Careers in focus - unpicking the daily life of a marketing manager - Careers

National Careers Week 2016 is here, so we thought we would delve into the lives of some industry experts. Over the next month, we’re going to be posting some tips from a range of professionals about the areas in which they work.

Our first is Karen. She works in Marketing, so is involved with promotion, advertising, research, social media, events, budgets, the list goes on!

What is your job title?

Senior Marketing Officer 

How did you get into it?

I worked with challenging behavioural students across Medway and Maidstone schools before applying for the E-marketing Officer role at the College (my previous role). After two years in this post our team restructured and I applied for my current position.

What do you enjoy the most about your job?

The people obviously! Seriously though, being able to be really organised and pedantic and be paid for it. I’m a planning nut, and this job takes lots of organisation. But it’s great when everything comes together.

What is involved in your day-to-day work?

I organise projects and people. I’m the main point of contact for most things marketing-related… Some big projects I am involved in would include complete website redevelopments, prospectuses, social media engagement, negation of negative PR and big advertising campaigns across Kent.

What kind of people do you work with/are you based in a team?

I do work in a team, which is great. I’m also the account manager or point of contact for a lot of different projects and marketing accounts. This can be challenging, but I’m also involved in a lot of different cross department and cross-curriculum projects, so I work with everyone from lecturers to the catering team.

What advice would you give anyone thinking about your kind of role?

Well you need to be very organised across multiple projects up to a year in advance. You’d need to have a good understanding of all areas of marketing – especially digital marketing, website project management and statistics. People and problem-solving skills would also need to rate quite highly…and the ability to cope under pressure (crisis management falls under this role too). You'd also need to be able to keep up-to-date with industry developments, able to work autonomously and embrace the power of dance.

What (if any) would you say is the biggest misconception about your job?

That we do everything for fun. That and social media has no planning, structure, strategyor outcome. Because it definitely does!