byrongiffy
Marketing Today
It has always been a focus of companies to build themselves and gain popularity. Over they years, the idea has not changed, but the ways in which companies are accomplishing growth, popularity, and meeting their market has changed tremendously. The big thing lately is focused on Social Networking through online sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The advent of these sites allows companies to reach the demographics they are looking for in a very efficient manner. Through Social Networking, companies can send advertisements directly to their target market in hopes that they will gain business from them.
Marketing Careers
- Marketing Coordinator/Director/Manager
- Sales Account Manager
- Marketing Project Manager
- Account Executive
- Marketing Specialist
- Brand Manager
- Recruiter
- Market Researcher
- Teacher/Professor
- Writer/Editor
- Public Relations Specialist
- Online Retailer
- Grant Writer
- Promoter
- Media Planner/Buyer
- Advertising Designer
(http://www.apu.edu/sbm/undergraduate/marketing/careers/)
Marketing Mentor: Elise Timothy
The Firm Public Relations & Marketing (www.thefirmpr.com)
MarketplaceWhat are your projections for this type of industry? Is it stable? Growing? Declining?
This industry is pretty stable right now. It has had some rough times with the turn of the economy, so there has not been much, if any, growth in the past couple of years. Hopefully things will pick up again in the near future, but there are not really any signs of it at this point.
What are the key trends or issues? New developments?
The current "big thing" is social media and social networking. Websites like Twitter and Facebook have become a huge thing lately. Most companies are involved in this kind of advertising.It is a big thing right now to send out promotional codes through these social networking mediums and through cell phones in order to attract customers and it has been a huge success.
What and where are the opportunities?
The industry is really tough right now, but the main openings are in social marketing positions.
What are the typical salaries in this type of job? Entry level - experienced?
People involved in corporate companies will have higher salaries, but Elise works for an agency and the average salary for an entry-level position is around $26,000 - $28,000, middle level, somewhere in the mid-$30,000 range, and higher levels can reach $70,000 and higher.
Entry into Position
When and how did you get involved in this type of work?
She studied Journalism Media in college and in her last semester she got in internship with a company for 3 months working with advertising, then she got another internship where she worked for 9 months before she got a full-time position with the company. After working there for a while she got in with the company she is currently with and she has not been there for 9 months.
How important are specific credentials for entry or success?
To Elise, education is extremely important. She feels like there is nothing better to give somebody an introduction to the type of work she is involved in. Her boss, however, never went to college and he works off of experience only. The most important things to have skills with is writing and grammar. If you cannot write and speak in an educated way, there is no way you can succeed in this field.
Job Specifics
What is a typical day like for you or someone else in a similar position?
Elise has to keep herself heavily involved in the news, so she spends a lot of time reading newspapers and reading TV station webpages. She said she is on the phone literally about 50% of the day calling TV stations, talking to clients, and doing research to find out how things are going for the businesses that she works with.
What do you like most about your work?
She really likes that fact that her work is challenging. She dips into a ton of different things and gets do do somewhat different things every day. Her work forces creativity, but not little artsy-fartsy creativity. She has to really think outside the box all of the time and come up with new and exciting ways of saying things and presenting ideas.
What do you like least about your work?
The same thing that she loves about her work is also the thing that she dislikes most about it; the fact that it is unpredictable. It can be frustrating sometimes also to not be able yo have things work out in your own time-frame. She has to rely in the time frames of others a lot and that can be tough sometimes.
What talents or skills do you think are most crucial to success in this type of work?
Anyone who works in this field must be able to convey a message succinctly, to the point. Communication skills are a must.
What attitudes or values are important?
HONESTY!!!! INTEGRITY!!!! If people cannot trust you, you will never be successful.
Who doesn't do well in this type of work?
Disorganized people will not be able to do well in this type of work.
How do you advance or get promoted in this type of work?
Hard work and continuing education are needed in order to advance in this field. It is not necessary to get additional degrees, but by gaining experience and keeping up with the times as they change you will be able to earn promotions. A big part of being successful in Marketing is building relationships and always networking.
Recommendations
What would you recommend I do if I want to go into this type of work?
Begin networking now and build relationships. It is important to learn a little bit about everything, not just the things that sound interesting to you and not only the things that pertain to your degree. Knowing a little about everything will allow you to hold intelligent conversations and write about things in a variety of subjects.
Knowing what you do now, would you approach this career in the same way? What would you do differently?
The only thing that she wishes she would have done is get into internships earlier. If she had gotten into internships earlier then she would have been able to tell what she does and does not like and she could have gotten into the job she wanted to much sooner after graduation.
Key Marketing Terms
- 4 P's of Marketing - Stands for Product, Price, Place (i.e., distribution), and Promotion.
- Target Market - A group of individuals whom collectively, are intended recipients of an advertiser's message.
- Product Mix - Offering several products or sever different types of a product in order to gain a larger target market.
- Promotion Mix - Using several different types of communication to support marketing goals which include Advertising, Personal selling, Publicity, and Sales promotions.
- Segmentation - To divide a market by a strategy directed at gaining a major portion of sales to a subgroup in a category, rather than a more limited share of purchases by all category users.
- Positioning - The consumer perception of a product or service as compared to it's competition.
- Integrated Market Communication - A management concept that is designed to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation.
- Price Skimming - a pricing strategy in which a marketer sets a relatively high price for a product or service at first, then lowers the price over time. It is a temporal version of price discrimination/yield management. It allows the firm to recover its sunk costs quickly before competition steps in and lowers the market price.
- Brand Equity - refers to the marketing effects or outcomes that accrue to a product with its brand name compared with those that would accrue if the same product did not have the brand name
(http://marketing.about.com/)
