Many small businesses choose to outsource marketing to an agency rather than build a team in-house. Either way, it’s helpful to understand who you’re going to be working with when reviewing an agency contract or deciding who to hire. These are the most common marketing job titles and what the responsibilities are of each role.
[Read more: 3 Strategies for Writing a Great Job Description]
Chief marketing officer (CMO)
The Chief Marketing Officer is the senior-most executive on the marketing team. The CMO is in charge of building the company’s brand, promoting the business, and creating a strategy for communicating and engaging with customers to boost sales. The CMO may oversee advertising, marketing and public relations, all of which serve to promote your company to new and existing customers. CMOs will not only manage the team and set strategic priorities but also stay up-to-date on market trends and work to grow the business.
[Read more: Sales Job Titles and What They Mean]
Creative director
Usually, this position can be found at a marketing or advertising agency. The creative director leads the team of creative people who come up with the visuals, taglines and other media for an advertising campaign. This person may be directly involved in brainstorming ideas, editing video or managing a photoshoot; or, they may take on a purely managerial role, looking after the creative department’s time and resources. The Creative Director is a relatively senior role with a minimum of five years of experience.
Marketing manager and product marketing manager
A marketing manager straddles the line between creating a higher-level strategy and working in the weeds to bring the organization’s marketing to life. Marketing managers will hire and train marketing staff, delegate tasks, oversee the marketing budget and do research to develop new campaigns. The marketing manager also performs competitive analyses, researches consumer trends and measures the efficacy of marketing campaigns to readjust the strategy as necessary.
A product marketing manager performs this role for a specific product. This role is involved in planning and managing the product release, setting competitive pricing, positioning the product, identifying the target audience and managing the post-launch follow-up to retain customers and keep the product relevant. This role will also be involved with marketing for product updates.
CMOs will not only manage the team and set strategic priorities but also stay up-to-date on market trends and work to grow the business.
Digital marketing manager
Also known as digital media managers, this role focuses on the “how” of marketing as compared to product marketing managers who focus on the “what.” Digital marketing managers create visual content online and use web analytics to measure traffic, conversions and the success of different channels compared to others. This person is likely to run your e-commerce site, social media pages and website; they may also run paid search campaigns or influencer campaigns. This role requires a fair amount of expertise in analytics; digital marketing managers help you optimize your marketing to get the most ROI for your efforts.
Communications manager
Public relations often falls under the purview of marketing, unless you hire a specific PR firm to help you work with the media. A communication manager handles many of the PR responsibilities, such as drafting press releases, communicating with local media, distributing newsletters, and writing social media posts with company news. The communications manager works to build a great reputation for your business and build trust with your customers. This person will have strong writing and pitching skills to get your brand covered (for the right reasons) by local news outlets.
Content marketing specialist
Content marketing specialists are experts at creating content (e.g., blog posts, videos, social media posts, email campaigns, etc.) for a particular audience. A person in this role will understand how to craft content that is relevant to engaging prospective and existing customers and driving traffic to the company’s website to boost sales. The content marketing specialist combines both analytics and creativity to deliver high-quality targeted campaigns that speak to your specific audience. They can help differentiate your brand from other companies, too.
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