Areas of Marketing
This article functions as an introduction for those who are new to the Marketing/Advertising portion of business and would like to start learning the basics of that particular department. Whether it’s traditional retail, agriculture, food & beverage, or almost any other company, the high-level basics apply to each industry, but the changes come into play as you work with different companies, product, brands, etc. Maybe you’re a college student just figuring out what you’d like to do upon graduating, a high school senior looking at programs in college to consider, or even someone who’s just looking for a career change after several years in a particular role, hopefully you find value in the information shared below.
Overall, marketing can be split up into different mini-departments that are oftentimes consolidated to one larger department or are sometimes split into the smaller groups listed (as seen below). Each function as their own discipline and often times work cross-functionally with one another on a daily, if not weekly, basis.
Marketing: Almost every company has a marketing department, and if not, then they outsource to a marketing agency that creates said campaigns for the company. You can think of marketing as the overall creative ideas that support a product or service that a company provides its’ customers. These creative ideas could be traditional advertising, digital assets for channels like social media, or printed materials like packaging and signage. The marketing department of a company can range in size and can vary on the types of mini-departments that fall under the larger umbrella of marketing. You’ll find people with work and education backgrounds that vary depending on their discipline, but the most common you’ll see are Marketing, Business, Communications, Merchandising, amongst many other degrees. To add to that, some people may even have an extensive amount of time out in the field that equals a degree in terms of the experiences they’ve gained.
Advertising: This consists of traditional channels that a company may advertise through. Think: radio ads, billboards, newspapers or magazine ads and so much more. Paid media and social media ads are also part of this mini-department and are often where a smaller business would start. As a business grows they may expand into the more traditional methods of advertising as well as get into newer/unfamiliar forms of advertising. Roles within this area of Marketing include Media Buyers, Performance Marketing Managers, Paid/Digital Media Managers, etc. With advertising, similar to marketing, you may find agencies that are specific to developing campaigns and deliverables that go along with them. Agencies are a whole other topic worth learning about if you’re interested in that side of marketing.
Product Development: Retailers that focus on services and product often times have an in-house product development team. Often times Product Managers and Brand Managers function as the same role just with different titles. Both roles oftentimes collaborate heavily with manufacturers or artists that are creating the products and services they all work on. Being able to speak to the different product attributes as well as the financial aspect around a products’ development is an important aspect of this role that does take time to learn.
Brand Management: In the past 10 years, most companies have included Brand Managers as part of their marketing teams in the efforts of growing the actual brands within their company. This role creates and monitors the guardrails for what a brand does or does not do, which is why there has been growth of this role recently. With companies struggling to define who they are and what they provide their customers, it’s important that someone within their organization owns and understands the companies’ brand.
Creative: The creative team at a company mainly consists of Graphic Designers, Copywriters, Art Directors, and a Director or VP leading the team. Any creative assets are coming from this department, which includes email templates, social media posts, product packaging, new branding logos, and so much more. Much of the ideation or brainstorming around products and services are coming from this team.
Product Design: If you’re working on a team that provides actual product to customers, you’ll most likely have product design area of the ,arketing team. Roles here consist of Industrial Designers, Graphic Designers, and a VP or Director of Design. These are the people that are coming up with actual product design as well as how it functions and the materials it is made from. CAD designs, produced by the product design team, are often how others in the marketing team are viewing the product, allowing team members to see the product from every angle as well as viewing how it would work.
Project Management: The segment of project management isn’t always associated with Marketing, but is often times working very closely with them. Depending on the product or service a company offers, project management could have it’s own department aside from marketing, work within marketing, or even be part of a sourcing/buying team.