellent leadership skills to excel as a Marketing Manager.
Time management
With campaigns to run, staff to manage, budgets to balance and reports to write, you’ll need to have good time management skills to excel as a Marketing Manager.
Knowing how to delegate certain tasks and effectively manage your competing priorities in order of importance and timelines will make all the difference in this job.
Taking calculated risks
It’s important to know how to measure risk and have the certainty and conviction to take calculated risks. In your role, you’ll encounter campaigns and advertising opportunities that can be a bit of gamble. Knowing how to take a calculated and measured risk will help you to navigate these opportunities and choose the ones that will most likely pay off.
Creative problem solving
As a Marketing Manager sometimes, there are issues that can’t be anticipated, political movements, last minute changes, brand and tone issues. This is why it’s so important to be able to think on your feet.
You’ll need to be able to employ creative problem solving skills to deal with unusual and unprecedented issues.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills
In marketing you need excellent verbal and written communication skills. You’ll have to deal with different department heads, as well as outside contractors and stakeholders, communicating campaign plans, reporting and gathering feedback on marketing activities. You’ll also have a hand in the brand tone of voice and copywriting styles for all marketing materials, website copy and social media content.
Passion for learning and upskilling
If you want to succeed as Marketing Manager, you’ll need to be a life-long learner, someone who enjoys learning new skills and new systems. In marketing everything changes so quickly, it’s vital you stay up to date on all industry developments and news.
How do you become a Marketing Manager?
Marketing Managers have generally already been working in marketing and built their way up a bit before getting the management level. This could be in copywriting, social media or digital marketing but if you want to level up to being a manager the best course to look at doing would be the Diploma of Marketing and Communication.
This course is delivered through self-paced, trainer supported study which means you can start anytime and study from anywhere in Australia. The course takes anywhere from six months to twelve months to complete depending on the which delivery option you choose. In the course you’ll learn how to:
- Identify and evaluate marketing opportunities
- Establish and monitor the marketing mix
- Design and develop marketing communication plans
- Write persuasive copy
- Undertake project work
- Conduct marketing audits
- Develop strategies to monetise digital engagement
- Develop a social media strategy
- Develop a digital marketing plan
- Manage risk to organisational reputation in an online setting
- Manage business risk
- Manage personal and professional development
You can learn more about this course here.
Final thoughts
Working as a Marketing Manager can be a difficult job. You need to be on top of everything, manage competing priorities, projects and staff but it can also be rewarding. There’s no better feeling than taking a risk on a campaign and seeing it pay off.
If you’re thinking about becoming a Marketing Manager, you can check out the course here or organise to get in touch with us and we can talk you through your best studying options to further your career.