“I work in marketing.” But what do you even do?

What is Marketing? Okay, I know you’re a marketing manager, but what do you even do?

I get this question more than you’d think. (Here’s a picture of me wearing a blazer so you know I’m legit.)

My good friend, Brooke, is an amazing nurse. We lived together for two years (shared a room, no less), and I don’t think she ever understood what I did at work. Can’t blame her. Most people ask me what I do and they’re not satisfied by my title or the description of “marketing”, they follow it up with “okay but what do you do on a typical day?” When I picked marketing as my major, I don’t think I could have answered such a question, either.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from a small company (so I’m cannot speak for those working at Amazon): no day in marketing looks the same. We wear lots of hats. One day I might be writing emails for our next campaign, chasing vendors for an event we’re hosting, talking with R&D about product changes, and the next day, I might be strategizing how to increase social media engagement, designing an E-book, and interviewing a customer for a case study.

But if you’re considering a career in marketing, it can mean a whole lot of different things not on that list. And if you’ve never had a marketing job before, you are probably a little fuzzy on it too. It’s not advertising, but it can be. It’s not graphic design, but it can be. It’s not data analytics, but it can be. It’s not writing blogs, but it can be.

Let’s break it down.  

Typical Entry level job titles: Marketing Coordinator, Marketing Specialist

This is where I started and it’s where you might start too. These positions generally have pieces of administrative work for the marketing department and carry out a whole host of tasks at the lower level of the organization. If you work for a small company like I did when I started, you might have more responsibility and variety in your role than at a big company.

Different branches of marketing (you might find that one person is a team or branch all by themselves. Or one person could represent multiple teams.)

            Product (These people should be best friends with R&D or whoever is actually creating the product you are selling. They know the product forwards and backwards, and for tech, they put it into words that non-technical people can understand.)

            Content (These are the brilliant writers of the bunch that take the product information and communicate it in the right way to the target audience. They are storytellers and have a great understanding of the people they are writing for. They might write blogs, ebooks, white papers, copy for the website, product descriptions, and more.)

            Social Media (sometimes this falls into one of the other categories, such as acquisition or content.)

            Customer (These people are keeping your current customers happy with regular communication and value adds. They are key for retention.)

            Acquisition (These people take the messages from the product and content team and get it out through the right channels at the right time. They are responsible for lead generation and getting awareness and interest in the product. This might be managing emails, advertising, and trade shows)

            Operations (These people look over how things are actually working: when are the emails being sent out and how successful are they? How does a lead flow from the website to the CRM so that the sales team is alerted?

These teams might not (probably will not) exist in every organization, and the lines might be a little wishy washy. But those are the basics, and how I’ve come to understand them. Each of these teams will need marketing strategy to inform them, which usually comes from the CMO, VP, or Director level.

My role started out as mostly Content/Social Media/Acquisition, and eventually I was adding Marketing Operations and Product Marketing too – and for a minute there, I was also doing customer marketing. Beauty of a two person team. 

Now, I’m focused on Acquisition. But at my new company, despite being much larger than before, my role still entails some content marketing, social media, and operations.

Key takeaway? Roles and responsibilities are going to vary dramatically from company to company… which is why your job description matters! It’s also why adaptability and willingness to learn new things are MUSTS for anyone going into marketing. One day, you think you’re working for a cool tech company, and the next day, you’re designing napkins.

Cheers,

Hannah