A marketer is a specialist who promotes goods and services on the market, exploring the needs and tastes of consumers. This profession combines creativity and commercial pragmatism.
Who is it marketer?
In the broad sense of the word, a marketer (from English marketing – sale, trade in the market) is a specialist who, studying the market and exploring the needs and tastes of consumers, promotes products.
Working in a certain organization, a marketer analyzes the demand for manufactured products, assesses the chances and proposes a strategy for the successful promotion of these products. He also monitors the actions of competitors, examining the features of their product (or service), pricing policy and promotion strategy. The marketer monitors the entire industry and, after analyzing the results, provides the company’s management with recommendations on the appropriateness and the best options for promoting a product (or service).
The field of activity of a marketer covers the study and analysis of the needs and preferences of customers, researching the demand for a product or service, evaluating the market for certain goods or services, monitoring the entire industry, finding the best ways to promote products, making a forecast and developing recommendations.
Simply put, it is the marketer who broadcasts the idea to you that you should buy this particular smartphone, watch this particular movie, or use the services of this particular tour operator. With good marketing, it works, and what’s more, the thought of making one or the other choice seems to be your own.
More specifically, the responsibilities of a marketer may include:
1) development of the entire advertising campaign for products
This includes advertising slogans, viral advertising, online advertising, publications in various media, the plot of advertising videos on television or YouTube, the text of audio clips on radio, and more. All advertising, including banners and flyers, must be agreed with the marketer, and he chooses the most winning one.
2) systematization and analysis of data related to the effectiveness of advertising
A marketer has to constantly work with numbers. For example, a marketer must know how to calculate ROMI (return on marketing investment), that is, the return on investment in marketing. In addition, he must correctly assess how much brand awareness has grown, whether the advertising campaign has worked.
The marketer regularly uses Google Analytics data to track and analyze site traffic and user actions.
In cases where clients call the company, the specialist must work with call tracking. The task of the marketer is to determine which advertising worked and brought the buyer to the organization.
3) make a portrait of the client
The marketer must carefully study the company’s customers in order to determine the target audience. To do this, market research, surveys, analysis of data on site visits, as well as subscriber profiles are carried out.
4) market and competitor analysis
The marketer analyzes the current situation on the market, examines the dynamics of demand for products, pricing policy and promotion strategy.
5) search for growth points
Naturally, the marketer carefully examines their own products. To do this, such studies are carried out as SWOT analysis (strengths and weaknesses of the company, opportunities and threats), QFD (Quality Function Development – a quality deployment function that allows you to bring together production, technical and consumer characteristics in order to create a sought-after product), PEST- analysis (a method of analyzing the external environment, which helps to assess growth opportunities and risks, and for several years ahead)
6) development of a content promotion strategy
The marketer controls all publications dedicated to the brand in the media, the maintenance of all company blogs and, of course, the content of the site.
Of course, these are just some aspects of the marketer’s activity. The field of activity of such a specialist is very wide, it depends on many factors and, above all, on the specialization of the marketer.
It is impossible to underestimate the role of a marketer in the fate of a company. For successful activity in this area, a person must, first of all, have an analytical mindset. At the same time, you need to be ready for constant work with numbers. In addition, such qualities as organizational skills, stress resistance, responsibility, attentiveness, communication skills, the ability to convince, and, of course, creativity (that is, the ability to generate ideas) are important.
Specializations
There are many branches of marketing, and as the popularity of this area grows, more and more varieties appear. Consider the most popular.
Content Marketer
This specialist writes texts for the company’s website and blogs, creates infographics, and also sends materials to external resources.
Brand manager
The task of such a specialist is to make the brand recognizable and sellable. Very often, a brand manager is engaged in brand promotion, as they say, “from door to door”: he controls the market analysis before launching new products, participates in the development of an advertising campaign, and after the brand enters the market, works on brand recognition.
Product manager
Supervises products at all stages, from development to promotion. Analyzes the market, organizes events to promote the company’s product, analyzes the goods of competitors. This is a product specialist.
Internet Marketer
This specialist promotes the brand on the Internet by developing various online promotions.
SMM specialist
SMM (Social media marketing), a type of Internet marketing, is currently perhaps the most popular marketing branch. SMM specialist is engaged in brand promotion in various social networks. He writes texts (posts), shoots stories, thinks out how to entertain and entice the audience. The SMM manager responds to comments on behalf of the brand, arranges to exchange posts with other bloggers.
Marketing Analyst
This specialist is engaged in marketing research, prepares a plan and reports, and also conducts research on their own and competitive products. As a result of all this, he gives the management constructive recommendations for the development of the brand.
Marketing research manager
This specialist, as you might guess, organizes market research. According to the research results, he processes and analyzes the data obtained.
Trade Marketer
A trade marketer must establish a connection between consumers and manufacturing companies, as well as engage in brand promotion among buyers and resellers. He develops a brand promotion strategy. Roughly speaking, trade marketing is a set of measures aimed at ensuring that products reach the end consumer as quickly as possible.
Directologist
Sometimes this direction is also referred to as marketing. Not to be confused with direct marketing specialists. A directologist is a specialist in the field of advertising buying, who buys online ad impressions on Google, Yandex, Facebook and others.
Targetologist
Like a director, a targetologist buys impressions of automatic advertising, only specifically in social networks.
Marketing Director
This is actually the big boss. He leads the marketing service of the organization and is responsible for all marketing policies that the organization conducts. He must have a detailed understanding of all aspects of marketing.
There are many branches of marketing, and as the popularity of this area grows, more and more varieties appear.
Benefits of being a marketer
Do you want a profession that successfully combines creativity and commercial pragmatism? You have a direct road to marketers.
- First of all, people are attracted by the demand for the profession of a marketer.
- The field of marketing provides great opportunities for career growth.
- Salary largely depends on the creative potential and ability to work specialist.
- The work of a marketer combines many different types of activities, including creative ones.
- Employers often offer employees flexible working hours.
Disadvantages of being a marketer
Marketers in their work often follow the old proverb – “measure seven cuts, cut once.” But even this approach does not guarantee 100% success. There are also failures.
- There is a big risk that the strategy proposed by the marketer will not work
- Management can “tie” the hands of a specialist, for example, due to lack of resources.
- Too many organizations, unfortunately, still underestimate the importance of the marketing profession, which negatively affects the attitude towards advertising and marketing departments.
- In a crisis, marketers are among the first to be laid off.
- A significant disadvantage is the high competition among applicants.
- As a consequence of all these disadvantages, the profession of a marketer is often associated with very high stress.
Where to study marketing
Today, many educational institutions offer education in the field of marketing.
In some cases, in order to start a career in marketing, it is enough for a person to complete courses lasting approximately 4-6 months. In addition, now there is a great opportunity to study remotely.
Coursera – The world’s largest online course service offers marketing courses from leading
business universities and companies of the world. Students can learn from scratch.
Demand
A specialist who is able to properly “package” a product or service is needed by any company aimed at development. And even if there is no marketer at some enterprise, be sure that there will definitely be a person who performs his functions. A simple example: according to key resources focused on recruitment, the profession of a marketer and specialists in related areas is among the ten most in demand today.
Employment and career
Getting a job as a marketer is not easy, even for entry-level positions. The applicant needs to be prepared, firstly, for the fact that the interview can take place in several stages, and secondly, for group selections. That is, to the fact that the interview will take place simultaneously with several applicants. This is how the most self-confident and purposeful applicants are selected. And, by the way, at the final interviews, as a rule, there are top managers of the company.
The very beginning of a marketing career is an assistant or trainee. Recent graduates with no work experience are hired for this position. After fiddling with routine work and small assignments for some time, in a year or two you will be able to grow to a manager. The main thing is to be patient and believe in yourself, because the path in this area is long and thorny.
Prospects for the future
Nowadays, the profession of a marketer is one of the most promising and opens up a wide range of the most interesting opportunities for specialists. After all, in addition to a large number of narrowly specialized positions, the doors to the leadership are gradually opening. And don’t be afraid to reach the ceiling: a marketer always has something to strive for and where to grow. In addition, the development of the digital economy, a scientific and technological breakthrough will give the world new products and services, which means that more “private” and “officers” in the army will be needed, who are destined to take a leading position in the newly minted markets. Dare!