Building your brand: 7 jobs you can pursue with a marketing degree

Marketing as an industry is all about raising brand awareness and bringing in more customers, but a career in marketing also allows you to simultaneously build your own brand. As a marketer, every single piece of content you create, as well as each lead, click, and new customer generated in pursuit of profits, serves as yet another feather in your proverbial cap.

Choosing to earn a bachelor’s degree in marketing is a great choice for college students still unsure of precisely where their career will take them. Why? Marketing is, in many ways, the everything job.¹ To succeed in advertising today one must be well versed in a myriad of modern disciplines; AI, SEO, SEM, e-commerce, as well as the gigantic and ever expanding realm of social media, just to name a few.

One successful marketer may spend most of their professional time within an office setting in a more managerial role overseeing the brand building efforts of entire teams, while other marketers prefer a more independent, sales-facing role characterized by an emphasis on fundraising and public relations.²

More of a numbers person? Great, marketing offers tons of positions geared more toward the analytical side of advertising. Alternatively, if you’ve always fancied yourself as more of a storyteller, there are plenty of opportunities to produce content, both written and visual, for promotional purposes. At the end of the day, content is king when it comes to attracting new potential customers, end users, or stakeholders, and a degree in marketing can help you understand how to sculpt and create engaging content across a variety of mediums.

Even better, marketing as a career path leaves no doors permanently shut for the burgeoning professional. It doesn’t matter what you may be personally passionate about – music, cinema, finance, food, science – every industry, organization, and company needs marketing and brand building efforts. Here are seven jobs you can pursue with a bachelor’s degree in marketing.

SEO specialist 

Google reigns supreme when it comes to building a presence online. How is anyone going to buy the product or service you’re marketing if they can’t find it in the first place? Short for search engine optimization, SEO is integral to any business’ success in 2024. SEO specialists are tasked with ensuring their clients appear near the top of search results for targeted keywords, topics, etc. 

Event manager 

If you’ve always enjoyed throwing a great party, a career as an event manager may be a fantastic fit for you. Event managers, also called event coordinators, oversee all aspects of promotional parties, events, and conferences. That means booking vendors and entertainers, overseeing invite lists, and planning out activities. Of course, every marketing event worth its salt has a theme and message. It’s up to the event manager to make sure guests have a good time while also learning about the product or service in play.

Market researcher 

Past performance often predicts future outcomes, and market researchers focus on analyzing consumer trends and habits in pursuit of larger profits moving forward. Data gathering and analysis is a big part of this job, as market researchers need to look beyond their individual clients in favor of the bigger picture. In which direction is the greater market moving? What types of marketing methods are relevant stakeholders responding to nowadays?

Copywriter 

The marketing copywriters of yesteryear were writing copy for billboards, brochures, and magazine ads. Today, copywriters are still working with all of those mediums in addition to the much newer world of digital content. From website content and blog posts to social media campaigns and promotional emails, marketing copywriters have no shortage of mediums to tinker with in search of more leads and conversions.

Social media manager

Maintaining brand awareness across the full spectrum of social media today, from stalwarts like Facebook and Instagram to more recent major players like TikTok and Reddit, is very much a full-time job nowadays. Social media managers do far more than schedule posts, they oversee their company’s entire social media presence. That means keeping tabs on what’s trending, keeping track of what’s not working, and habitually reevaluating how best to utilize social media as a means of increasing brand visibility and driving engagement.

Account executive 

An attractive career path for those who enjoy working one-on-one with their clients, account executives act as intermediaries between marketing or creative agencies and their customers. As the first point of contact for clients, succeeding as an account executive is all about being proactive.³ Typical duties include following up on leads, forging relationships with prospective clients, setting realistic expectations (both internally and among customers), and quickly addressing unexpected bumps in the road. Account executives often oversee their own team of sales representatives, so leadership skills are a plus. 

Marketing manager

Marketing managers put together and lead marketing strategies and campaigns for their employers and clients. This usually entails identifying a core target demographic, formulating pricing models based on market trends, estimating costs/setting budgets, and determining the best way to connect with consumers. An effective marketing manager knows to pivot and adjust strategy if a particular marketing approach isn’t working. Ultimately, it’s the marketing manager’s responsibility to increase both customer awareness and brand recognition.

^1. What Can You Do with a Marketing Degree?

^2. 10 Things You Can Do With a Marketing Degree

^3. What Is an Account Executive? Responsibilities and Required Skills