What are some marketing job titles?
By definition, marketing refers to the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service. So marketing teams do just that — work together to create compelling campaigns and programs that grow the business.
Marketing roles are needed across industries and at organizations of all sizes. If you are interested in a career in marketing, there are many different opportunities within the field — especially considering the fact that the marketing landscape has dramatically changed in recent years.
Outbound vs. inbound marketing
Historically, almost all marketing was outbound — paid advertising to attract prospective customers. This is also known as “interruptive” marketing because it involves interrupting your audience with your message in order to convince them to purchase your product. Examples of outbound marketing include billboards, pop-up ads, and telemarketing.
However, with today’s average consumer being inundated with interruptive advertising and ad-blockers on the rise (eMarketer reports that 27.5% of American internet users — almost 80 million people — used ad-blockers in 2018), marketers cannot rely on outbound marketing alone for their entire marketing strategy.
Craft your own marketing strategy
Inbound marketing, by contrast, is a relatively recent approach. Also known as “permission” marketing, inbound marketing involves attracting a qualified target audience to a product or company by creating content that potential customers will want to engage with and share.
The goal of inbound marketing is for the customer to reach out to the company for more information or to make a purchase. Examples include creating blogs, videos, and social media campaigns, as well as performing activities related to search engine optimization (SEO) like keyword analysis.
In the modern world, these two types of marketing can blend into each other, creating a hybrid model. For example, a content marketing team might create a blog post intended to engage their audience (inbound marketing), which the digital marketing team will actively promote in banner ads (outbound marketing). It is important to know the strengths and weaknesses of each marketing philosophy to reach your target audience effectively.
Marketing skills and job titles
All that change requires a variety of marketers — with varying skills — to get the work done. And this can bring on some confusion.
There are many different job titles used for marketing roles in different organizations. There are also other job titles and disciplines that are often folded into the marketing team, such as internal communications or public relations. Marketing is a collaborative discipline by nature, so there will always be some overlap between roles.
Here are the most common focus areas in marketing, along with a list of job titles that are commonly associated with each:
General marketing
Most marketers have been a generalist at some point, planning and overseeing a variety of marketing activities. They are often referred to as marketing managers. This role is common in smaller companies or mid-sized organizations with more limited resources. A generalist performs tasks that might otherwise be spread across several specialists at a large company with a more complex structure.
A marketing generalist does it all — manages email marketing campaigns, plans content, crafts product announcements, and maintains relevant social media accounts. This role represents marketing at cross-functional team meetings, supports the sales team, and measures the success of the marketing programs.
Senior-level marketing leaders can also be grouped under general marketing. For example, the chief marketing officer (CMO) reports directly to the chief executive officer (CEO) or chief operating officer (COO) and is responsible for all marketing activities within a company, promoting the company’s brand as well as the products and/or services it produces. CMOs depend on a thorough understanding of market trends and work with other chief executives and the board to create bold vision for the future.
Under the CMO is often a vice president of marketing who works across multiple teams and departments to ensure that everyone is aligned towards the same strategic goals. They are adept at uniting cross-functional teams under a common purpose and work with other executives to develop a marketing strategy with measurable outcomes. Depending on the size of the company, there may be a director-level marketing role as well.
Some common job titles for marketing generalists include:
Chief marketing officer
Director of marketing
Marketing analyst
Marketing coordinator
Marketing consultant
Marketing manager
Marketing and promotions manager
Marketing specialist
Vice president of marketing
Brand marketing
A company’s brand is its identity. Branding is more than just logos, color schemes, and fonts — it involves every quality that a customer associates with the company. For example, if a customer associates a company with intuitive design or personable service, they are more likely to seek out that company’s products (and try any new products that company might introduce in the future).
A brand marketer’s job is to ensure that the company and its products are associated with the right message. The goal is not just to convert prospective customers to actual customers, but also to convert customers to brand advocates who will identify themselves with the company and act as a megaphone, sharing that core brand message.
Some common job titles for brand management marketers include:
Brand activation manager
Brand manager
Brand marketing manager
Brand strategist
Director of brand marketing
Director of brand strategy
Content marketing
Content marketing is at the core of inbound marketing. It is a content marketer’s job to create a variety of media, including blog posts, videos, podcasts, newsletters, and landing pages. Content marketers must reinforce information about the product or service, geared towards the target audience. So, a content marketer must understand who they are creating content for and the types of messages the audience will be most receptive to in which mediums.
On a day-to-day basis, content marketers build and manage an editorial calendar that delivers content aligned with the company’s objectives and business goals. They ensure that all content is on-brand — in terms of style, quality, and tone — and they optimize the content for search engines and social promotion. The content marketing manager is also responsible for tracking the performance. At the management level, some content marketers manage creative resources as well, including designers and writers.
Some common job titles for content marketers include:
Content director
Content manager
Content marketing manager
Content marketing producer
Content specialist
Content strategist
Content writer
Digital marketing
At its simplest, digital marketing encompasses any marketing effort that exists online. Digital channels include search engines, social media, company websites, blogs, and online advertisements. Because so many people spend so much of their time online, it is rare to find a marketer today whose role does not involve digital marketing in some capacity.
Digital marketers, however, specialize in those channels. They are data experts and thrive at the pace of real-time campaign analytics. They craft digital marketing strategies, design content to fit each digital channel, and constantly monitor the analytics to measure the efficacy of each campaign. Content and product marketers depend on digital marketers for performance insights, and marketing managers depend on them to measure the success of the programs.
Some common job titles for digital marketers include:
Digital marketing manager
Digital strategist
Director of digital marketing
Director of web marketing
Director of SEO operations
Internet marketing specialist
Internet marketing specialist
Paid search manager
Pay-per-click manager
SEM manager
SEM specialist
SEO manager
SEO specialist
Web marketing manager
Web marketing specialist
Email marketing
With email marketing, a company can tailor its message to existing and potential customers. This message might be as simple as a coupon code, product announcement, or monthly newsletter. At a deeper level, the email marketer is responsible for establishing an ongoing relationship between the company and its audience.
Email marketers need to work cross-functionally with every marketing team to make sure that the email strategy is consistent with the organization’s overall messaging. This work relies heavily on data, as email marketers need to closely monitor analytics related to email performance, audience segmentation, and A/B tests.
Email marketers must also be proficient in campaign automation. At some companies, email marketers may write and design the emails themselves or they might partner with a content or design team. At ecommerce companies, email marketers play an especially important role since their channel has the potential to drive meaningful business.
Some common job titles for email marketers include:
Campaign manager
Demand generation manager
Director of email marketing
Ecommerce content specialist
Ecommerce marketing analyst
Ecommerce marketing director
Ecommerce marketing manager
Email developer
Email marketer
Email marketing strategist
Email operations manager
Marketing communications
When the marketing team sets the marketing strategy, marketing communications (sometimes abbreviated as “marcom”) is the team responsible for acting as the megaphone for the company message. Communications marketers work to enhance a company’s visibility in the market — to customers, the public, the media, and sometimes to investors.
This essentially makes the communications manager the voice of the company. They work with designers, writers, and digital marketers to research the audience and create engaging pitches, compile analyst briefings, update their CRM, or talk with advertisers. Public relations is a facet of marketing communications as well, which means that the communications manager needs to foster relationships with the press.
Some common job titles for marcom include:
Analyst relations manager
Analyst relations specialist
Corporate communications assistant
Corporate communications manager
Director of communications
Marketing communications manager
Marketing communications specialist
Media relations coordinator
Public relations manager
Publicity assistant
Public relations intern
Marketing research
Market researchers provide insights to other marketers about how to position the right products at the right price to the customers who need them. They plan, design, and implement research campaigns, using tools like user interviews, data analytics, and focus groups to gather quantitative and qualitative information. In addition to having strong analytical skills, market researchers have the ability to distill large amounts of data into conclusions that their audience can understand and act on.
Some common job titles for market researchers include:
Director of market research
Insights analyst
Market research analyst
Market research interviewer
Marketing data analyst
Product research analyst
Qualitative research assistant
Partner marketing
Partner marketers seek symbiosis. They look for opportunities for two or more brands to collaborate to promote each other, to their mutual benefit. Partnerships allow brands to access new audiences, ideally offering a more complete customer experience together than either would separately.
These partnerships can be financially incentivized (e.g. affiliate marketing) or involve non-financial promotional benefits (e.g. bundling products and services together or sharing content).
Partner marketers identify potential partners, work with the partner to establish a relationship, and then collaborate with that partner to design and implement co-marketing campaigns — all while balancing their own company’s goals with their partner’s needs. They also need to be able to teach their company the value of the partnership and track the ability of the partner program to meet the marketing objective.
Some common job titles for partner marketers include:
Affiliate marketing manager
Channel marketing director
Corporate partnership marketing manager
Director of influencer marketing and partnerships
Partner marketing advisor
Partnership marketing director
Partnership marketing manager
Product marketing
Product marketing managers thrive in the area between product management and marketing. They need to be experts in the market (e.g. competitive landscape, buyer personas) and in the product itself. It is the product marketing manager’s job to ensure that the market understands the value of the company’s product and to drive customer demand and product adoption.
Product marketing managers are responsible for the go-to-market strategy. They position the product before it launches (or releases new functionality) and work closely with the product team throughout the development process. They also educate sales and support teams on benefits of the product and how to discuss it with customers.
Some common job titles for product marketers include:
Digital product marketing manager
Director of product marketing
Junior product marketing associate
Portfolio marketing manager
Product marketing manager
Senior product marketing manager
Solutions marketing manager
Social media marketing
Social media platforms have one thing in common — communities of people who share information. Companies and products play a large role in these social communities, marketing to and interacting directly with existing and potential customers, as well as brand advocates and influencers. Social media marketers are experts in this space. They work closely with content and digital teams to design campaigns and social content that will create demand for the product and increase awareness of the brand.
Social media marketers need to be numbers-savvy, working with data analytics tools to understand the audience and real-time measurements of social activities. At the same time, social media marketers need to be highly creative since they will be working with content and design teams (or doing the work themselves) to create social-specific content that will be successful on every channel.
Some common job titles for social media marketers include:
Community manager
Digital communications professional
Digital media director
Director of social media
Director of social media marketing
Engagement coordinator
Engagement manager
Multimedia communications specialist
Social media editor
Social media manager
Social media marketing manager
Social media strategist
Full list of common marketing roles
Chief marketing officer
Director of marketing
Marketing analyst
Marketing coordinator
Marketing consultant
Marketing manager
Marketing and promotions manager
Marketing specialist
Vice president of marketing
Brand activation manager
Brand manager
Brand marketing manager
Brand strategist
Director of brand marketing
Director of brand strategy
Content director
Content manager
Content marketing manager
Content marketing producer
Content specialist
Content strategist
Content writer
Digital marketing manager
Digital strategist
Director of digital marketing
Director of web marketing
Director of SEO operations
Internet marketing specialist
Internet marketing specialist
Paid search manager
Pay-per-click manager
SEM manager
SEM specialist
SEO manager
SEO specialist
Web marketing manager
Web marketing specialist
Campaign manager
Demand generation manager
Director of email marketing
Ecommerce content specialist
Ecommerce marketing analyst
Ecommerce marketing director
Ecommerce marketing manager
Email developer
Email marketer
Email marketing strategist
Email operations manager
Analyst relations manager
Analyst relations specialist
Corporate communications assistant
Corporate communications manager
Director of communications
Marketing communications manager
Marketing communications specialist
Media relations coordinator
Public relations manager
Publicity assistant
Public relations intern
Director of market research
Insights analyst
Market research analyst
Market research interviewer
Marketing data analyst
Product research analyst
Qualitative research assistant
Affiliate marketing manager
Channel marketing director
Corporate partnership marketing manager
Director of influencer marketing and partnerships
Partner marketing advisor
Partnership marketing director
Partnership marketing manager
Digital product marketing manager
Director of product marketing
Junior product marketing associate
Portfolio marketing manager
Product marketing manager
Senior product marketing manager
Solutions marketing manager
Community manager
Digital communications professional
Digital media director
Director of social media
Director of social media marketing
Engagement coordinator
Engagement manager
Multimedia communications specialist
Social media editor
Social media manager
Social media marketing manager
Social media strategist
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