Online marketing appears to have eclipsed traditional methods of marketing but which is better? Is one more effective than the other? We take a look and the pros and cons of each marketing method.

Marketing and promotion is something every business must do to stay ahead of their competitors. Traditional marketing – also referred to as offline marketing – are those methods that we are all familiar with: the flyers, posters, leaflets and business cards to name just four.

The digital revolution has altered the face of marketing. Online marketing is the go-to marketing technique with brands utilising social sharing sites, websites and the like to engage and reach customers, fans and followers.

Online marketing may have eclipsed more traditional methods, but offline marketing is not dead and buried just yet. There are those marketing experts who believe that one cannot survive without the others.

But what are pros and cons of each?

Traditional Marketing

From loyalty card schemes to handing out business cards at an event, many brands, large and small, still give over a portion of their marketing budget to traditional marketing tools and activities.

PROS

CONS

Online Marketing

Online marketing is often a brand’s first thought when trying to reach existing and new customers. Although it is expected of a company to reach online, there are pros and cons to this approach.

PROS

CONS

 

What this does mean is that anyone seeking a career in marketing is faced with a treasure-trove of opportunities. Is the marketing world attracting you?

Marketing courses are increasingly popular. But once qualified, what can you do with a marketing degree? We take a look at possible career paths open to you with a marketing qualification.

After completing a marketing qualification, you may be questioning ‘what can you do with a marketing degree?’. However,  you will find several career pathways open to you with the right qualifications. It is a career choice with many different faces and activities, possibly the reason why you chose marketing in the first place.

Understanding the needs and desires of a client or brand and producing the results that allow them to communicate with their customers is incredibly satisfying. It is a creative profession too, where no two days, clients or campaigns are the same. Aside from looking for employment with companies and organisations, or branching out on your own to offer certain services.

So, what can you do with a marketing degree? Here are some areas you can find yourself working in with the right qualifications.

#1 Market Research

What can you do with a marketing degree? Market research is a very popular career path. This branch of work under the marketing banner involves research the ‘intended target’ or understanding the customer demographic of a certain product, service or brand.

To capture a market, a company must first understand it. By knowing who their customers are, they can create a customer persona.

And from this, they can determine what kind of marketing message will work. It informs everything about a marketing campaign from the language used, the colours, the brand and the slogan.

It also helps to define where their customers are at, meaning which traditional and online marketing tactics will be the ones that successfully reach them.

There are many ways in which market research is done and could include;

A large company may choose to use an in-house team to carry out market research but it is not uncommon for it to be outsourced to a specialist company.

There are various positions under the heading of market research including manager, analyst and director.

Is this the right career choice for you?

To be a successful market researcher, you need to enjoy both the qualitative and quantitative side of things. You will also need to be an analytical thinker, able to identify key trends and to understand what the data is telling you.

It is also a career choice that can see you work directly with the public, something that many people find enjoyable.

#2 Brand Management

Brand management is often the focus of the consumer products industry.

Brand managers have often been likened to ‘small business owners’ within a business. This is because they are responsible for a product or family of products under the brand umbrella.

Larger companies such as Unilever are a large company who employ brand managers to look after their family of products.

For example, Unilever produces well-known brands such as Domestos, Dove, Surf, Magnum and PG Tips to name just five of their extensive brand portfolio,

A brand manager would look after the promotion and marketing of a brand in many ways including;

To do all of this, brand managers will often work closely with the market research team, guiding them as to the information they need from customers to inform their next promotional campaign.

From this information, they will have the bigger picture from which they can create a marketing strategy.

This strategy may call for a new ad campaign or extend the vision and essence of a brand further so that it targets the right customers.

It is also the brand manager’s job to ensure functions such as promotional campaigns, market research and development alongside manufacturing are implemented along the pathways highlighted by the marketing strategy.

Is this the right career choice for you?

If you are well-motivated and a visionary, as well as possessing managerial and organisational skills, then this could be the career choice for you.

Large global companies frequently advertise brand manager posts and travelling the globe may be something you do as part of this role. Starting salaries are good with the opportunity to progress within the company also high.

#3 Advertising

Advertising and marketing are often two terms that are used interchangeably but they are actually two different things. If you’re questioning ‘what can I do with a marketing degree?’, it’s important to know the difference.

Marketing has many different moving parts, so to speak, and is the systematic approach to highlighting the benefits of a product or service to customers.

Advertising is part marketing and can be defined as;

Any ad (no matter what format it takes) is a paid, public (meaning non-personal) announcement that is a persuasive message made by an identifiable sponsor of a company, organization, or person to existing (or potential) customers or a non-profit member base.

The Balance Small Business

There are various positions open to anyone with marketing qualification including account manager, account planner and media buyer.

An account manager would liaise between the advertising agency for whom they work and the client.

Their job is to ensure that the adverts are created and distributed within the allotted time schedule and budget. They focus their work on the client and their needs.

And account planner focuses on the consumer but conducting research into the customer demographic. They are people who get to understand the motives of why people would buy their products and what lies behind the purchasing decision.

The media buyer is the person who finds the places where the ads can be placed. They work closely with the account planner who will have all the information on customer demographic. This way, they make sure they place the adverts where customers will see them.

Is this the career choice for you?

Advertising jobs are usually found in advertising agencies, media organisations and market research firms too. It is a varied career choice but can be competitive. For anyone studying online marketing courses, it can be a great start to their career.

#4 Promotions

Many companies and organisations, no matter how big they are or which industry they dominate, understand the value of continually promoting their products, services and brand.

And this is why they will often have an in-house promotional team.

Coming up with fresh ideas and new ways to promote and generate sales, the promotional team will create all kinds of purchasing incentives including discounts, coupons, samples, gifts with purchases and more.

They will use a range of promotional methods such as offline marketing tactics like direct mail and in-store promotions.

Increasingly, there will be people on the team who specialise in online marketing and promotions too.

Working together, they are the team that will make a difference to a brand.

Is it the right career choice for you?

There is a job in marketing for everyone and for many newly qualified marketing students, this is the role in which they gain a lot of experience, practice the marketing skills they have been taught and understand how the ‘real’ marketing world co-exists.

Businesses large and small will often seek new promotional people to join their team and this kind of work is something that many marketing professionals will offer on a freelance basis.

You will need to be creative, concentrate on the small details as well as appreciate the bigger picture. An understanding of modern society, its values and outlook are important too, essential in stopping promotional campaigns that offend or miss the mark considerably.

#5 Public Relations

Publica relation people manage the company’s or organisation’s communication with media, customers, employees, stakeholders, the general public and investors.

The phrase ‘it was a PR disaster’ refers to when something goes wrong for a brand and as a business, they have to work hard to recapture the good faith and trust of the public or consumer.

PR disasters paint a dull picture but there are times in which brands have responded to PR disasters with compassion, shining a light on how to come back from something negative.

Working in PR isn’t just about fire-fighting when things go wrong. It is a varied role in which PR managers and executives are constantly speaking on behalf of the company, liaising with the world at large to maintain a positive spin on the company and what it offers.

Is it the career choice for you?

It could be if you enjoy writing and being creative. PR managers will often create press releases for events and product launches, plus deal with negative issues that appear.

PR managers are just employed by private companies, but charities and other organisations, including government and local authorities.

It is an important part of marketing and you will need to be a team player, but also deal with the media and the public.

What Can You Do With A Marketing Degree? Getting Your Foot In the Door

A marketing qualification certainly presents you with many opportunities. From working with start-ups to being employed by a large company, there are many pathways. Which one will you choose?

Is offline marketing dead? Does it matter anymore? We discuss how offline marketing can be successful in an increasingly online world and how, when used in tandem with online marketing, can produce phenomenal results.

Offline marketing – printed flyers, business cards and other media – are surplus to requirements in a world where everything is online. Thus, this marketing technique is dead!

So why are big brands still investing in poster campaigns? Why do fashion brands still spending thousands of pounds placing adverts in magazines? Why are companies still allotting a slice of their budget to offline marketing?

The answer is simple – offline marketing isn’t dead. It is still powerful and when used in the right way, will yield results. Better still, a business can have the best of both worlds, seamlessly blending their online and offline marketing to produce a powerful promotional combination.

Why are companies still investing in offline marketing?

offline marketing posters hanging on street wall

There are many reasons why but the reasons why businesses still invest in offline marketing it because it has value.

But there are many misconceptions about this marketing technique, as marketing courses will discuss.

Here are four reasons why businesses haven’t fallen out of love with offline marketing;

#1 There is ROI

Return on investment is important. Essentially, a business wants a marketing campaign to bring in more revenue than what they spent on it. This applies to both offline and online marketing.

There are some interesting statistics floating about. For example, direct mail has the third highest ROI at 27%, behind email at 122% and social media at 28% (Direct Marketing Association figures).

You may look at the vast difference in projected ROI and assume it means that third place is not good enough but any marketing campaign that gives a high ROI is worth considering.

Any marketing tool, whether online or offline, will only yield results if they are well-researched and designed to reach the right customer target.

#2 It can be used to reach everyone

There is an assumption that offline marketing is only really any good for reaching the older population – you know, the ones who aren’t on social media or online at all.

But are you sure about that?

The online world is a crowded, crazy place where users are bombarded with all kinds of material every time they hop online.

Their email inboxes are clogged with marketing emails, all professing to bring the next big thing their way.

Sometimes, it is nice to disconnect, to leave the blue-light of the screen alone for a few hours.

People of all ages are still reading print newspapers and magazines. They still take note of the mail that is pushed through the door and they do see the flyers in the local, free newspaper when it arrives.

In other words, offline marketing is not just for the ‘old’ but for everyone, of every age.

#3 It can be tracked

ROI and understanding where your customers are coming from is important information and thus, marketing courses discuss the need for tracking marketing tools and campaigns, alongside conversion rates.

And you may read that compared to online marketing means, offline is tough to track.

But it is amazing what a combination of offline and online can produce. For example, using printed coupons in a magazine or other publication for people to use in-store can have their own unique code, perfect for tracking which publications reached the most people.

Quite often, offline marketing is the anchor that produces the results.

#4 Use offline and online marketing together

It was a long time coming but in recent years, it has become clear that using a blend of offline and online marketing tactics makes for a powerful promotional combination.

Offline can be the seed of thought that encourages potential customers to seek out more information online.

It can also be the tool that drives people to purchase online but in person too.

We can complete our grocery shopping online and have it delivered, and never see the inside of the supermarket BUT brands are still printing coupons in leaflets, magazines and newspaper offering money off in-store.

And when you visit you get 50p off your favourite biscuit brand or buy your favourite coffee at half price, you probably make other purchases too.

And all of that happened offline.

Why it is important to understand offline marketing

leaflets used for offline marketing hanging on street corner

Marketing has changed. It has had too with the invention of the web. The online world is crowded and yet, it is the ‘old-fashioned’ offline marketing tools that help a business stand out.

The marketing industry is an extremely popular choice for many people who want to work in the business world. If you’re interested in working in marketing but are unsure whether you’re the right fit, you’re in luck.

There is an extremely wide range of jobs available to suit many different types of interests and skill sets within the world of marketing. Every single business and brand out there requires a marketing team, so there’s always vacancies and movement within the job market. It is a good industry to get experience in as you can gain a lot of skills that are transferable. Whatever brand you love, or category of business you’d like to work for, there’s something for pretty much everyone.

7 Top Marketing Types

person working in marketing with data and analytics

Before we explore the riches of working in marketing and finding the right position for you, it’s important that you understand what marketing is. However, there are several different types of marketing, from the online world of digital marketing to the physical role of offline marketing. Here are seven of the most common marketing types, and everything you need to know about each of them.

 1. Digital Marketing

We live in a digital world, so it makes sense that digital marketing[i] utilises all things digital to communicate. We are constantly connected to the internet via smartphones, computers, tablets, and Smart TVs. This connection has made it very easy for businesses to tap into a limitless source through social media platforms, email, and instant messaging services. We even get advertisements through paid subscription services like Netflix, Spotify, etc. Even the games we play online are opportunities to sneak in a short video advertisement.

It’s not enough to send a message across via digital technology; you still need to do the groundwork to ensure the marketing strategy you implement will be appealing to your target audience.

There are many types of digital marketing you can employ, such as;

A good digital marketing strategy should combine these marketing methods to achieve maximum exposure for your business.

2. Social Media Marketing

Social media has taken the world by storm, and you would be hard-pressed to find a person with an internet connection that does not have one or more social media accounts. It would be incredibly foolish for any business not to take advantage of this phenomenon. Social media platforms have made it easier for a business to advertise with the possibility of reaching millions of potential customers. While we are scrolling through our social media feeds, we often come across advertisements for dozens of different products and services. These advertisements will randomly pop up in your feed depending on your internet and search engine activity. Thanks to the algorithms that correlate this information, social media marketing can be very highly targeted to each person.

Social media marketing can help your business in several ways. These include;

3. Green Marketing

The trend to living green started in the late 1980s, and it is still going strong, with many people doing their part to minimize their impact on the environment. You have probably heard buzzwords like environmentally or eco-friendly, sustainability and ethical production methods.

Green marketing is a strategy that targets explicitly environmentally conscious consumers who are actively trying to reduce their carbon footprint by voting with their feet and avoiding businesses that do not appear to care about their environmental impact. These consumers are likely to choose products grown or manufactured using sustainable raw materials, minimising carbon and fuel emissions during transport and production, and not harming the natural environment around their business premises.

In short, to succeed in this sphere of marketing, you need to be able to advertise that your products implement eco-friendly practices from the very start of the manufacturing process right through to getting it to the consumer.

4. Offline Marketing

offline marketing adverts on billboards

Our obsession with digital technology has made it easier for businesses to reach more people, but this should not discourage you from using some of the more traditional offline marketing strategies. Offline marketing is every bit as valuable as online marketing. Think of all the billboards you pass as you are commuting to work. You may not pay close attention to them, but they do catch your attention, even if it is subliminally.

The primary forms of offline marketing are:

5. Affiliate Marketing

You have probably heard the term “affiliate marketing” spoken in different circles but did you know that you have most likely made contact with an affiliate marketer without realising it? Many high-volume companies offer a commission for any sales generated through the platform of an individual or business. The individual or business is the affiliate, and they are, in essence, a sales agent for the larger company.

The most common types of affiliate marketing consist of a content creation site that provides links to the larger company’s site. The content can include product reviews, blogs, and vlogs connected to a product or service from the company. When people visit your website, they might click on a link in your content that will direct them to the company, and if the visitor purchases from this link, the company will reward the affiliate with a commission. The more sales you can generate from our platform, the more commission you can make.

6. Network Marketing

You may think network marketing is a relatively new concept, but it has been around for quite a long time. This type of marketing is also known as MLM – multi-level marketing and pyramid marketing. It is a business model that involves person-to-person sales. Think Avon, Juice Plus, and The Body Shop at Home.

In a typical network marketing setting, you sign up to become an independent business operator and distributor for the company. You can do this to get the products at a discounted rate for yourself, or you can generate more sales by gathering loyal customers who will regularly order from you. People in MLMs generate more income by signing others up through their membership to become ‘representatives’. Once done, they will receive a percentage of the commission from the sales of everyone they have signed up for the scheme.

7. Influencer Marketing

The rise of social media influencers has created a fascinating marketing niche. Many people have a favourite influencer and religiously follow their vlogs and other content. Influencer Marketing takes advantage of this trend, promoting goods and services on their chosen social media platform. The advertising companies then pay a commission to the influencer either by followers clicking on a link within the content or being given a special code exclusive to each influencer. This code is used when followers buy a product or service, which is an easy way to keep tabs on how many sales are generated from the influencer’s content.

Influencer marketing is an easy way to reach a wider audience, mainly because more and more influencers are popping up across a wide variety of social media platforms. This gives a company an undeniable advantage of increasing their brand awareness, with the influencer doing most of the work to create the content.

Working In Marketing: How Can You Find The Right Role For You?

person working in marketing reviewing company data

Getting started working in marketing is often the tricky bit, since there’s so many directions you can go down in this industry. We’ve put together a list of some of the most popular jobs in marketing for you to explore, so that you can discover one that is the right fit for you. Don’t worry- if you don’t have the skills yet, there are plenty of online marketing courses that can help you get your foot in the door.

Read on to find out more about some of the most popular areas to work when considering working in marketing:

Market Research

If you’re an analytical person, then market research would be the best job type for you within the sphere of marketing. Working in research means that you will research your target audience, and spend some time gathering valuable insights about them. These insights will eventually inform the marketing plan and message. These insights will include things like

Research can be conducted through surveys or focus groups. It can also be done merely by studying existing findings. It can be conducted by a business in-house or by hiring an external market research agency. Usually, you will be given a brief by the brand management team where they will ask you to gather insights and data about a particular set of people that they are looking to target. You will then need to go away and gather the data using a blend of qualitative and quantitative methods as required.

Market research doesn’t only consist of gathering customer insight – you will also be required to gather information about the market or category that your brand falls under. For instance, if you are doing market research for a shampoo brand, your team will be the one that is tasked with gathering information on the size of the market and the other players within it.

Working in market research would be ideal for you if you have a great analytical ability, work well with numbers, and are also good at interpreting data and drawing insights from it.  It is the least creative of the departments within marketing, but it is a really great choice for someone who likes learning about people and working with numbers.

Brand Management

This is the job that most people instantly think of when they think of working in marketing. You can think of a brand manager as a small business owner. As a brand manager, you would be responsible for building and taking care of the image of a brand. They use the data and insights that the market research team provide them to create a brand that is likely to resonate with their target audience.  This includes developing the brand personality, tone of voice and look and feel.

Brand managers will also develop the marketing strategy and campaign that will communicate the brand to the audience. You’d be required to work with a cross functional team to execute all campaigns effectively. Generally, brand managers are asked to do a lot of presentations to internal and external stakeholders. Confidence and passion for the brand you are working for is key, as you will need to live and breathe it as a brand manager!

Budget management is a key component of any brand management job. It helps to be good with numbers, especially if part of your job role is P&L (profit & loss) management. You may also be required to make business cases for any additional budget requests for marketing.

A brand management position would be suitable for those who are business minded, and good with people and communication. There are many marketing courses that you can take to learn more about brand building and how to build an effective brand strategy.

Public Relations

public relations advertising

The public relations team is responsible for managing communication with media outlets, consumers, investors and employees. They are often referred to as the spokesperson of a business. The duties of a public relations role could include:

Having connections within the media world can be a really valuable asset for anyone that works in public relations. This is because a big part of your job will be trying to get journalists to feature your brand or product.

Those who work in public relations would also be responsible for crisis management, as they have to deal with any issues that could result in the company’s image being tarnished. Anything that the business is going through, such as a re-structure, a rebrand, a sale, or any other big news, will be shared with the public relations department first. It will then be their job to draft a press release and share the news with the press and the public.

If this all sounds exciting to you and you have great communication skills, you’d do well in a public relations job. It is essential to be articulate and well-spoken to be successful in the world of public relations. Writing skills are also valuable for anyone working in public relations, as you’ll be writing a lot of press releases for your company. There are also usually a lot of events to attend outside of work. If you have a more sociable personality and are great at networking, you’re much more likely to enjoy working in public relations.

Promotions

Though a dedicated promotions team may not exist within the marketing department of a smaller business, in larger companies you will find often find a promotions team. Working in promotions means that you are responsible for creating campaigns that will help to sell and promote a product using an incentive based concept. For instance, anything relating to coupons, gifts with purchase or customer discounts all falls under the umbrella of promotions.

Different promotional tactics could include using in-store displays, direct mail, or events to promote your brand’s product or service. Working in promotions is suitable for those of you who are more sales-minded and efficient at working with other people. There are lots of marketing courses that focus on promotional and direct marketing, and many of these are available online.

Advertising

Often working in marketing agencies rather than client-side, those who focus on the advertising work on everything involved with the execution of the advertising strategy. You could also be working on planning which media channel is best to advertise in to reach your brand’s target audience. Advertising roles include media campaign planner, advertising account executive, or creative director amongst others. Advertising is a great choice if you want to focus more on the creative side of marketing.

If you decide to go down the advertising route, then you will usually work in an advertising agency rather than in-house in a business. This can be a great and very sociable environment to work in. You may sometimes have to work longer hours, but you’ll have a pretty great social life if you work in an advertising agency. Since you’ll be required to keep on top of market trends and what else is going on in the world of advertising, your employer is likely to send you to events and conferences, or enrol you in marketing courses. Working in advertising means always keeping in touch with what competitors are doing, and it’s definitely an exciting and fast paced part of the marketing world to work in.

Working In Marketing

person working in marketing research

Hopefully, the above list has helped you see that there are many diverse and interesting jobs in marketing that you could work in. It’s a very diverse and exciting industry.

You need different skills for every job, you’ll find that there’s something to suit anyone. And since there is a marketing department in every business, you are sure to find a brand that you’d really love to work for!

Sources

[i] https://www.business2community.com/marketing/7-offline-marketing-strategies-support-online-brand-01191059