Are you good with words? Are you even better at combining words with images? Are you persuasive? Are you creative and imaginative? Then think about a career in marketing because it could help you use your talents in an exciting, unpredictable and challenging way.
Marketing can often sound quite woolly, so look into exactly what it means and what kind of work you can pursue in this area. Basically, marketing answers a number of questions that are crucial for business. Who and where are our customers, how can we reach them, do we know what they want, can we be competitive in pricing and quality, can we get repeat business? Marketing is about communicating the answers to these questions so that products and services can be successfully promoted and sold profitably. You can use your marketing knowledge and skills to answer these questions.
To get into the profession, you can either get onto a degree course, or enrol onto a professional marketing qualification, perhaps with the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Where will these qualifications take you? Depending on your interests and skills you could go into market research, advertising and sales promotion, media planning, public affairs, product management, and retailing.
What kind of work does someone with marketing qualifications do?
You may want to work directly with customers. In that case you could begin your career in marketing in charge of an account, which will involve you in day-to-day communication with customers. You would be the focal point of contact between the business and customers, and you would be responsible for ensuring that your people skills are utilised to the best advantage of your employer, particularly in building long-term relationships with customers.
You will develop contacts with new customers, or enhance relationships with existing customers. This will be done by the normal route of telephone and email, but you will be expected to be visible to your customers in person, involving a certain amount of travel. The company management will request recommendations from you about how to move the account forward and what strategies can be adopted to achieve this.
You will need to be competent in using all kinds of computer software, especially Microsoft Excel.
If you want to move from working directly with customers and play an even more strategic role in your marketing career, you could progress to the position of marketing manager. Marketing managers make important decisions about a particular product or brand, the promotion of which you will have an in-depth understanding, together with imaginative ideas about how to take this promotion forward.
You may need to create a full marketing plan for a product, which will include financial implications for the company, and you will more than likely communicate these to your own managers in the form of a clear, persuasive and informative presentation. The benefits include rewarding salaries depending on position and company size and the possibility of working for a major international business, with its associated extensive travel and varied work opportunities.