If you’re daydreaming (or just plain nightdreaming) about scaling the ranks of marketing into a coveted management position, we’ve got you covered. In this article, we’ll walk you through what it means to be a marketing manager, the general roles and responsibilities, what skills you’ll need in your arsenal and most importantly, the steps you can take to become a marketing manager.
 

What is a Marketing Manager? 

These are the big cheeses. The people responsible for planning, organising, gathering resources and implementing marketing strategies that meet company objectives and drive consumer interest. 

Is it sounding a bit rigid? Don’t fret. Marketing management is a fun, agile and rewarding role that will keep you interested for years to come. `

What Does a Marketing Manager Do?

You might be lucky enough to have a fancy office with a desk (maybe even a plant that really ties the room together) but your feet will be firmly planted on the ground. Marketing management responsibilities vary depending on the industry but there are general roles assumed across the board.

Marketing managers will:

• Conduct market research to gauge interest and assess the viability of products and services. 
• Form strategies for online and offline marketing channels such as social media, print media, radio, email and many more. 
• Write marketing plans that detail the budget, scope, resources, objectives and deliverables. 
• Handle internal and external communication between teams, clients, stakeholders and vendors. 
• Train and coach your teams. 
  
  

Why Become a Marketing Manager? 

Other than the adoring fans, lavish company retreats and a general feeling of warm ambience flowing through your entire being - we can’t think of anything. Nope, wait, there were a couple of good reasons after all…

1. The World Wants You 

Marketing managers are placed in the top 5 most-wanted jobs in Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and North America. 

2. Flexible Working 

Although traditionally considered an on-site position, marketing and business, in general, have evolved. More companies offer remote working or a hybrid role that balances working from home with a set number of days in the office. 

3. Great Salary Expectations 

The average salary for a marketing manager in the US is $110,428. Even starting at the lower ranks you’ll find competitive rates of pay as you work upward. 

4. Job Market Growth 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 10% rise in demand by 2030. Currently, there are 11.3 million job openings in the United States alone. 

What Skills Do I Need? 

Honestly, several. But gaining the right tools for marketing management is easier than you might think. Thankfully in today’s learning landscape, there are almost limitless resources available for total beginners right through to experienced marketers. In terms of the skills you’ll need to become a successful marketing manager though, we believe there is one answer that stands above all others: 

Becoming T-shaped. 

The image above represents the modern (and future-proofed) T-shaped marketer. Our blog goes into more detail, but basically, the horizontal rows show your breadth of skills and knowledge areas, and then the vertical “T” section in the middle shows your expertise. These skills are interchangeable and can be adapted to suit but the premise remains the same - breadth of knowledge areas combined with a few deeper areas of expertise. 

P.S. Take our quiz to see how T-Shaped you are 

It’s fun and helpful. 

What Soft Skills Do I Need? 

Great question. Marketing managers wear many hats and juggle lots of responsibilities, so to be effective, you’ll need a range of soft skills. 

• Communication 
• Collaborative 
• Adaptable 
• Critical thinking and problem-solving 
• Empathy 
• Negotiation 
• Confidence 
  
  

Your Learning Path to Becoming a Marketing Manager in 3 Steps

If you’ve got your heart set on starting a career as a marketer and working your way into a management position, then you’re in luck. In this section, we’ll detail the necessary overarching knowledge and skills over 3 areas of focus: Digital Marketing, Growth Marketing and Digital Leadership. There will be accompanying skills that certainly won’t hurt to read up on (we’ll briefly suggest those, too), but these should be your main learning goals. 

1. Learn Digital Marketing

Learning the ins and outs of digital marketing is the first step on your marketing management journey. Here, you’ll grasp all the fundamentals of the various marketing channels, the technical terms, how to understand your audience, plus how to implement and optimise marketing strategies. This one’s utterly essential. 

All of this and more is covered in Growth Tribe’s Digital Marketing Certificate. Let’s look at some of the course highlights: 

It won’t surprise you to learn that brands and companies leverage digital marketing to reach their customers. After all, most of the population is online now and collectively spends over $2 billion per year. Websites, social media, email and other channels are vital for generating traffic and converting customers. Digital marketing isn’t an option anymore for business growth, it’s a necessity.

Or buyer personas as they’re sometimes called. These are fictional characters who represent your ideal customer and target audience. Companies use personas to tailor content and marketing efforts for better engagement and response. 

Marketers rely on data to determine what works and what doesn’t. Google Analytics and similar customer data tools track and measure marketing campaigns for easy-to-read insights. Data is critical to inform strategy and gauge consumer interest. 

Promoting the right content to the right customers at the right time is what marketing is all about. You’ll learn to use organic and paid marketing channels such as:

• Facebook 
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Email marketing and
• Google ads to target customers effectively. 

Improve your website’s performance and learn methods to optimise landing pages that drive more conversions from traffic.  

Summary: This beginner-level course will give you the confidence to step into the digital marketing world competently. 

Find out more and sign up.

2. Learn Growth Marketing 

After taking our Digital Marketing course, you’ll have a good understanding of how to reach customers using the industry’s most effective strategies. Now it’s time to dig a little deeper and really get a handle on the intricacies of the customer journey by learning to design iterative experiments that skyrocket growth at each stage of the marketing funnel. 

The marketing funnel is broken down into 6 stages: Awareness, Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue. We cover what you’ll need to do to maximise growth at each phase in Growth Tribe’s Growth Marketing Certificate. Here are the course highlights: 

Data reigns supreme in the digital age. It delivers insights into customer behaviours, buying habits, preferences, interests and other key information that companies can leverage to create informed marketing campaigns. Data is arguably your biggest tool as a marketer and you’ll want to know your qualitative from your quantitive. 

Understand how customers move from point A to point B. Map their initial contact with a product, service or brand and follow it through to the point of taking action. Knowing how customers behave at each stage means you can adapt and make changes that produce better outcomes. 

Learn our industry-leading growth hacking framework to rank ideas, design experiments that crave customer attention and achieve organic virality with growth loops. Sound complicated? Basically, you learn how to master each of the 6 funnel phases: Awareness, Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue, so you can find winning ideas quicker through a collaborative and iterative process. 

Summary: This course will build on everything you already know about digital marketing with a deep dive into the customer buying journey and how to create marketing experiments, using data that will boost growth at every stage. 

Sign up for the Growth Marketing Certificate. 

3. Learn Digital Leadership 

After completing the first two steps, you’re comfortable with the following: 

• Digital marketing fundamentals including the various marketing channels and how to leverage them with organic and paid content marketing strategies.  
• You can identify and define customer personas and use data to create targeted campaigns. 
• Use analytics to track, measure and create data-driven campaigns. 
• With growth marketing knowledge, you understand how to optimise customer interactions at each of the 6 funnel stages. 
• You’re comfortable collaborating with teams to ideate, design and implement experiments focused on business growth, and adapt when needed. 
• Understand revenue metrics such as CLTV (customer lifetime value) and increase retention and referral using growth loops.

At this stage you might be thinking, “isn’t this enough?!”. Well, yes… and not quite. The skills we’ve covered so far will absolutely be enough to situate you in a marketing role. But, there is one crucial element missing from this melting pot of knowledge - leadership. 

Adding digital leadership skills to your toolkit is the final piece of the marketing management puzzle. So let’s look at what you’ll learn in Growth Tribe’s Digital Leadership Certificate. 

Develop antifragility with frameworks and systems. Learn to go beyond resilience and response to change by seeking growth in chaos and adversity. Explore your responsibility as a leader and how to map out desired change. 

Managers rise and fall by one factor - their mindset. If your mindset isn’t geared up to deal with stressors and how to overcome them, the odds will be stacked against you. We’ll teach you the value of fostering a growth mindset to assess risks and promote psychological safety for teams that convert perceived failure into a learning opportunity. And why the best leaders remain in a state of continual learning.   

Unlock the answers to key business questions using data that informs strategy and decision-making. See how nurturing a data culture can transform teams to become more autonomous and confident in their roles. 

Investing in human capital is conducive to long-term success plus attracting and retaining talent. Learn how to plan and implement learning strategies to keep teams sharp and capable. 

Change fails and that’s okay. Plan your attack using our 8-step change canvas to drive forward. 

Summary: The Digital Leadership Certificate will equip you with the necessary skills for developing an antifragile mindset focused on growth. You’ll evaluate data and its relationship in answering key business questions. Additionally, you’ll become a more competent and confident decision-maker and encourage a data culture that asks the same of your teams. And develop learning strategies to promote continual growth while planning for change. 

Become a Digital Leader.

You’re Marketing Management Material 

It’s been a journey but as you cross the finish line, we think you’ve got everything it takes to become a formidable marketing manager who’s ready to step in and elevate organisations to the next level.  

For quick reference, here are the course links outlined in this article: 

1. Digital Marketing Certificate 
2. Growth Marketing Certificate 
3. Digital Leadership Certificate

For the Overachievers 

Hungry for more? We applaud your appetite for learning! If you’re looking to bolster your marketing management skills, take a look at these courses:

Project Management Certificate 

Learn how to drive successful projects that create ecstatic clients, hyper-productive teams and super-satisfied stakeholders in under 12 weeks. 

Our Project Management Certificate will cover: 

• The terms, methods and different frameworks 
• The stages of a project lifecycle from initiation to closing  
• Identifying stakeholders and creating a business strategy
• Governing projects, preventing scope creep and budgets 
• Managing teams, resources and developing a leadership style 
• Post-project reviews, transitioning and facilitation

See the full course overview here.

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) Certificate 

Drive transformative results from day 1 with our certified CRO course. You’ll learn 

• How to identify conversion goals 
• Conduct quantitive and qualitative research 
• Set up tracking using Hotar, GA4 and Tag Manager 
• Learn best practices for website functionality, copywriting and design 
• Understand which metrics to measure and how 
• Create a hypothesis and run A/B tests 
  
  

See the full course overview here.