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Marketing Director Job Description: Top Duties and Qualifications

Last updated: September 27, 2023

A Marketing Director, or Director of Marketing, develops and implements a brand’s strategy and campaigns. Their main duties include overseeing the marketing department, building a marketing plan and conducting competitor research.

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Marketing Director duties and responsibilities

A Marketing Director’s primary duty is to oversee the entire marketing department. This responsibility involves assessing and creating your company’s marketing plan and marketing strategy, and then planning, coordinating and directing marketing efforts. A Marketing Director conducts competitor research and also researches demand for an organization’s services and products.

Other duties of a Marketing Director may include:

  • Communicating the marketing plan.
  • Developing promotions along with Advertising Managers.
  • Building brand awareness, including positioning.
  • Coordinating marketing projects from beginning to end.
  • Compiling lists that describe the company’s offerings.
  • Developing and understand finance and budgets to include research and development appropriations, expenditures and profit-loss projections.
  • Identifying the company’s potential customers.
  • Creating and manage advertising campaigns.
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Marketing Director Job Description Examples

What does a Marketing Director do?

Marketing Directors lead the marketing team of a business in strategizing and implementing marketing campaigns. They’ll analyze the company’s goals and research their target audience to come up with detailed marketing plans and schedules for campaigns. Marketing Directors will then delegate tasks for these campaigns to their marketing team and will oversee the campaign’s performance and will ensure it stays on track with the schedule they’ve laid out.

They’re also in charge of creating marketing budgets for ad campaigns and other promotional efforts. Many of them will analyze the results of each campaign and will compile these results in comprehensive reports, which they’ll present to the leadership and executive teams.

Marketing Director skills and qualifications

You will want to interview applicants who have strong sales, communication and presentation skills. Having high stakeholder and project management competence is a notable skill for the ideal Marketing Director candidate.

Other skills for Marketing Directors include:

  • Experience running a marketing team
  • Attention to detail
  • Robust copywriting skills
  • Ability to multitask and possess practical time management skills
  • Excellent written, verbal and interpersonal communication skills
  • Past work with digital marketing forms like content marketing and social media marketing
  • Proven budget management abilities
  • Professional work ethic

Marketing Director salary expectations

A Marketing Director makes an average of $83,656 per year. Salary may depend on level of experience, education and the geographical location.

Marketing Director education and training requirements

Marketing Directors can come from different backgrounds, but most employers tend to require a formal degree. The educational qualification standard for this position is a bachelor’s degree in business journalism, marketing or communications. Some employers prefer that applicants have a master’s degree in business administration.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) is one of the most significant marketing associations in the world that offers a Professional Certified Marketer program. Also, Sales & Marketing Executives International (SMEI) certifies professionals who are presently working as an Executive Manager, Marketing Manager or Marketing Educator with a Certified Marketing Executive designation.

Marketing Director experience requirements

In general, a Marketing Director has at least five to 10 years of experience in the field. Many good candidates know about finance—particularly profit-loss statements and expense management. It’s also essential that applicants have the experience that comes with having a familiarity with the creative side of design and marketing.

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Frequently asked questions about Marketing Directors

Who reports to a Marketing Director?

The entire marketing department works under the Marketing Director. The exact employees who report to them often vary depending on the size of the company. Smaller organizations contain Marketing Coordinators and a few other marketing professionals who report directly to the Marketing Director, who will provide hands-on support and guidance when implementing campaigns.

Larger businesses will contain more marketing employees. These employees will typically report to the Marketing Manager, who works directly underneath the Marketing Director. They’ll work more closely with the marketing team conducting campaigns and will report the performance to the Marketing Director.

Do Marketing Directors have different responsibilities in different industries?

Marketing Directors can work in a wide variety of industries, marketing their products to their target audiences. Some may work in a business-to-business sales environment where they must successfully market their product or service to other businesses, so they should understand common business sales and marketing tactics.

Some will market certain technology and software products to businesses or consumers, making them responsible for understanding how common software solutions in their industry operate. This helps them effectively cater their messaging to their target audience. Others will market products directly to the consumer and must know how to target their branding in an entertaining way to get customers to purchase them.

What's the difference between a Vice President of Marketing and a Marketing Director?

Though they both oversee the marketing department, the Vice President of Marketing and Marketing Director hold different responsibilities. Most Vice Presidents of Marketing serve in larger corporations on the executive team. They often work on big-picture messaging and promotional tasks and establish the company’s marketing goals with other senior-level members.

The Marketing Director often works directly below them. The Vice President of Marketing will relay the leadership team’s goals and announcements. The Marketing Director will communicate these messages to their marketing team and will adjust their marketing strategies accordingly.

What makes a great Marketing Director?

An effective Marketing Director must have impressive leadership skills to regularly guide and advise their marketing team on certain strategies and plans to implement. They should have several years of experience working on the marketing team, usually in a variety of different types of roles to better guide and teach the marketing team.

Many impressive Marketing Director candidates hold strong communication skills to collaborate with other departments, clients, team members and leadership and senior staff members. It’s also best for them to have great public speaking skills to present at conferences and provide reports to the Vice President of Marketing and other senior staff members.

Job Description Examples

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