Based on the theme of this blog, marketing for beginners, I will explain briefly about the career in marketing. I'll start the explanation with the importance of marketing in a corporate, marketing career opportunities, and marketing career path.
First of all, I begin with the question, ” Is a career in marketing still a prospective in a company?” The answer of course it is still a promising career as based on the data I get. Many CEOs are starting a career in marketing. Marketing is one of important area beside other fields such as IT, manufacturing, finance, and so on. Why do I mention one of important area? Because, each field within a corporate organization is in an interrelated system and try to work hard for the company's success.
What about marketing career opportunities? My answer is, as long as the company still stay alive, the field of marketing will still be needed. Did you know that nowadays high quality product and innovation is no longer a reliable way to attract the consumers? Currently, consumer has higher and complex demands. Therefore, companies need people who has high creativity to seize opportunities through the development of concepts and effective strategies and good marketing tactics. This is an opportunity for you to enter marketing career.
Ideally, people who want to get career in marketing should has a bachelor's degree in marketing. Moreover, graduates from reputable universities in the areas of business such as Northwestern University and University of Pennsylvania. But, don’t worry, many of my friends who have a technical background now have a career in marketing and success in their field.
What are the activities of marketing? I'll start with the marketing fundamental. Things that you must perform are you must identify the demand and consumer behavior, after that you have to make consumers buy your product. Common best practice of these activities are perform marketing research, product design and packaging, distribution, promotion, sales, and after sales service. Actually, in each stage, there are more activities in more detail, you can search in this blog and read it. There are several articles about marketing fundamentals which I have written before, for example marketing mix, marketing research, advertising techniques, and others. Please read it to get greater information.
Marketing has specialized expertise. You can choose one of them. You can go into market research, advertising, public relations, sales jobs, creative design, online marketing or social media, and others.
Now I will explain about the marketing career path. Generally new entrant in the field of marketing will begin his career as a marketing executive. There are some companies that put a product manager or market researcher as an entry level. Others put management trainee as an entry level. Example of marketing career path is as follows: The first stage is to become a management trainee. To know everything, before finally taking specialization, usually the management trainee will be rotated to different sub areas such as sales, marketing research, marketing plan, marketing communication, and so on. If he passes the probation period, he will usually be placed based on his skills and interests such as assistant manager for brand management, assistant manager for public relations, and others. Subsequently, he will be assigned as manager if he has good performance. After that, it will normally continue to senior level manager, chief marketing officer, and finally CEO.
Here are my tips to start marketing as a career:
– Increase your skills in sales copy or copywriting.
– Strengthen your communication skills.
– Prepare your mental, because usually the marketer will work under deadlines.
– Develop your career by building a personal brand.
– Never stop learning. You can do it anywhere and anytime such as in the university which perform week end class, learn with your marketer colleagues, attend to the seminar or conferences, join marketer club, read marketing magazines, surf marketing blog (one of them is this blog ).
There are many skills that you have to learned, I've written about this skills in my other articles in this blog. Please find and read. Finally, I would like to welcome those of you who decide to choose marketing as a career.
