A new business can enter the market place with great products or services, but very few people will know about the company or its offerings without the help of a marketing manager. Marketing managers oversee the marketing related activities for certain products and services, or they can direct marketing activities for an entire company depending on its size and scope. The functions of these managers have undergone dramatic shifts throughout the Information Age, mainly because of the popularity of the internet. However, their purpose of getting potential customers to recognize the value of a company and its products or services remains the same. Here are some examples of jobs performed by marketing managers.

Marketing Strategy Development

Developing a strategy to acquire and retain market share is one of the first tasks taken on by a marketing manager, according to the Houston Chronicle. Marketing managers document current market positions, set realistic goals and provide a high level plan to achieve the stated goals within this road map to business success. The roles and responsibilities of each internal company stakeholder is also described within the marketing strategy, and marketing managers often use the document to motivate departmental leaders to consider impacts to marketing during their decision making activities. Marketing managers also describe how they will measure progress of strategic goal completion within the marketing strategy .

Directing Market Research Activities

Marketing managers direct their team members to conduct market research that is needed to keep track of customer preferences and other trends in the market. The data gathered by market research analysts can be used for early risk detection by marketing managers. For instance, a research analyst may discover that a popular product’s sales have slowed, because of the introduction of a competing product in the market, and marketing managers may decide to introduce the product in foreign markets to targeted customers with similar demographics. Alternately, market research can uncover opportunities to increase sales and gain competitive advantage. For example, some market research data allows marketing managers to identify high growth segments within domestic and international markets that can benefit from their organizations’ products or services.

Implementing Marketing Campaigns

Marketing managers decide how a company’s brand, products and services should be presented to its targeted customer. They must first have a thorough knowledge of their ideal consumer and the consumers’ preferences; this customer centric perspective flavors all aspects of marketing activities from how products are packaged to the pricing strategies that are used. Marketing managers also choose the marketing communication channels used for marketing campaigns based on customer preferences. For instance, marketing managers would definitely place heavy emphasis on communicating to current and potential customers in the United States through social media platforms, but they may use a more even mix of social media and print advertisements for targeted customers in emerging economies.

Brand Reputation Management

A key responsibility of marketing managers is to protect the brand reputation of the companies that they support. The use of information technology within marketing has increased the speed and scope of marketing campaigns. However, IT becomes a double edged sword when it is used to convey negative information about a company and its products or services. Consumer websites like Yelp and Angie’s List allow customers to convey detailed complaints about unsatisfactory products and services of companies to a world wide audience. As a result, these tools can either make or break many companies. Marketing managers are devoted to responding to customer care concerns as well as using IT to forge strong brand loyalty with customers.

Related Resource: Financial Manager

Conclusion

As corporate finance and accounting personnel thrive on following the money, marketing professionals are most successful when they keep their eye on their organizations’ target customers. After a company develops a product or service that satisfies a customer need, a marketing manager finds the best way to communicate to customers the benefits that differentiate its company’s brand, product or service from those of competitors.