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Colorado State University Global
Undergraduate
Graduate
Industry Certification & License Prep
Emergency Management
Information Technology
Teaching and Learning
Blog
Marketers do a variety of diverse tasks. What any given marketer does on a specific day typically depends on their specific role in the industry.
Marketing professionals can be tasked with a whole host of responsibilities: conducting research, planning marketing campaigns, event and tradeshow promotion, writing content tailored to specific audiences, or collecting and interpreting data.
Here we’ll explain what marketers actually do, outlining some of the more common marketing roles, responsibilities, and concepts around both traditional and digital marketing.
We’ll also explain whether or not marketing is a good career, we’ll outline how to get into marketing, we’ll explain what you can do with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, and we’ll discuss where you should study marketing if you do choose to pursue a career in the field.
Marketing is a gigantic field with all sorts of different roles, positions, and responsibilities.
Even within any given marketing department, or at any specific marketing agency, marketing team members are likely to be asked to do very different things on a daily basis, depending on their specific role on the team.
But before we talk about what marketers do, let’s first explain what marketing is.
Marketing is the process of promoting a product, service, brand, individual, or an idea, and the role of the marketer is to generate more attention for whatever it is that they’ve been tasked with promoting.
Virtually every business in every industry needs marketers to help pitch, promote, or sell their products and services, but it’s not just businesses that need marketers, because politicians, non profit organizations, and even individuals looking for attention are likely to need the assistance of a professional marketer to help improve their visibility.
There are a number of ways to categorize marketing activity and marketing jobs, and to cover them all, we’d need to write tens of thousands of words of copy about each individual role, but to ensure you have a good picture of what the typical marketer does, we’ll simplify the explanation and introduce you to some of the most typical marketing job titles, marketing channels, and marketing tasks.
This should give you a much clearer picture of what marketers do.
Outbound marketing is any type of advertising or promotional behavior that is intrusive, which means it interrupts some other activity that the targeted audience is currently engaged in.
When you’re watching a TV show and an ad pops up asking you to consider some product, service, or brand, that’s an example of outbound marketing.
When you’re eating dinner with your family and the phone rings with a telemarketer on the other end of the line, that’s also an excellent example of outbound marketing activity.
Some of the most common examples of outbound marketing channels or strategies include:
*Display ads can be considered inbound depending upon placement and targeting type.
You can think of outbound marketing as “push” marketing, because the marketer has to “push” the person they’re targeting with marketing messages away from whatever it is that they’re currently doing, and into the sales consideration cycle.
Basically, the marketer’s job is to push the targeted audience from stopping their current behavior and instead getting them to consider the marketing message being delivered. It’s difficult to be successful in outbound marketing, as it’s disruptive, which means that anyone who can deliver great results is likely to be in high demand.
Inbound marketing is the opposite of outbound marketing, in that inbound marketers don’t need to interrupt their audience; instead they deliver marketing messages at the point in time the audience is looking for the products or services the inbound marketers is responsible for promoting.
One basic example of inbound marketing is what happens when you’re researching a product or service by typing that product or service into Google or Amazon—as soon as you encounter marketing messages from the brands trying to promote a product or service you’ve searched for, you’re coming into contact with the work of an inbound marketer.
A more traditional example of inbound marketing would be a call center representative who speaks with potential customers who are calling in to ask questions about the company’s products or services.
Some of the most common examples of inbound marketing strategies or channels include:
You can think of inbound marketing as “pull” marketing, because the marketer doesn’t have to interrupt their target audience to serve a marketing message.
Instead, with inbound marketing, the targeted audience is actively engaged in looking for the product or service that the marketer is attempting to promote, and all the marketer has to do is convince that user to choose their represented product or service, rather than a competitor’s.
As a result, inbound marketing tends to be more straightforward than outbound marketing, generating higher conversions rates (the percentage of people who purchase the product or complete whatever behavior the marketer is trying to get them to take) and perhaps even a better return on investment for the advertiser.
Both outbound and inbound marketing strategies require a diverse team of marketing professionals with specific knowledge, skills and abilities.
Common roles, tasks, and responsibilities that marketers on either side of the spectrum may be asked to complete include:
As the list above should demonstrate, marketing departments and marketing professionals may be asked to do very different things depending on their specific role on the team, so whether you’re into numbers, words, data, or art, there may be a role in the marketing industry that’s perfectly suited to match your interests.
Marketing is an excellent career, as it offers a whole series of career paths, job roles and responsibilities, including positions of several types:
Because virtually every company and organization needs assistance with marketing tasks, there are lots of opportunities in the industry for experienced, professional, successful marketers who are capable of clearly demonstrating their value.
While you don’t necessarily need a degree in marketing to secure a related role in the industry, having academic credentials does tend to make marketing jobs more accessible, especially if you’re looking to land a senior role, a job in leadership or management.
If your goal is to become a professional marketer and you’d like to build a lifelong career in the field, then you will almost certainly want to study marketing industry best practices and develop your marketing skills and abilities in an academic setting.
Whether you choose to seek a role with an in-house marketing team, a marketing or advertising agency, or as a consultant in the field, you’re likely to have an easier time securing a position if you’ve completed a bachelor’s degree in marketing.
Getting your degree in marketing is one of the best ways to prove that you are up to date on the latest marketing strategies and tactics, that you have the foundational knowledge, skills and abilities needed to make good decisions about marketing problems, and most importantly, it’s one of the best ways to signal to a potential hiring manager that you’re capable of delivering effective marketing results.
CSU Global’s online Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing will prepare you for working in several key areas of the industry, including:
The knowledge, skills, and abilities you’ll pick up from completing your B.S. in Marketing will ensure that you’re ready to bring value to an organization from day one, increasing your own marketability with hiring managers looking to fill related roles in the industry.
Earning your marketing bachelor’s degree means you’ll be eligible to apply for a whole host of positions in the industry, including roles like:
Depending on your interests, experience, and career goals, you might also want to look at options for becoming a specialist in a specific form of marketing, like in one of the modern, popular digital marketing channels, including:
Getting your bachelor’s may open doors to a series of support positions as well, including roles in client relations, analytics, or sales.
CSU Global is one of the best online universities for marketing, and you should consider studying with us because:
Furthermore, CSU Global recently won several notable awards and rankings, including one for our marketing program itself:
Finally, CSU Global offers competitive tuition rates and a Tuition Guarantee which ensures your rate won’t increase until you stay enrolled as a student.
To get additional details about our fully-accredited, 100% online marketing bachelor’s program, please give us a call at 800-462-7845, or fill out our Information Request Form.
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