6 ways to dramatically improve your marketing career prospects

In this series of new blog posts from MMC Learning, we’re exploring the main desires that drive career development in the marketing profession.

In a previous post we discussed seven ways to break into marketing and position yourself to secure your first marketing role.

In this post ,we’re looking at how people already operating in the marketing space can dramatically improve their marketing career prospects and begin to open the door to more senior roles.

Why is this important?

Because as we said in a previous post there are 2.8m people with the word “marketing” in their headline/role on Linkedin. (Search results 21 July 2021).

It’s a super competitive space. But there are steps you can take to give yourself the best chance of achieving the step up in responsibility you seek.

1. Know your customer like no-one else

Marketing’s primary responsibility is to deliver sales ready leads into the business, such that the company makes a profit over production. To do this, you need to understand your primary customer’s pains and gains intimately in order to be able to serve them.

Couching everything you do in terms of your target customer, their world, their problems, their needs and their aspirations makes for more effective marketing strategy and marketing communications.

That leaves those target customers in no doubt as to what you do and how it benefits them.

2. Know your numbers

Senior marketers have to know their numbers. You have to get comfortable with data. You need to crunch the numbers, test and second test everything. Treat everything like an experiment and get getter clarity on cause and effect when you’re trying different things.

But when we talk about numbers at a senior level, you also need to know business numbers and understand the impact that marketing has there too.

3. Speak the language of the C-suite

Couch everything your marketing function does in the top level business goals and objectives. There has to be a clear link between what you’re doing to advance the achievement of stated goals – whether in positioning, sales, market penetration, CSR, talent management.

Positioning clearly how marketing plans and activities can help deliver on the goals that matter to the C-suite, using their language, is one very tangible way for marketers to create the opportunity for a seat at the table.

4. Put marketing at the heart of the organisation

The very best marketing marketing directors and CMOs are consummate communications professionals and bring people with them. This means that rather than marketing being an isolated function supporting sales development, it becomes the beating heart of an organisation.

An organisation where everyone understands who the customer is, why they do what they do and how their routine customer interactions are pivotal to long term growth and profitability. It’s your job to bring everyone into the story to help to shape it.

5. Hire brilliant people and let them shine

Leave any ego you have at the door and invest in people that fill your knowledge gaps and can contribute to the creation of a truly high performing marketing team.

Let their brilliance shine and the impact and effectiveness of the marketing function will be plain to see by all other departments, especially sales, finance and the C-suite where you’ll elevate the profile of marketing in your organisation as a result.

6. Get your team qualified

Ensuring your team are qualified, just like you, means their strategic thinking hits higher levels and delivers more impact to your business.

Investing in professional development is also a significant contributory factor to people showing loyalty and staying with employers longer – and this is magnified in challenging times such as pandemics.

To find out more about how MMC Learning can help you improve your career prospects with CIM qualification, contact our team today.

Call 0161 826 4644 or click the book a discovery button below.

Certificate in Professional Marketing.

Certificate in Professional Digital Marketing

Diploma in Professional Marketing

Diploma in Professional Digital Marketing

MSc in Digital Marketing

Rene Power

MMC Learning’s Director of Marketing, Rene is passionate about making marketing more accessible and has an interest in businesses in the industrial and professional services sectors. Among his responsibilities as a member of the MMC Learning team are designing and delivering the company’s own marketing activities, and assisting clients with their team training.