Marketing For Shy People?

Question

Hi,

So basically, I'm not the most outgoing person in the world, and I know for sure that I could not hold a job in sales/advertising, so I'm wondering if someone like me, who isn't outgoing, and is more numbers-oriented can still have a career in marketing. Marketing, from what I've seen, tends to be more about selling things and building PR, which is why, stereotypically, it seems to favor those who are outgoing. However, my interest in marketing is more towards the strategy side. For example, I'd be more interest in establishing what the product is, how to price it, where to place it, or other more strategic elements in strategy, or doing brand management for a company. So can I still fit within marketing, or will I be better off taking my math-oriented, slow to open up self rear to the financial sector only?

thanks

Sailorette · Answer

I think the strategic role you describe is much more typical of a product manager than the PR side you are afraid of.

There was an excellent post from another forum member describing his role and responsibilities in brand management... let me see if I can dig it up for you.

Sailorette · Answer

Hmmm... I can't seem to find the post that I referenced previously, but the following links might come in handy as you're exploring your options:

marketing-careers-76805.html

https://ask.goodproductmanager.com/archives/

Don't give up on your interests based on an early perception that the role might not be a great fit! I'm sure you can find a way to blend the position with your strengths

hailtothevictors · Answer

Thanks for the reply! But yeah, I was kind of worried about that. I love working with numbers and I actually enjoy working with people/teamwork, but somehow, selling products to people or developing advertising/PR campaigns aren't my strong suite. However, I've always loved marketing and trying to figure out how to increase sales by determining what to produce, where to sell it, how to price it, etc. I know that what I just said might be sales, but I think there is a slight difference between "how" to sell something or "how" to increase sales versus pure selling.

I actually have another concern though. From what I understand, a lot of people in marketing are engineers and a common career path is engineer => product/brand manager. Now, while I'm good at math/physics, I'm NOT good at engineering or other sciences. Therefore, if I don't have a science/tech degree, will I be at a severe disadvantage when applying for marketing jobs, or is there still room for non-tech people, especially in the roles I want? Otherwise, what can I do to be more competitive? I will graduate with a degree in finance/accounting (I feel its always better to have a solid background in those because they are the language of business and give you a firm foundation to build on later), but what classes should I take for electives? Economics, physics, math, or what? Also, would getting a masters in marketing, and later, an MBA also help me out?

thanks

Jerz · Answer

I wouldn't worry too much about not being good at sales or ad/PR work. Companies have sales organizations (which are generally separate from marketing) to handle sales, and agencies to do the bulk of the PR/ad work. The brand managers are more responsible for developing product strategy and coordinating all the moving parts to execute.

As for backgrounds, I don't really think there's that many ex-engineers who are product managers, though it could vary by industry (I could see tech appreciating an engineering background). Most of the product managers I've encountered, before they did an MBA, were former marketers (analysts on a brand team for example), came from an agency background, or were consultants. There's a smaller minority who came from a financial/analytical background. If you're interested in marketing while pursuing a degree in finance, I'd recommend taking some marketing electives. I cannot think of a situation where a marketing manager would ever need to do physics or higher math. As for graduate work, most product managers are MBAs. A separate masters in marketing would not add any value beyond the MBA.

hailtothevictors · Answer

Hmm, I'm more interested in luxury brand, retail, or consumer product brand management than tech. I'm just worried that marketing is seen as a fluff major (and in all honesty, it kind of is and I can always learn it at the grad level), which is why I want to take some more quantitative/difficult classes, especially if I'm competing with engineers in some cases. Also, I hate to ask this and this isn't my chief concern, but are brand managers paid well

? I know they don't get paid like Henry Kravis or something like that, nor do I have a need for that much money, but can you still make well over 6 figures in brand management? Furthermore, what is the typical career progression? Does one start immediately in brand management or do you have to work in something else and then transition into it later on? Finally, is brand managemer the highest position, or are there senior levels in brand management as well?

togafoot · Answer

Don`t worry, a lot of marketing nowadays is very analytics and metrics driven. Strategy, decision making, channel and distribution choices are all made through thorough analysis. Everything is turning highly optimized through the sheer number of metrics out there.

There are clear career progression paths for marketing...depending on the company, from someone starting on campaigns, to a subset of features in a product, a whole product, product groups, positioning, competitive analysis, overall product strategy. Each part progressively means you have to interface with more and more different departments and managing more people to effectively execute a product group marketing and positioning strategy.

e.g. If you are creating a new product, where do you position it relative to competitors and your current product portfolio, what is the marketing channel to hit the correct demographic, what metrics are needed to get this data and to measure you are procuring the correct behaviours from users, and if not, what behaviours are they exhibiting, and is this the correct sort of behaviour. This metrics will feed back into the marketing cycle for you to optimize and refine.

Jerz · Answer

Building on what togafoot said, following product responsibility comes progression to portfolio responsibility (eg from Coke Zero to all soft drink products) or increasing geographic responsibility (eg from Germany to Europe to Global), ultimately to CMO or CEO, especially in consumer-focused organizations. Of course, there's just the small matter of performing at a high enough level to justify all those promotions...

As for pay, I don't know what pre-MBA salaries are like for people in brand management, but for post MBA entry level positions - generally an assistant product manager or associate product manager - the median salary is around $95-$100k in the US. So like you said, you won't be making banker money, but you'll be able to live comfortably and also won't be working banker hours.

hailtothevictors · Answer

Alright, last round of questions: 1. Those are just post MBA numbers right, so can it go up a fair amount from there? I'm hoping to eventually make around 200k simply because one of my relatives earns around there and I want to surpass the previous generation in terms of earnings

. Again, this isn't the biggest factor, but if anyone has info on this, that would be nice. 2. Does anyone have good links about daily job duties and what classes, outside of marketing, I should take to become a brand manager? Posted from my mobile device

togafoot · Answer

1)Give it a few years, inflation and some promotions will eventually get your pay above that level :lol:

2) It`s dependent on the company, so to generalise, outside of classes you may want to look at social media marketing which is increasingly big... specifically look at metrics classes and what each social media channel is most effective with. e.g. facebook and twitter is more focused towards a retention strategy for your brand and can give you a reasonable understanding of the demographic and types of interactions you receive (facebook insights) based on the different types of brand messages/strategies you use within these channels. Try to learn which metrics are actionable so that you can design marketing campaigns and understand which numbers you need to record to be able to gain insight and create actions. General statistics can be useless when data is aggregated.. (This ad campaign resulted in 100,000 fans visit my facebook page mean?.... Useless data on its own because it offers limited insights and limited actionable behaviour...but if you go further...( of the 100k, 30k followed through with an action, and of those 30k, 80% were male and the 100k was 40% male).... now you have more insight and potential actions for targeting a specific demographic...e.g. can the campaign be designed in a way to increase the 30% conversion to action, knowing that it is highly male orientated, can you focus on the male aspects of the campaign further? It`s easier to evaluate if you can multivariate the campaigns to get more specific data.

hailtothevictors · Answer

Few more questions:

1. Is there anything outside product management that will be more quantitative work?

2. What are the best national and international masters in marketing/management programs? Since I'm majoring in finance, I'll need to do something to prove my marketing chops, so any suggestions on that?

kman · Answer

hailtothevictors,

I am planning to branch into marketing/product management as well. Currently enrolled in McCombs.

I am not also good at sales, but have strong analytical skills as well as an engineering/tech consulting background. I am hoping to have a career in marketing/product management which may be more about product features, value proposition, analyzing metrics, customer insights etc...

Jeanette · Answer

How do you feel McCombs is for marketing? I know they're strong in accounting and energy, but I haven't heard much about marketing.

kman · Answer

Yes, Mccombs is strong in acct, finance and energy. Energy is a focus of the new dean.
For Marketing, could be lacking in research, but curriculum must be on par

mreevit · Answer

It depends on what type of marketing...they have a good relationship with all of the tech companies in austin -dell, intel, amd, and from what I've read, the have a strong relationship with microsoft, amazon, and apple. If you're looking to do product management for these types of companies, then I think you're in a good position. Look into getting experiencework through the plus program and get a product management internship.

Outside of that industry, I don't know much.

hailtothevictors · Answer

Do those tech companies only hire engineers with marketing MBAs, or can business people with marketing MBAs also get a job at those places?

hailtothevictors · Answer

I was reading through the replies again to see if I missed anything, and I was wondering what you all mean by marketing is "analytics and metrics driven". What does this mean and how does this relate to marketing being more quantitative? In my marketing class, we discussed analytics, like customer equity and things like that, but we never really had to calculate these things, they were just given. Would a brand manager's job involve calculating these sorts of things? Also, what does a product/brand manager, particularly at a FMCG or Luxury brand group do on a day to day basis? Are these jobs more analytical or are they more qualitative/reliant on soft skills?

highhopes · Answer

I think the point he's trying to get across is that marketing is often seen as a more creative & bubbly personality driven field than some of the other business careers and that's not really true.

For example, if you need customer research done, you will sit down and design what you're looking for and what you're trying to accomplish. You will hand that over to a research team who will take care of getting the data and preparing it for you. But then you need to know what that data means when you get it back and how to interpret it and what you might need to do with anything that you didn't expect.

Similarly, you will likely be involved in price forecasting. If you're doing hardcore financial calculations, you will probably work wtih the finance team to do that for you, but you have to have an understanding of what they're doing and what your end results mean. Many (most?) marketers also have responsibility for some or all of their P&L (profit and loss).

So in short, if you asked a recruiter which was more important, creativity or analytical skills, they would no doubt tell you analytical skills.

Most marketing folks spend their day-to-day jobs in meetings, working with various teams to make sure what they need is getting done. You will almost always be working with someone that doesn't report to you (and may very well have lots of other things to do), so communication & persuasion skills are must haves as well.

Jerz · Answer

Well they'd probably tell you that both are very important. You need to be able to work with the agencies and creative types to evaluate advertising, packaging, etc. But then also be able to work with the finance and quant types to develop sales forecasts and other financial plans.

BlueRobin · Answer

Sorry to bump, but

Does one has to necessarily take Marketing or can mba General Management people also apply for brand Management jobs?

Marketing For Shy People?

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