What careers can you pursue if you study marketing?

Marketing is all around us. From global sports brands selling shoes to local charities attracting donations, marketing is used across every industry you can imagine.

You might take on roles such as:

• Marketing account manager or marketing consultant – manage advertising and promotional campaigns for your employer or clients.
• Product or brand manager – focus your marketing expertise to build and promote a brand or product.
• Market research analyst – collect and use data to learn more about a brand’s target market to reach a certain audience.
• Content marketer – write blogs, build social media campaigns and create videos to market products and services.
• Digital marketer – create or update websites, online platforms, digital advertising and work with other digital media for yourself, your employer or your clients.

You could build your career anywhere in the world, working on product and brand management, market research and analysis, advertising and promotion, online communications, consulting and business administration.

What do marketing professionals do?

Your day-to-day work in a marketing role depends on the type of role you’re in and who you’re working for. You might work for yourself as an entrepreneur promoting your own product or service, work in a business setting promoting a company or product, or work for an agency with a range of different clients with different needs.

You might find that you:

• Plan, develop and launch social media marketing, content marketing, digital marketing, influencer marketing and other campaigns.
• Analyse data and use digital advertising programs such as Instagram for Business, Facebook Business Manager, and Google Ads to get results for your clients.
• Write marketing plans, promotional materials, advertising scripts, blog posts and other content.
• Plan and attend events and promotional activities.
• Work with other companies in sponsorship and cross-promotional settings.

What skills would help in a career in marketing?

It takes a wide range of skills to make a difference in marketing. Depending on the type of role you’re interested in, you might need:

• High level analysis skills to help you interpret market research data and sales figures and stats.
• Excellent organisation and project management skills to help you keep track of multiple campaigns, clients, deadlines and projects.
• Strong communication and reporting skills to help you get results for your clients, cut through any confusion and share what you’ve learned.
• The ability to understand your customer and target markets so you can shape marketing campaigns to suit their needs, goals, likes and dislikes.
• Planning and financial skills to help you take a big-picture approach and focus on getting the results your clients need.

What industries could you work in?

The wide variety of opportunities from a career in marketing could take you anywhere in the world. This allows for you to create a career based on what you love, whether that’s sports, music, technology, food and hospitality, retail brands, charities and not-for-profit organisations and practically any industry you can imagine.

How to prepare for your marketing career while you’re at uni

Your CV is one of the best ways you can market yourself, and you can start building a great marketing CV while you’re still studying. You might like to:

• Take on an internship by completing a Work Integrated Learning unit where you gain experience working with on real-world projects with real companies as part of your studies.
• Go along to careers fairs and industry events for students hosted by professional associations such as the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) and the Murdoch Careers and Employment Centre to network with industry.
• Join a student society or professional association and get involved in organising and promoting events for other members.
• Once you’re here, make use of the Murdoch Careers Portal to explore opportunities, book into career workshops and industry events.
• Get involved in professional mentoring programs such as the Murdoch Industry Mentoring (MIM) program.
• Find paid work opportunities to get experience during your studies or apply for summer or winter study break vacation work.
• Consider a study abroad experience or exchange to one of our partner universities.
• Participate in student team competitions solving real-world problems and getting the opportunity to network along the way.

You could also add valuable experience to your CV with volunteer work, such as helping a not-for-profit organisations or relevant community groups.

The future of marketing

There’s no limit to the opportunities available to you in marketing. As new technology continues to develop, you might find yourself one day working in a marketing role helping to promote drone safety, creating campaigns to sell house-cleaning robots or advertising driverless cars.