Module 4. Marketing careers

Lead-in

1. Describe the different types of businesses that offer marketing jobs.

2. Name marketing jobs that are expected to offer increased employment opportunities in the near future.

3. Identify the different specialty areas included in the marketing career field and give examples of businesses that employ persons trained in each of these areas.

4. Find out more about marketing careers.

5. Examine your interests, abilities, and personality and compare these qualities with the competencies required from your point of view) in various marketing careers.

Marketing affects each of us every day of our lives. For example, on a typical day, on the way to work you visit your insurance agent to discuss the advisability of purchasing additional life insurance. By 9:30 a.m. you arrive at the central office of a major shopping mall where your job as assistant mall manager is to coordinate all advertising and promotional efforts of the retail stores in the mall. At noon you have lunch at a fast-food restaurant so that you will have enough time during the lunch hour to go to the dry cleaner and the bank. So goes the day.

All the products and services that you came in contact with on this typical day were made available by people employed in different marketing jobs. These jobs are found along the channels of distribution, the paths that the goods or services followed as they moved from manufacturers or producers to the point of consumption. Before any of these products or services were made available, someone conducted marketing research to determine their potential sales. Someone was responsible for promoting and distributing these items. Each had to follow a distribution channel. For example, the digital radio alarm clock was sold by its manufacturer to a wholesaler who, in turn, sold it to the specialty store where it was purchased. Salespeople were available at this store to assist in the buying decision. Thus, all the activities required to provide these products or services were performed by people in marketing careers.

Marketing jobs

Marketing consists of many different types and levels of jobs. They are not limited to the familiar jobs found in the marketing of consumer goods and services but are also found in production or manufacturing businesses and in marketing and service businesses as well.

Production business

A business that manufactures, constructs, extracts or grows products that are marketed in order to achieve the goals of the company is called a production business. Production businesses employ people who specialize in the various marketing functions. Marketing functions performed in production firms include buying, selling, transporting, storing, financing, obtaining and using marketing information, risk bearing, and standardizing and grading.

Marketing businesses

A business that buys products for resale is called a marketing business. Wholesalers and retailers are primary examples of marketing businesses. Wholesalers buy goods in large quantities from companies that produce them and then market these products in small quantities to retailers and other businesses. Retailers buy products from wholesalers and other companies and sell them to ultimate consumers. The majority of marketing industries are retail businesses.