Marketing is one of the most important arms of a business. It is through marketing that the organization's target market is made aware of existing and new products thus driving product sales and by extension the business revenue. This means that a lot of responsibility rests on the marketing director who is usually the senior person in the marketing team. As the person at the apex of the marketing team, marketing director work involves less of actual marketing and more of strategic planning for the marketing campaign. That said the business marketing director must demonstrate the ability to lead from the front, something that will require them to occasionally participate in client meetings.
In order to develop a marketing strategy that will bear dividends for the business, business marketing directors must have a clear sense of the specific market that they want to target for the product. This target market would be defined using several parameters such as age, income, ethnicity, social status, nationality (or race), location etcetera. The goal is to zero in on the market(s) that provide the best opportunity of making a substantial return on product sales.
The specific responsibilities in a marketing director career will vary from one organization to the next. In certain businesses, the marketing director is only tasked with developing and tweaking the high level marketing strategies for the products based on the performance of each product in the market. Business marketing directors in other organizations may be expected to go a step further than analyzing product sales and developing strategy - they are expected to implement the different processes and steps required to make the marketing strategy a success. These processes include market research, product development, and sales promotions.
There are various techniques that marketing director jobs can use to undertake market research. Often, a large proportion of the research can be carried out based on information that is already publicly available. For instance, the number of children being born in a given area can provide a good idea of the level of demand for diapers, toys and other items that parents will need or want to buy for their baby. But knowing there is a demand for a certain product is just the first part of the research - marketing director work also entails finding out what are the odds of seizing a substantial market share to satisfy this demand. Alternatively, the marketing director may choose a less direct approach and instead focus on a niche that is inadequately or not catered for by the current market players.
Estimating the amount of market share the business can successfully wrest from the competition will require a thorough competitor analysis where each significant competitor's core strengths and potential weaknesses are analyzed. Business marketing directors investigate what consumers like and do not like about the current competing products in the market (prior to product launch) and about their own product (after product launch).
The market research can either be carried out end to end by an in house team or can be outsourced to a market research firm. Whichever approach is used, the business marketing director has final responsibility as far as interpreting the results and determining the best course of action. The course of action must be within the annual allocated budget for the marketing campaign. If it is foreseen that more financial resources will be required in order to urgently respond to the results of the market research, the director must follow the organization's laid down channels to obtain prior approval for the extra budget.
Requirements
So what education is required for one to be eligible for marketing director work? Given the seniority and profile of a marketing director career, a master's degree in a business related field is often the minimum accepted qualification. The marketing director forms part of the front line of any business. Thus, candidates for the position must often demonstrate several years experience working in sales, marketing, advertising, product development, market research, brand management and marketing with proof of a positive track record.
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