Are you preparing for your final placement interviews? If you are interested in becoming a marketing manager or a marketeer, you need to have your finger on the pulse of the marketing universe. In this article, we will give you detailed information on roles in marketing, basic concepts that you should know, the research you need to do to stay fully prepared for the interview, etc. Read to know more.
The area of marketing has an array of job roles that an MBA graduate can look forward to. Some of the prominent roles are mentioned below:
- Brand Manager (BM): They are the ones that are responsible for creating a unique brand identity for a product. Generally, BMs are appointed for a particular product. For example, a BM will be appointed for Oral B and not the entire PnG as a whole.
- Digital Marketing Manager: It is basically marketing of products/services through digital technologies, mostly the Internet, but also mobile phones, display advertising, and other digital mediums. It is one of the most. In the last decade, the job role has gained a lot of momentum and is considered one of the top 3 career options to look out for in 2017. This is because the daily consumption of digital media has gone radically high since the last decade.
- Research Analyst/ Manager: This field involves a lot of number crunching and then determining the outcome of that. The role expects you to find patterns in the data and then help the company in predicting consumers' behaviour and understanding trends that will help the company is preparing for possible market disruption. Some companies have their own market research department, others outsource the work to firms that specialise in this.
- Accounts Manager: In marketing and advertising firms, account managers are the one who is in charge of client servicing and client acquisition. They often serve as a bridge between an advertising agency and the clients, overseeing everyday affairs and ensuring client fulfilment.
- Business Development Manager: Business Development Managers are responsible for improving the organisation’s position in the market and having an upward financial growth. This role requires a person to be an all-rounder. They set long-term strategic goals for the organisation, form good relationships with key customers, always be on the lookout for business opportunities, negotiate and close business deals and has extensive knowledge on current market conditions.
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- Marketing frameworks: There are generally three major marketing frameworks, the interviewer will expect you to be an expert of. They are - SWOT analysis, Porter’s strategy framework and the 4Ps. The Interviewer can either ask you about these frameworks as a concept or give you a case on the spot and ask you to apply these frameworks to build an effective marketing strategy. You can do a quick SWOT analysis, understand the framework strategy or see how the 4Ps are working for the company you are applying to and their competitors.
- Brand perspective: Based on the company you are applying to and the post you will be handling, you need to do research on their target market and the nature of their product. You need to also find out what it is the type of market the company is focusing on penetrating. Also, try to brush up on the marketing funnel and STP framework. One of the questions you may be asked is, “if a bank wants to promote the use of online banking, what kind of segment will they use?
- Consumer perspective: Customer perspective is often based on the 4Cs - Content, Convenience, Cost and Communication. You may have to brush up on this concept specifically. You need to have a thorough understanding of the customer buying and adoption process.
- Channel and Lingo: Questions based on concepts like channels of marketing and communication are some of the frequently asked interview questions. Brush up on concepts like IMC (Integrated Marketing Communication), 8 Modes of Communication (advertising, sales promotion, PR, mobile marketing, etc.) You may also be asked questions like - What is the marketing channel you will use for a particular product and why? For this, you will have to know your target consumer and use a channel accordingly.
- Research the company you are applying for: Do some serious research on the company and the products/services they are selling. Your interviewer will expect you to articulate the company or product in a clear and concise way. You need to not only demonstrate knowledge about who they are, what they are selling and why, but also have the ability to communicate with their target audience in a compelling way. Thorough research will help you make strong connections between your skills and the specific requirements of your prospective role.
- Know your field: It is important that you demonstrate a solid understanding of the industry. For this try to compare your potential employer with their competition. Try to identify things like:
- How is there product different from their competition?
- What will make the customers choose your brand over the competition?
- Are their certain unique ways through which you can market the brand to an audience?
- Have a strong digital footprint: Your employer will not trust you to represent their brand if you can't represent yourself. Your presence in social media is therefore very crucial for almost any business you choose to be part of. Hence, it will be wise if you can harness the power of your unique digital footprint. You can develop your personal brand by keeping up on Twitter, LinkedIn, and try to get connected with people in the field. You can also start writing a blog, because believe it or not, your opinion about the business world does matter to your potential employer. All this will help in building useful contacts and showcase your thought leadership capabilities.
- The latest successful marketing campaigns: Knowing the latest successful marketing campaigns is extremely important if you want to understand the pulse of the consumer in the current environment. The pulse can constantly change based on any major sports tournament, natural disaster, or some latest report or ranking. The success of any campaigns will give you an idea of what is the overriding sentiment in the market. For example, the Vicks campaign on transgender mothers received a lot of love worldwide. For this, we can infer that people (target audience) likes content that touches on issues related to discrimination based on gender, caste, race etc.
- Academic updates: There are various new researches and studies done by major institutes of the world. They might seem theoretical in nature but even being aware of their concept, hypotheses, findings, etc will give you one or two topic points that you can bring up in the interview. Remember that all effective practical implementation of concepts is based on solid and well-researched theories.
- Also, brush up on important concepts pertaining to Digital Marketing and E-Commerce depending on the company you aspire to work with.
Resources
Find here a compilation of links and resources that you can go through. These give a sneak peek into the minds of marketeers, as well as the functions they perform.
For better understanding, check out this short course that will help you prepare holistically for you marketing interviews.