Marketing Director / VP

Key skills/talents

The role of a marketing director is multifaceted and crucial for a company's success. Here are some key responsibilities and therefore the key skills required for such a role:

 

• Developing Marketing Strategies: Marketing directors are responsible for developing comprehensive marketing strategies aligned with the company's overall goals and objectives. This involves analysing market trends, consumer behaviour, and competitor activities to identify opportunities for growth.

• Setting Goals and Objectives: They set clear and measurable goals for the marketing team and ensure that all marketing efforts are aimed at achieving these objectives. Goals may include increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or driving sales.

• Managing Budgets: Marketing directors are typically responsible for managing the marketing budget. This involves allocating funds across various marketing channels and campaigns to maximise ROI.

• Overseeing Marketing Campaigns: They oversee the execution of marketing campaigns across various channels such as digital, social media, print, and events. This includes coordinating with internal teams and external agencies to ensure campaigns are delivered on time and within budget.

• Brand Management: Marketing directors play a key role in building and maintaining the company's brand image. They develop brand positioning strategies and ensure consistent messaging across all marketing materials and touchpoints.

• Analysing Performance: They monitor and analyse the performance of marketing campaigns using metrics such as ROI, conversion rates, and customer engagement. Based on these insights, they make data-driven decisions to optimise future marketing efforts.

• Stakeholder Management: Marketing directors often collaborate with other departments such as sales, product development, and finance to align marketing initiatives with overall business objectives. They may also interact with external stakeholders such as clients, partners, and media outlets.

• Leadership and Team Management: Marketing directors lead and mentor a team of marketing professionals, providing guidance, feedback, and support to help them achieve their goals. They foster a collaborative and innovative work environment to inspire creativity and drive results.

 

Overall, the marketing director plays a critical role in driving the company's growth and success by effectively promoting its products or services to target audiences.

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​Qualifications required

To become a marketing director in the UK, candidates typically (initially) pursue a bachelor's degree in marketing, business administration, communications, or a related field. This foundational education provides essential knowledge in marketing principles and strategies. However, lots of successful marketing directors have done a completely different degree at University, or indeed no degree at all and have fully worked their way up, instead.

 

Employers seek candidates with many years of relevant work experience in marketing roles, progressively advancing in responsibility and with demonstrable results under their belt. While not always mandatory, obtaining professional qualifications in marketing, such as those offered by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), can further bolster one's credentials and demonstrate commitment to the field.

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Rules and regs

As would be expected, there are government regulations regarding marketing & advertising, which a director should be well versed in:

https://www.gov.uk/marketing-advertising-law

https://www.gov.uk/marketing-advertising-law/direct-marketing

 

Insurance is a prerequisite for this role, although this would always be covered by an employer. That said, it is worth checking what liability insurance a potential employer has, should anything go arai with a campaign. 

 

This article, by the Institute of Directors, gives a great overview of what is required: https://www.iod.com/resources/business-advice/insurance-guide-for-directors

Jensen Insurance covers professional indemnity insurance, and more: https://jensteninsurance.co.uk/business-insurance/media-and-marketing-insurance

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Remuneration framework

Marketing roles in general vary hugely in salary, and as annoying as it is to say, titles vary massively as well - in their level of responsibility - meaning this is a tricky one to answer. Generally speaking the title hierarchy and the salary is pro-rata to the size of the company and the budgets at stake. If your (potential) employer is a relatively small company with turnover of less than £10 million, then a Marketing Director may only get paid £60-70k, and have responsibilities to match this. In another bigger corporation, making hundreds of millions in £, these responsibilities and pay would instead better reflect a ‘Head of Marketing’, and there would likely be multiple heads of marketing, all reporting into a Marketing Director and indeed a VP, as in Vicky’s case. 

 

For these ‘larger/bigger’ roles, a marketing Director or VP will easily be earning 6 figures a year, with a hefty bonus structure to match.

 

A CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) is generally - and out of interest - a level up from a VP, and sits on the board with the CEO, COO, CFO etc. These roles really only exist in much larger corporations and the people in them get paid hundreds of thousands a year, possibly even millions.

 

Either way, to get to this level, you have to work your way up, as we explain below.

 

Here are some good ‘salary’ links to check out:

 

https://www.brightnetwork.co.uk/career-path-guides/marketing-pr/guide-marketing-salary-expectations

https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/marketing-executive

https://www.reed.co.uk/average-salary/average-marketing-salary

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How to get started

Colleges across the UK offer foundational courses to kickstart your career path in marketing. These include the Level 2 Certificate in the Principles of Marketing, the Level 3 Certificate in Digital Marketing and Analytics, and the T Level in Digital Production, Design, and Development, links below:

 

https://www.cityandguilds.com/qualifications-and-apprenticeships/business-skills/sales-telesales-and-marketing/7734-principles-in-marketing#tab=information

 

https://www.tlevels.gov.uk/students/subjects/digital-production-design-development

 

And of course, if you are starting out, taking A and/or AS levels in Business Studies and Economics are a good option: https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/business/as-and-a-level/business-7131-7132/specification-at-a-glance

 

Following completion of these courses, pursuing a degree is the next step. UCAS info and links, to help find the right course for you, is: https://www.ucas.com/explore/subjects/marketing

 

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) accredits various university courses tailored to marketing professionals, accessible via their website: https://www.cim.co.uk/qualifications/cim-accredited-degree

 

Additionally, the CIM provides information on marketing apprenticeships, offering valuable hands-on experience in the industry: https://www.cim.co.uk/qualifications/marketing-apprenticeships

 

Gaining experience through practical work and progressively advancing in roles is also a viable pathway to success in the field, and as we touched on earlier, you do not really need any qualifications in business or marketing to get started. You simply need a good CV, be able to interview well, and be willing to start at the bottom (and work your way up).

 

In terms of roles to progress through, employers like to recruit within industry, which by nature encourages you to stay within one, and can in fact make it tough for you to change/switch industries.

 

Likewise, sticking to a particular specialism, i.e. Digital Marketing (and within that there are further specialisms, like PPL and Display Advertising), and indeed Social Media Marketing will be tempting, and most likely, will happen to you… Because your experience from a previous role will dictate your suitability for your next role, and like with industries, recruiters like to recruit to specialisms as much as industries and they rarely deviate from this - or are brave enough to deviate with this - and with 1000s of candidates for every role, they rarely have to.

 

So, as you are embarking on your marketing career, think about things carefully. If you know what industry you might like to sculpt your career in, then this is a no-brainers for you; however, if you don’t, just be careful and plan each career move wisely, or you might get stuck in a specialism and an industry that doesn't really light your fire.

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Associations or official bodies to register with

As previously mentioned, the Chartered Institute of Marketing is the leading professional body for those working within marketing: https://www.cim.co.uk

The Data & Marketing Association (DMA) describes themselves as  ‘the driving force of intelligent marketing’. They also run the Institute of Data & Marketing, which provides training ‘from classroom to boardroom’: https://www.theidm.com

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Job site links

Looking for a role as a Marketing Director very much depends upon the industry you are looking to work within, however, the usual job sites have lots of roles on offer, i.e. Indeed: https://uk.indeed.com/q-marketing-jobs.html?vjk=93d406ba668b12a4

 

LinkedIn is the main place to look, and indeed to network within… Because realistically, Marketing Directors are usually head-hunted. And to get head-hunted, you need a good network of contacts to know who you are and what you’re up to professionally. Then, as and when roles come up that ‘suit’ your background, recruiters and head-hunters will most likely contact you.

 

An ‘old faithful’ marketing recruitment specialist is Michael Page: https://www.michaelpage.co.uk/jobs/marketing

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Progression pathway​

We have discussed industries and specialisms above, and even though it would be great for us to say ‘move around’ in order to broaden your skill set and your approach, sadly, this isn’t how the industry works, so as we’ve said, try to be mindful early on in thinking about what type of work you want to do, and for who, and choose your early roles carefully… They’ll dictate a lot with your ongoing career.

 

The career progression within marketing, typically looks like:

 

1. Marketing Assistant (particularly if you have no qualifications and are starting from absolute scratch)

2. Marketing Coordinator - one level up

3. Marketing Executive - usually where degree-level/qualified candidates start

4. Marketing Manager - 2-3 years of experience and subject to a level of ‘management’, either with budgets, or with junior staff under you

5. Head of Marketing - 4-5 years of experience and greater budget and staff management

6. Group Head of Marketing - not always a thing, but if the corporation encompasses multiple brands or work streams, group heads come into play

7. Marketing Director - 6-8 years of experience; in charge of all budgets, all activity and all staff

8. VP of Marketing - 10+ years of experience and responsible for multiple brand streams and budget streams (typically have marketing directors reporting to them)

 

Some ‘career progression’ links are:

 

https://www.monster.co.uk/career-advice/article/what-are-the-common-marketing-career-paths

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/marketing-career-path

https://cmox.co/cmo-career-path