Can Your Marketing Manager Do This?

16 comments Written on July 16th, 2010 by
Categories: Marketing, PR, SEO, Social Media
Tags: ,

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:
Can your marketing manager do this?

  • 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?

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 16th, 2010 at 12:50 pm and is filed under Marketing, PR, SEO, Social Media. You can subscribe to any comments to this entry via RSS 2.0.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About the Author: Brian McDonald
http://www.squarejawmedia.com
Brian McDonald started Square Jaw Media to document strategies and techniques he had used over his experience working in marketing and communications since 1990. During this time Brian wrote about many of the exciting Raleigh social media events where great knowledge was being shared and tries to share some of the tips and tricks.
  • http://www.motourage.net Dave Minella

    Brian:
    Every single bullet point in that post is a line item in my job description, and you’re 100% correct. I spend the first hour of every Monday morning writing down my three-tiered priority list for the week: What needs to be done, what would be nice to get done and the no-way-in-hell-I’m-getting-to-this-anytime-soon category.
    Coming from a background in PR, nothing pains me worse than having to put off communications efforts because I have to deal with day-to-day website maintenance, forum issues or advertising deadlines.

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  • http://www.squarejawmedia.com Brian McDonald

    Dave you feel my pain! Yes I think as more marketing technology and opportunities are created they tend to get piled on the marketing managers plate. Yes these new tasks fall under the marketing function but they need to be analyzed from a resource perspective to see if they can succeed with a single resource. Thanks for your feedback.

  • http://raleighspecialstonight.com Amy G H

    I think this is becoming a problem across the board. Small companies want their employees to be able to do it all. In my current position, I handle online marketing, am a Salesforce administrator and am pretty much THE office manager (I order all the supplies, arrange meetings, etc). True, I never get bored, however, it’s hard to do all of those things well when you are doing them all at once. I always feel like I’m one step behind.

  • http://www.squarejawmedia.com Brian McDonald

    Amy so true. I’ve been tasked in the past with marketing and project management. Both of the jobs required my full time attention to do them well.

  • http://www.1918.com/ Phil Buckley

    I think the assumption that the company expects you do do it in 40 hours may be wrong. I’m sure they expect to find someone who is willing to work 70-90 hours a week which is equally sad. I understand some weeks will be long, or even a couple of months during a big push, but stepping into a position where there is no expectation of a break is like strapping a nervous breakdown belt onto yourself.

    I was just talking with someone about this yesterday. He said that when he sees quality starting to fall, he knows it’s time to add more people into the mix. It seems that the job description above is screaming “someone to do do marginal work”.

    Great post Brian.

  • http://www.5bucksischange.com Janet M. Kennedy

    You are so correct, Brian. Too much on one plate. And then the company hires someone who can only do 25% of the job description. Is it just a screening technique or do they really have their ultimate hire in mind and are going through the motions?

    I have learned a LOT in my career and learning more everyday but I have to meet someone who can do it ALL.

  • http://www.squarejawmedia.com Brian McDonald

    Phil if the company expects you do work a 70 hour week then how long will you stay at that company? I don’t think having to work extra hours on projects in unexpected but from a resource planning perspective the company needs to determine what one person can do in an average work week (approx 40 hours). Even in that timeframe they only average 30 hours of actual work. Thanks for your feedback.

  • Jeff Francoeur

    Brian thanks for the post. Not having a marketing background yet wearing the hat within my current company, I have wondered how you guys do it all. My question is how does one get the boss to completely understand the efforts needed to have a successfully executed mktg plan. They seem to want all the benefits with little to no commitment or time investment.

  • http://www.squarejawmedia.com Brian McDonald

    The real challenge Janet is finding the right person for the job. Ideally that person should be able to communicate to management that in order to reach all the goals outlined in a job description there needs to be some realistic planning that allows for outsourcing some of the work. If that happens then the company can achieve its marketing goals and drive revenue which is always the bottom line. Thanks for your comment.

  • http://www.squarejawmedia.com Brian McDonald

    Jeff, your assessment is spot on! There are some that realize great marketing is the results of successful team planning versus hiring one great marketing person.

  • http://www.theantisocialmedia.com Jay Dolan

    My current position has me combining two different duties, and it is incredibly frustrating when people ask why isn’t x done or why can’t you do y? Sadly, there’s just one of me and I can only do so much. On one hand it’s nice to be busy, but on the other hand I want to do good work I can be proud of.

  • http://www.realseocompany.com Aaron Freshman

    Search engine optimization that is process of promote site on the search engine like Google. Yahoo. MSN. Thank You :D.

  • http://squarejawmedia.com Brian McDonald

    Jay I think we’ve entered the land of underpromise and overdeliver!

  • Crystal Strickland

    In my previous position as Marketing Coordinator, we as coordinators were responsible for most (not all) of the responsibilities that you listed per product line, Brian. We could not get it all done on time! It was my first job right out of college and a great learning experience. Being in the job market these days is highly competitive. I read these ads daily and wonder how I can step into an interview and say that I am comfortable with all of the job responsibilities on the company’s list, when I did not have time to delve into each job, really. I think companies try to fill the largest role with the best candidate at the lowest price…and then work them until they drop!

  • http://www.squarejawmedia.com Brian McDonald

    Crystal you are correct that when there is a large staff many of the tasks get assigned to the coordinators. However when the marketing department is a single entity they get overloaded with all the tasks and responsibilities! Thanks for your comment!