Today, an advertising manager is one of the fastest growing and sought-after professions. Such specialists work almost everywhere: in small and large enterprises, in the business sphere, with individual entrepreneurs.
What is the profession of an advertising manager? What advantages and disadvantages does it have? What are the job responsibilities of an employee? What career prospects await knowledgeable professionals? We will talk more about this in our article.
What is this profession?
Advertising Manager (or as he is also called - Marketing Manager) is one of the most popular and sought-after professions in the labor market. The description of this profession is quite multifaceted and extensive.
So in In general, the advertising manager is committed to promoting the company in which he works in the market. It attracts an audience and customers, tells the public about the products and services that the company offers. Such an employee develops marketing campaigns, studies the market, participates in the development and production of popular goods. Thanks to the work of this specialist, the company's products remain popular among buyers.
Today, advertising managers are divided into several subspecies: some of them are engaged in contextual advertising on social networks, others are specialists in outdoor advertising (posters, banners, etc.). Often, such specialists are employees of the public relations department.
An advertising manager can work independently as an individual entrepreneur, be an employee or work in a large-scale marketing agency.
Advantages and disadvantages
It should be immediately noted that even though the work of an advertising manager in itself is quite popular and widespread, not everyone likes it. And for the most part it depends on the career preferences of a particular specialist. One way or another, it is important to consider all the features of the profession of an advertising manager (both positive and negative).
Let's start with the benefits. So, the profession of an advertising manager is characterized by the following positive features:
- a large number of personal communications with a variety of people (customers, business partners, company employees from other departments, etc.);
- organization and participation in recreational activities;
- creative orientation of work;
- lack of hard work;
- decent material reward;
- fast career growth.
However, for specialists in this field, there are also disadvantages:
- psychological stress;
- a large amount of paper work (for example, reporting);
- a significant part of the working day is spent working at the computer;
- high competition among applicants;
- great responsibility;
- work on the result.
In this regard, before studying for a specialty or starting to work as an advertising manager, you need to evaluate all aspects of the profession and understand whether you are ready to deal with it.
Qualifications required
In order to become a professional and qualified advertising manager, a person must have a broad outlook and be competent in many matters. Moreover, depending on the particular employer, as well as on the place of work, certain requirements may vary, therefore, before submitting your resume, it is important to carefully study the specific field of activity.
Anyway, but to become an advertising manager you need to have the appropriate education, as well as have certain professional skills.
Education
The issue of training an advertising manager is considered controversial. So, some employers are willing to cooperate. only with those specialists who managed to get specialized higher education.
However, today there is a huge number of universities that train such specialists. This list includes both large and prestigious metropolitan universities and provincial institutions. In order to work in the field of advertising, it is worth choosing such areas of preparation as marketing, public relations, direct advertising. For admission, you need to take such subjects as Russian, mathematics, social studies, English and literature.
At the same time, it is worth noting that in some cases it is not necessary to enter a specialized institution of higher education. Many employers recruit people who have completed relevant courses, trainings or master classes.
Skills and abilities
Despite the fact that often higher education in itself is not a prerequisite, you must have certain skills to work successfully as an advertising manager.
So, among them most often distinguish:
- creative and creative abilities;
- sociability;
- experience and ability to negotiate;
- design abilities;
- knowledge of foreign languages (at least one, but better than several);
- ability to allocate a budget;
- stress resistance;
- teamwork skills;
- attention to detail;
- knowledge of the basics of brand building;
- journalist skills (e.g. copywriting, video production).
It is important to note the fact that if you work in a small company or are an independent expert, then you will have to have all the above skills, since without them it is very difficult to work in advertising. On the other hand, in a large company with separate advertising departments, each of the working specialists is well versed in only one or several areas.
Personal qualities
As you know, when applying for a job, the employer pays attention not only to the professional skills of the applicant (although this is the basis), but also to the personal qualities and character of the candidate. You can find a similar section describing individual characteristics in each resume.
Among the valuable qualities that are useful to each advertising manager, the following can be distinguished:
- friendly attitude to people;
- customer focus;
- sociability;
- active life position;
- perseverance in achieving results;
- creative streak;
- leadership skills.
An advertising manager is a person who must combine a wide variety of qualities. So, on the one hand, it is important that a specialist approaches his work in an unconventional and creative way, finds unique and original solutions. At the same time, an employee of the advertising department should be an analyst, pragmatist and strategist who calculates his actions several steps forward.
Functional responsibilities
In the course of his professional activities, the advertising manager performs a variety of functions. Among them:
- thinking over specific advertising campaigns and advertising tactics of the company as a whole;
- determination of a promotion strategy for a particular product, product or service;
- the study of statistical indicators of the advertising campaign, as well as the enterprise as a whole;
- competitor analysis;
- market research;
- drawing attention to a particular company;
- increase in sales and profits of the organization;
- customer search;
- work with graphic editors;
- placement of advertisements;
- business correspondence.
Moreover, this list of functional responsibilities is not exhaustive. The thing is that in the course of his work, the advertising manager is also engaged in other, smaller matters (for example, holding meetings, managing a team). In addition, depending on the specific company and the area in which it operates, the advertising manager performs other work.
So, for example, if a specialist works at a high-tech enterprise or in industry, then before advertising, he needs to carefully study the product that he is going to advertise.
Job description
As mentioned above, the specific responsibilities and job description of an advertising specialist directly depend on his place of work. However, there are several universal responsibilities of an advertising manager.
- Support of the general director of the company, heads of structural divisions and other employees during the implementation of the advertising campaign. First of all, it includes full and detailed informing all involved parties about the details of a particular advertising campaign, its timing, estimated profit, the number of customers to be attracted.
- Organization of advertising campaigns and internal processes. This means that the advertising manager not only thinks out the general advertising idea, but also deals with its concrete development, develops an action plan. This may include tasks such as budgeting, selecting specific advertising sites.
- Every professional marketing employee should be aware of the legal side of their activities. He should know about what laws, by-laws and other regulatory documents regulate advertising activities, not to violate them.
- Often in enterprises, an advertising manager partially performs design work. So, for example, such a specialist can engage in the development of layouts, create booklets and advertising banners.
- Coordination of activities with all departments of the company. Such work requires developed organizational skills and leadership skills.
When signing an employment contract, it is very important to ask the employer to show you job descriptions. In this way, you will be able to evaluate how qualified you are.
Career prospects
An advertising manager with no work experience can only apply for starting positions of a lower rank. Moreover, his salary will be quite low - about 20,000 rubles. However, do not despair, because with the proper level of effort and diligence, he will be able to quickly move up the career ladder, increase his status and material reward.
For example, a top-level advertising manager earns about 100,000 rubles. However, it is worth bearing in mind the fact that he also receives much more functions, and also bears a serious responsibility.
In general, a career as a marketing manager can develop in several ways. He can move up the career ladder inside the enterprise, and also has a chance to get such a position as the head of the public relations department.
In addition, there is an option self-development advertising manager. He can act as an individual entrepreneur and at the same time serve several companies, organizations, institutions. In this case, the specialist can work in a free schedule, choose his own employers and control the level of income.
Another option is the position of a company consultant. Such specialists are in demand in situations where the advertising managers of organizations themselves are not able to cope with a particular task. However, it should be borne in mind that in this case, the advertising manager must have a high level of knowledge and have impressive experience.
If desired, an experienced and professional advertising manager can organize his own advertising agency, hire employees to perform all routine tasks, and he can only engage in the work of interest to him or even perform managerial functions.
Due to the fact that this profession is developing quite rapidly and is relatively new, experienced and knowledgeable specialists are often involved as teachers in higher education institutions. They can also independently develop continuing education courses, trainings, master classes, individual programs.
Thus, we were able to make sure that the advertising manager is a popular and interesting profession, which is very popular in the labor market.
It should be borne in mind that the specialist must constantly study, improve his knowledge, master new skills and competencies - only in this case can he remain competitive and relevant.