When you look at job descriptions for marketing managers these days you wonder if any one person can really fulfill the role. Marketing has expanded greatly in the past dozen years as the Internet and digital marketing has exploded. Today when I look at position descriptions for marketing managers and directors I see a huge list of skills required including:
- Planning and coordinating marketing programs and campaigns
- Identifying new marketing opportunities
- Manage and develop CRM programs
- Manage and track social media communications
- Development of traditional sales collateral
- Trade show and special events management
- Development and management of online advertising, pay-per-click campaigns and Google Adwords programs
- Create, manage and administration of website content with knowledge of HTML, CSS and other web technologies
- SEO/SEM administration and tracking website traffic
- Develop and promote demonstration videos, kits and point of sale programs
- Write, edit and distribute press releases
- Manage relationships with vendors
- Develop and manage marketing budgets
- Design and implement email marketing campaigns and programs
- Various duties to support sales teams
What really amazes me is when people looking for managers to fill the roles they state 3 years of experience. Really 3 years to learn all of this? In my first three years of marketing I learned about developing corporate collateral, managing tradeshows, direct mail promotions and tracking PR efforts. We had a 3-5 person marketing team for a company of approximately 110 people with 3 distinct product lines. Other members of the team were responsible for content development, budgeting, high level planning and CRM.
Realistically any company looking to have a single person do all these skills and efforts well is not being realistic. I’ve discovered that small businesses trying to be all things to all people in marketing tend to skim the surface of these efforts because the one person doing all the work is trying to keep their head above water. True the marketing manager should be involved in all these efforts but some of the work needs to be outsourced or additional resources should be brought in to help with specific programs like SEO/SEM and online ad management. Heck Google Adwords alone is a full time job!
Even if you do find someone that is semi-proficient in all these areas how well do you think they can perform them in a 40 hour work week?
