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Marketing Career Brief:
How to Grow Your Career as a Marketer
You probably weren’t thinking about project management and
• Creative project management
process optimization as you studied for your marketing degree—
• Content/asset management
perhaps you were dreaming of CLIO, Webby, Echo, and ADDY
Awards. Budgeting and project management were for bean counters
and propeller heads. As it turns out, however, if you want to move
up the marketing ranks, a Six Sigma certification may get you further
than a slim, gold statuette.
Insights from industry interviews reveal a disturbing trend: lucrative
• Efficient execution of programs
Marketing Manager
$89,531 = US National Average Salary
134864
122,763
marketing promotions are going to candidates with little or no
marketing experience. So, what are companies looking for in the
“new marketing manager”?
92509
89,531
STARTLING FIND: COMPANIES HIRING MARKETING
MANAGERS FROM OUTSIDE MARKETING
Why We’re Researching Career Trends in Marketing
62,255
50154
0%
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
For some time, Unica had been hearing from Marketing Operations
OnDemand users that marketing automation had helped them in
their careers. Marketing Operations OnDemand was initially devel-
National Average for Marketing Manager Salary
All Reported Salaries Are in U.S. Dollars (SalaryExpert.com)
oped to manage marketing plans, budget, people, and processes
that were getting more important and more difficult. But, what if
The Most Surprising Trend in Marketing Management Hires
Marketing Operations OnDemand was able to not only improve
The interviews quickly revealed an unexpected trend. It seems that
company results, but help advance marketers’ careers as well?
the ability to manage plans, budgets, people, and processes is criti-
Unica interviewed a host of marketing managers and directors to
figure out exactly how marketing resource management and specifically, Marketing Operations OnDemand, had helped marketers in
their careers.
NOTE: Due to the sensitive nature of this topic, the interviewees
quoted here are kept anonymous.
What impact did using marketing resource management have on
their careers?
• Promotions?
• Better pay?
• More choices?
• Broader scope and responsibility?
cal to marketing management—so critical, in fact, that organizations
are hiring outside marketing to get those skills into the marketing
organization.
Many of the marketing directors and managers we spoke to had little
or no background in marketing prior to their current job. They were
hired for their expertise in project management, process optimization, planning, and even Six Sigma.
Marketing Operations OnDemand’s role in this trend is twofold:
• For marketing managers already skilled in these areas, Marketing
Operations OnDemand helped them automate and optimize their
work activities and teams.
• For marketing managers lacking these skills, Marketing Operations OnDemand gave them a fast track to mastering process
and measurement competencies.
What aspects of marketing automation have been most helpful to
the managers’ career advancement?
• Planning and budgeting
• Resource management
Unica Corporation | www.unica.com
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Highest Annual Base Salary Ranking – Head of Sales & Marketing
WHAT WE HEARD—MARKETING SKILLS NOT
REQUIRED
RANK
COUNTRY
“Believe it or not … the majority of us here don’t have a
ANNUAL BASE
SALARY (USD)
marketing degree.”
1 (highest)
United States
220,000
“My marketing career is quite by accident. I’m actually a
2
United Kingdom
178,571
3
Denmark
169,388
ment experience, not particularly marketing communica-
4
Belgium
167,741
tions experience.”
5
Italy
167,375
6
Mexico
165,928
7
Canada
160,169
The New Marketer’s Skillset
8
Switzerland
155,610
Marketing organizations have reached unprecedented size, through-
9
Hong Kong
147,442
10
Japan
145,140
chemical engineer by training.”
“They were looking for somebody with project manage-
put, and global reach—which means more projects, increasingly
complex projects, and even projects executed around the world.
That’s why marketing management positions require more advanced
MarketingHire.com
business management skills than ever before: planning, budgeting,
resource allocation, and process capabilities.
• Marketing management salaries are high: The good news
is that the complexity and the skills needed to manage today’s
marketing organizations have driven salaries up. Marketing and
finance management positions earn the highest base salaries
within companies, and marketing leaders in the United States
WHAT WE HEARD—THE NEW SKILLS MARKETING
MANAGERS NEED
“It is hard to find an individual who is both creative and
also very organized and process-oriented. It’s a weird leftbrain/right-brain thing. To get both things in one individual
lead the world in salary. Marketer managers are paid well to do
is lucky. If you are that person, you’re very lucky.”
their jobs, and candidates outside marketing are noting that.
“A resume with skills in marketing resource management
• Organizations search outside for key capabilities: The bad
goes to the top of the stack.”
news is that these competencies are scarce in marketing orga-
“If you don’t have project management and budgeting
nizations, where marketers traditionally have not been hired or
experience—you don’t know how to juggle a lot of market-
trained for these skills. If the internal staff lacks this “process
ing plans at once with a lot of different budgets and know
know-how” (i.e., managing and measuring processes) as one
where your money is going—you’re not going to survive.
marketing manager called it, the organization fills marketing
You are not going to be successful at the position.”
management positions with non-marketers who do have that
“I’m a former chemical engineer and product manager, but
know-how.
my Six Sigma skills have helped me succeed as a marketing manager.”
Marketers who aspire to management positions must master the
knowledge, skills, and tools to manage marketing plans, budget,
people, and process. Without these capabilities, a marketer’s career
may be limited to individual contributor roles or roles with narrow
scope, and they won’t reach top earning potential.
SHIFTING REQUIREMENTS: WHY HAS MARKETING
MANAGEMENT CHANGED SO MUCH?
What’s changed in marketing? Once upon a time, marketing managers were the people with the highest creativity, innovation, talent
management, and communication skills. So, what’s driving the
requirements for the new, process-driven marketing manager?
Unica Corporation | www.unica.com
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Changing Skills and Capabilities for Marketing Managers
OLD SKILLSET
FOR SUCCESS
NEW SKILLSET
FOR SUCCESS
WHAT WE HEARD—MARKETERS MUST SPEAK CFO
“The business units pay us to do our job, so they want to
see what they are going to get for their money. The only
• High people skills
• Planning
way that we can do that is to have these projects in
• High sales skills
• Budgeting
[Marketing Operations OnDemand].”
• Very high communication
• Project management
“They are much more comfortable giving us the money
skills
• High ability to synthesize
• Workflow and process
optimization
• High creative ability
• Resource management
• Medium initiative
• Measuring results and
understanding their
(from http://careers-in-market-
implications
ing.com)
and letting us spend it as we see fit, whereas before
[Marketing Operations OnDemand], they were worried
about that.”
“[Marketing Operations OnDemand] allows upper management, at anytime they want, to go in and run a report and
see how much is being spent in marketing communications without having to rely on the marcom managers.”
“MRM has changed the way I work with finance. Now,
when I try to secure an annual budget or I try to defend
Accountability and Complexity Drive Marketing Management
Requirements
against budget challenges, I can detail the future impact to
New trends within marketing and across the organization have
“You absolutely have to speak CFO, CIO, and CEO, and I
radically altered what an organization expects from marketing and
don’t think that, as a general rule, marketers are very good
its managers:
at that.”
programs and ultimately leads, sales, and revenue.”
• Marketing is expected to be fiscally accountable. Gone are the
days of “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the
trouble is I don’t know which half” (John Wanamaker). Today,
accountability is king.
• Marketing metrics are more advanced. We’ve shifted from
“eyeballs” to “conversion rates,” from “leads” to “qualified
marketing opportunities.” It’s a whole new level of performance
A Credibility Crisis in Marketing
Marketing can’t afford to be perceived as the “Crayola” department,
which is how one manager described his company’s opinion toward
marketing. Many marketing departments don’t have the respect of
metrics. Marketers must have the analytical skills, reporting
skills, and associated technologies to define, track, and act on
these metrics.
• Marketing is expected to provide return on investment. Marketers must run their departments like a business, fully managing
the marketing profit and loss statement from revenue and margin
to hours and materials.
• Marketing mix is more complex. Integrated campaigns launch in
multiple stages, through multiple channels, coordinated worldwide. Today’s marketing managers run from dozens to thousands of campaigns with all the associated tasks, budgets, and
headcount.
WHAT WE HEARD—NEW COMPETENCIES NEEDED
TO GAIN CREDIBILITY
“Marketing doesn’t tend to get the kind of respect that,
say, manufacturing does, because we’re not perceived
as an organization that is able to express what we do in
financial terms.”
“If you can’t show people how you are measuring that
process, how you are applying lean Six Sigma principles
to that process, how you are continuously improving that
process, how you are taking costs out of the process—
then I don’t think you are going to be viewed as an equal.”
These trends require unprecedented levels of budget control and
“I think we are our own worst enemy, because I don’t
visibility, resource management, asset management, project man-
think that marketers in general do a good job of operat-
agement, and process management, as well as tracking, reporting
and ROI analysis.
Unica Corporation | www.unica.com
ing a marketing organization that ensures marketing is a
measurable process.”
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their organization or its leadership. It’s no wonder that executives
“seed” marketing management with successful managers from other
departments who have the basic management abilities they value
WHAT WE HEARD—MARKETERS NEED IMMEDIATE
INSIGHT INTO BUDGETS
and understand.
“We do a monthly report to find out where we are. We also
To gain credibility and achieve success for both the marketing
have quarterly reviews with each of the business units. We
department and the ambitious marketer, marketing managers must
give them a recap on what we have worked on the previ-
have the same basic management skills that other departments
ous quarter, how much they have spent, and how much
expect managers to master.
more they have to spend.”
“The budgets are extremely tight, and they keep getting
COMPETENCY CHECKLIST: WHAT THEY’RE LOOKING FOR
IN MARKETING MANAGERS
slashed every month. We are constantly changing what we
Marketers must master four critical areas of management practices
“It is definitely all budget, budget, budget, budget.”
if they hope to lead their marketing organization:
“We can also see [in Marketing Operations OnDemand]—
do in order to accommodate the shrinking budgets.”
because we have budget allocations for each of the
• Budgeting and planning
projects—how much we anticipate spending and where
• Resource management
we can’t take it [budget]. For instance, if we know we have
• Project management
four projects in the works that we can’t cancel, we know
• Process optimization
we have to spend that money. We can’t take it from there.”
†† Setting annual marketing budgets and objectives
†† Managing multiple levels of budgets
†† Allocating and tracking budgets by individuals, departments, or
products
†† Identifying budget trends and opportunities
†† Staying within budget guidelines
†† Tracking committed vs. actual vs. expected spend
†† Reporting costs vs. results
Marketing Operations
OnDemand Marketing
Resource Management
lets you speak budget
like a CFO.
†† Preparing financial reports in line with company financial policies
†† Overseeing and re-allocating budgets in a cross-functional,
multi-workgroup environment
Project Management for Marketers
Budgeting and Planning for Marketers
Budget reviews—determining performance against budget—are
the most common management review activity. The marketing plan
and budget feed into each other, but the marketing budget should
be the one-stop-view for all the costs and revenues of marketing.
Essentially, your budget is your constant performance review, and it
changes often.
What are the budget capabilities that marketing managers must
master? From the checklist below, are you currently competent in all
of the listed budgeting and planning tasks?
Unica Corporation | www.unica.com
Project management is one of the most challenging areas for
marketing managers. Marketing projects involve many marketers,
contractors, stakeholders, executives, vendors, and departments,
so marketing project management requires stellar collaboration and
communication. And, marketing project management must juggle
dozens, hundreds, even thousands of projects with hundreds of
steps and tasks, performed by all those stakeholders, team members, vendors, reviewers, and approvers.
What are the project management capabilities that marketing
managers must master? From the checklist below, are you currently
competent in all of the listed project management tasks?
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†† Accurately estimating and scoping a project
†† Developing a project plan and timeline of action items needed to
complete a project
†† Setting realistic schedules
†† Staying on top of schedules, workloads, and “people problems”
†† Sharing and tracking key project milestones
†† Creating a communications plan for all participants on a project
†† Managing internal stakeholder and external participants on a
project
†† Identifying and controlling budget variances
†† Reporting on cross-project costs, status, and results on a quarterly and year-overyear basis
WHAT WE HEARD—AUTOMATION A MUST FOR
MANAGING MORE PEOPLE, MORE PROJECTS
“I had seventeen direct reports in my last job. The group
Marketing Operations OnDemand lets you project manage like a pro, but
still have time to create.
What are the resource management capabilities that marketing
grew from one part-time person to seventeen direct
managers must master? From the checklist below, are you currently
reports managing 500 projects per year. Here [at my
competent in all of the listed resource management tasks?
current job] in marketing communications, there are twice
(Note: Many companies are not ready to take on comprehensive
as many projects going on.”
time tracking, so the items below have been split into two levels.)
“We were using some very antiquated project management through Microsoft—you know, GANTT charts through
Microsoft Project, paper passing, that kind of thing—and
it would take you the better part of a day to schedule 150
Intermediate Practices:
• Tracking how many projects are under way, on the horizon, or
completed
tasks for promotions.”
• Reporting on each person or department
“You have folks who use [Marketing Operations OnDe-
• Rolling the above data into an executive summary
mand] to manage almost every aspect of their work life
here, and those are the ones who get the job done, those
are the ones who don’t drop any balls. “
“In the downturn, there is an urgency to hurry up and make
the money to cover what we need to cover. This puts everything on your plate at the same time. Without a doubt,
the MRM software is the only way to be successful in this
climate. I can’t imagine, I really, really cannot imagine how
people can do their jobs without it.”
• Calculating the marketing ROI of a campaign
• Determining your staffing needs or justifying headcount
Advanced Practices:
• Tracking all people and time expended for each campaign or
project
• Tracking estimated time vs. actual time
• Accounting for the value and contribution of team members
• Identifying high performers
Resource Management for Marketers
Process Optimization for Marketers:
Marketing is people-intensive. Much of your cost is in people. It’s
Marketing processes have unique usage requirements. Two key
critical to know who works on what and for how long. People and
processes in marketing are creative review and mark up. Creative
their effort need to be organized by project, job number, campaign,
review and markup require visual collaboration and the ability to
person, category, and subcategory. If you can track this information,
track all comments and corrections from many reviewers.
you now have the ability to plan accurately, stay in budget, analyze
costs, and determine ROI.
Unica Corporation | www.unica.com
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WHAT WE HEARD—RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AS
IMPORTANT AS BUDGET MANAGEMENT
“Resource management is another big area, because
we are trying to do so much more with less. I can see
at a glance [in Marketing Operations OnDemand] who
is working on what. So if one area has only five projects
going on, and another area has ten projects, I can move
around resources so that people help out the area that is
overloaded. That is a big part of the job as well—not just
budget management, but resource management.”
“You just can’t operate marketing as sort of the drive-up
window, where people drive up and place their order for
their brochure, and you just ask them if they’d like fries
with that. It just doesn’t work that way.”
“With resource management, we can also track rush requests and the culprits of those expenses as well as telling
product and brand managers what we are doing for them.”
Marketing Operations OnDemand automates key marketing processes,
such as markup and review.
“What it boils down to, first and foremost, is that marketing has to
be thought of, articulated as, and perceived by others as a processdriven discipline, which is why I have an affinity for MRM as an
Another challenging aspect of the marketing process is that outputs
enabling technology.”
are created and modified at almost every step. Marketing works
“I couldn’t operate the process that we operate today without the
with an extensive variety of files that must be stored and versioned,
MRM tools that we’re using, and I’d like to have more.”
especially with so many rounds of reviews and approvals. Managing
workflow is critical to efficiency.
What are the process optimization capabilities that marketing
MASTERING THESE COMPETENCIES: LEFT-BRAIN TOOLS
FOR RIGHT-BRAIN THINKERS
managers must master? From the checklist below, are you currently
Marketers are notoriously “right brain,” and the competencies
competent in all of the listed optimization tasks?
uncovered here are known as “left-brain” skills. As noted previously,
†† Defining and organizing the steps in marketing processes
†† Documenting the steps in your marketing processes
†† Managing all outputs/documents and versions throughout the
process
†† Training and communicating marketing processes
most marketers weren’t hired or trained for these capabilities, so
how can marketers stay on a career path to leadership and higher
earnings?
Marketing Curricula Need to Change
Marketing curricula at universities and colleges are out of alignment
to the field and need to add coursework that prepares marketers
†† Governing and monitoring process execution
for marketing management. College students who are in school on
†† Identifying and implementing process improvements
a marketing track need to be sure they add accounting courses to
†† Identifying opportunities for and implementing process automation
their schedules and explore project management certifications.
OVERHEARD: MARKETING MANAGEMENT IS REALLY
PROCESS MANAGEMENT
“I do like to see evidence on a resume, or the ability in an interview,
for someone to articulate basic understanding of process. I typically
ask people if they have ever flowcharted anything.”
Company training programs also need to align with these trends and
help the marketing department develop skills internally. Marketing
career paths need to be updated with the capabilities the company
is really looking for, and training programs need to be added that
prepare the marketer for a management role.
“Process discipline has become a requirement, and technology is
necessary to enable the process discipline in an effective way.”
Unica Corporation | www.unica.com
6
• Marketing Operations OnDemand was built to be intuitive and
WHAT WE HEARD—HOW TO GET THE SKILLS
YOU NEED
“They [the training team] offer a class now called “Finance
for Non-financial Managers,” so people can understand
what is happening here in the company [financially], and
what we are being held accountable for.”
“I would recommend that every marketer get their Six
Sigma green-belt certification if they are in that kind of an
organization (process-oriented). Often those classes are
offered free of charge, and you can just go and sign up as
part of your employee learning plan.”
“We believe project management professional training—
pmi.org stuff—is crucial for marketers.”
easy to use for all levels of marketing professionals.
2) Marketing Operations OnDemand enforces the company-specific
practices you desire, having been successfully implemented in a
multitude of diverse groups and organizations. For example:
• In companies of various sizes (from 10-person work groups to
500 globally).
• In departments across every major industry and geography.
• Across different types of marketing departments such as marketing communications, in-house agencies, web teams, direct
mail teams, events teams, and more.
Marketing Operations OnDemand is providing marketers with a
vehicle to increase their accountability and productivity - ultimately
fast tracking their careers.
Marketing Operations OnDemand as the Marketer’s Left Brain
So why were marketing managers claiming Marketing Operations
OnDemand was helping their careers? Marketing Operations
WHAT WE HEARD—MARKETING OPERATIONS
ONDEMAND FILLS THE SKILLS GAP FOR MARKETERS
OnDemand helped marketing managers—actually, all the marketers
“Honestly, we have not used it [MRM specifically] as a
on the extended team—gain competence in planning, budgeting,
requirement for hiring because the MRM software [Market-
people, and process skills.
ing Operations OnDemand] is so easy to use—particularly
Marketing automation, especially marketing resource management,
for new people.”
can accelerate the development and mastery of these capabilities.
“We needed a [MRM] tool that was global in nature, that
Marketing Operations OnDemand provides both builtin best prac-
everybody could learn, that was not IT intensive, but I
tices and best practice enforcement:
don’t think they realized how critical this tool would be-
1) Best practices are designed into Marketing Operations OnDemand. For example:
• Plans and budgets are pre-designed for marketing needs,
including the ability to manage multi-level budgets and realtime spend.
come to their day-to-day functioning.”
“Gurus have emerged at each of our locations: people
who’ve really taken the system to heart, they know its ins
and outs, and can help their colleagues use it even more
efficiently.”
• Workflow, traffic, and scheduling features are designed to
manage marketing projects, no matter how many steps or
participants.
• Marketing Operations OnDemand project, time tracking, and
scheduling are designed to track the people and project-work
aspect of marketing, and it’s designed to track time through the
course of work—no “time cards.” Many customers feel time
tracking is too much to take on, so you can also get a simple
view of “who is doing what” at a macro level (without the overhead of hour-by-hour tracking).
• Marketing Operations OnDemand has marketing processes
built in, including creative markup, review, approvals, and asset
management. Special features such as visual collaboration and
automatic notifications give marketing managers immediate
process optimization.
Unica Corporation | www.unica.com
GETTING STARTED WITH MRM
Unica offers two software solutions that can help marketers master
the concepts outlined in this white paper.
• This paper uses Marketing Operations OnDemand for most of
the examples. Marketing Operations OnDemand is an ondemand SaaS product that has been used by companies with
smaller marketing departments or work groups, as well as by
global organizations with hundreds of marketers.
• Unica also offers very robust solutions for companies that have
more sophisticated needs via its Unica® Plan software and
related solutions.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Tonya McKinney is a seasoned and accomplished marketing executive and consultant with deep expertise in sales management,
entrepreneurial ventures, CRM, and the software industry. You can
read more about Tonya or connect with her at http://www.linkedin.
com/in/tonyamckinney.
Adam Bloom has spent his career managing internet marketing,
CRM, and marketing operations programs, and is responsible for
on-demand product marketing and strategy at Unica. You can read
more about Adam or connect with him at http://www.linkedin.com/
in/adambloom.
About Unica
Unica Corporation (NASDAQ: UNCA) is the recognized leader in
marketing software solutions. Unica’s advanced set of enterprise
marketing management and on-demand marketing solutions
empowers organizations and individuals to turn their passion for
marketing into valuable customer relationships and more profitable, timely, and measurable business outcomes. These solutions
integrate and streamline all aspects of online and offline marketing.
Unica’s unique interactive marketing approach incorporates customer analytics and web analytics, centralized decisioning, crosschannel execution, and integrated marketing operations. More than
1,000 organizations worldwide depend on Unica for their marketing
management solutions.
Unica is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts with offices
around the globe. For more information, visit www.unica.com.
Unica is a registered trademark of Unica
Corporation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The Unica logo and MARKETING
SUCCESS STARTS WITH U are trademarks of
Unica Corporation. All other trademarks are the
property of their respective owners.
WP-MCMCB-1009-PDF
© Unica Corporation, 2009. All rights reserved.
Unica Corporation | www.unica.com
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USA
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