Most entrepreneurs are required to wear many hats, which includes bearing the responsibility of being the marketing manager. As your business grows however, there comes a time when you should really consider hiring a professional to do the job. A good marketing manager can open up and grab new opportunities to propel your company to the next level. Before recruiting a marketing manager, there are two key questions all small business owners should answer:
• Is your small business ready to grow?
• Will a marketing manager help your business grow fast enough to justify a salary?
How much does a marketing manager earn?
According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a small business marketing manager is $82,000, while some other sources have it higher at $96.000. However, there are many perfectly capable professionals who will work for less, especially those relatively new in the field looking to prove themselves. A marketing manager's salary is a major expense for a small business, but then again, you get what you pay for.
Responsibilities of a marketing manager
A marketing manager's job is to develop and follow through with a campaign to make a business better known, and to reach potential customers and clients through a wide-range of methods. These include creating and placing traditional advertisements as well as conducting email and web campaigns. It is also beneficial to routinely readjust strategies to make them more effective.
In a small business, the marketing manager is also usually the public relations contact. He or she will present the owner with a proposed budget and plan, create and carry out a variety of promotional campaigns. Marketing managers often have a team of salespeople they can direct, or in a very small business, they may very well be their own salesperson. They also have the responsibility of coordinating the actions of all other departments and employees to ensure that a company speaks, moves and acts with one voice.
Build brand and keep up with competition
A marketing manager helps build a company's brand and acts as an intelligence officer. Much like officers in army intelligence, they keep an eye out for the company's competitors, what those competitors are doing and what can be learned from the competition. It is also their job to determine if there are new product lines or services that a company should consider in order to keep up with or beat the competition.