Marketing

Marketing assistant is a common position for recent graduates looking to gain entry-level experience. It's more of a general marketing position, allowing employees to interact with various aspects of a marketing department. In this role, a person might help ensure a marketing department runs smoothly, working with upper management on tasks like maintaining schedules, conducting market research, organizing performance reports, and contributing to marketing campaigns led by other team members. Marketing assistants draw heavily on communication, interpersonal, organizational, and time management skills. On the job, you can anticipate sharpening your creative and analytical skills as they relate to ideating, executing, and assessing campaigns.

Market research: Students who go into market research work for manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, trade and industry associations, market research firms, advertising agencies, the government, and non-profit agencies. Market research analysts use market studies to discover how well a company's products or services may sell. In this multifaceted occupation, analysts work with detailed data about consumers, industry competitors, and various market conditions. This information is then presented to marketing managers or other decision-makers in the company. Employment of market research analysts is projected to grow 18 percent from 2019 to 2029, much faster than the average for all occupations. Employment growth will be driven by an increased use of data and market research across many industries.

Marketing analytics: The more technology develops, the more time and budget companies are allocating to understanding the performance and growth influence of their marketing efforts. Marketing analytics is the practice of managing and studying metrics data in order to determine the ROI of marketing efforts like calls-to-action (CTAs), blog posts, channel performance, and thought leadership pieces, and to identify opportunities for improvement. By tracking and reporting on business performance data, diagnostic metrics, and leading indicator metrics, marketers will be able to provide answers to the analytics questions that are most vital to their stakeholders. The occupational outlook for market research analysts suggests that there will be 22% growth from 2020 to 2030, which is much faster than the average for all occupations..

Expect to do some sales work or work as an Assistant Manager, managing one or several departments before advancing to a store management position or to a position that involves buying, advertising, location analysis, and brand management.

• Buyers or Merchandise Managers: Professionals who are merchandise managers are responsible for buying products and services for organizations to use or resell. Buyers consider price, quality, availability, reliability, and technical support when choosing suppliers and merchandise. Buyers who work for large organizations often specialize in purchasing one or two categories of products or services. Buyers who work for smaller businesses may be responsible for making a greater variety of purchases. Employers are typically discount stores, mass merchangts, specialty stores, department stores, and grocery stores.

• Store Management: Develop quick decision-making, problem solving skills and communication skills to assist customers, manage employees, monitor promotions and sales goals and work with buyers. Excellent organizational skills are necessary to oversee the daily operations of a store or a department.

Business development managers use their marketing expertise to acquire new business opportunities that aid in their organization's growth. They have in-depth knowledge of not only the marketplace but also the competitors. They work with both the sales and marketing departments to strategically plan growth and marketing campaigns that result in profitability.

Business development positions are among the most in-demand roles in the world, according to the 2025 Future of Jobs Report from the World Economic Forum. In the United States, the organization projects a 14% net growth for business development professionals between 2025 and 2030.

A business developer’s day-to-day roles, according to Indeed, can include:

• Coordinating with sales teams to develop beneficial proposal
• Building and maintaining client relationships
• Gathering actionable insights from customer and competitor data
• Identifying and researching clients
• Giving presentations to clients and company executives
• Overseeing project teams to ensure contracts are executed as specified
• Negotiating contract terms and communicating with stakeholders
• Managing strategic partnerships to grow business
• Creating and implementing processes and policies to support business goals

Sales is the most interactive form of promotion. Today, companies often emphasize relationship-oriented sales processes that connect with other marketing activities. While marketing managers may create campaigns to drive interest, it's the sales team that seals the deal. Sales roles can be business-to-business, direct marketing, or account management and also includes service industries such as financial services, insurance, technology, manufacturing, healthcare, and others, however most sales jobs have the same goal. In sales positions, professionals present and discuss products or services in hopes of convincing others to buy. Roles in sales require customer and sales-related tasks, in additional to analytical and quantitative skills. The future of sales roles will place a premium on the ability to build client relationships, deepen industry knowledge, and importantly learn how to gain benefit and insight from sophisticated analytic tools. Many sales roles now involve tasks in science and research, environment, as well as information technology.

Examples of "sales" roles include: Financial Services Sales Agents, Wholesale/Manufactoring Sales, Advertising Sales, Outside Sales Rep, Account Manager, Enterprise Software Sales, Business Development Representative, Regional Sales Manager and Recruiter. *TIP: While cold-calling is traditionally associated with sales, it isn't required for every position. If the idea of dialing up potential customers out of the blue is too intimidating or unnerving, consider looking for an inbound sales job.

At a high level, digital marketing refers to advertising delivered through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. Using these online media channels, digital marketing is the method by which companies endorse goods, services, and brands. Common job titles include:

• A digital marketing assistant is a "multiple hats" type of role, but it's focused specifically on web-related tasks. This could mean that one day you're working on social media campaigns and the next day helping out with putting together emails for an upcoming launch.
• The job of the media assistant has changed as technology has developed, but the role is still incredibly important. You'll be helping to plan and execute marketing campaigns across all types of platforms—from traditional media like billboards and TV to digital-first media like social—so expect to find yourself working with lots of different people and teams. Budgeting is often a big part of the media assistant's job, so having a head for numbers can help you get ahead. You'll be monitoring media to ensure that ads are placed correctly, as well as reporting on coverage and outcomes from the ads.
• Social Media Marketing Specialist If you're incredibly comfortable with the ins and out of different social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, working as a social media marketing specialist could be a perfect fit. A key part of this job is community engagement, which means replying to customer or fan comments and messages. You'll also be responsible for putting together different types of posts for each platform, maintaining the social calendar, and monitoring or reporting on engagement to the senior members of the marketing team.
• Email marketing specialists have access to audiences in an incredibly personal way–through their inbox! In this job, you'll build and manage customer email lists, develop new ways to encourage your audience to share their email with you, and test out messaging and designs to attract people to the company's site.
• SEO Specialist: You will use your ability to research, set measurable goals, and have a good grasp on content and writing for the web, in addition to utilizing technology tools to strategize brand placement on the web.
• Affiliate marketing is a newer subset of the industry, but it's rapidly growing, so it's a good sector of marketing to explore in an entry level job. You'll help to manage the affiliate programs of a company, where commission is paid to either partners or customers when they generate sales for you. In this role, you'll likely spend time researching possible affiliate partners and contacting them, as well as ensuring that commissions are being received across your existing partnership base.
• Content marketing oversee the production of content that drives traffic to an organization's website.