Looking at going into marketing, just wanted to know if anyone here majored in marketing and if so, what they do for a living and how they like it.

 

i minored in marketing and liked it a lot but my job now has nothing to do with it.... and i dont know what job i planned to take that would have involved marketing..... but most of my marketing studies friends sell insurance and stuff like that

 

I have a friend who is Ad / PR... pretty much the same.

It seems like the job market is either just ok or you make it huge... not too much in between.


Plus these days you never really seem to be working in the field you studied in.

 

marketing jobs are very cool but the thing to realize is when companies do layoffs, marketing people are often the first to get axed.

 

but also, most top executives in most companies come from the marketing dept. becasue mkt'ing people are required to know all facets of the company, the competition, and the market.

 

hmmm, maybe ill reconsider. I've got time though, so thats good.

 

i disagree...no data to site but id be willing to bet the majority of officers are from a sales/finance/operations background.

 

sales is a part of marketing....

i actually got stats on it that proved it true in more than one mkt'ing class from more than 1 mkt'ing teacher.... in more than one school (i went to 2)

think about it.... they know the product/service.... they know the company and the goals of the company.... they know the customer, they know the competition.... who better to run a company?

 

leisure studies

 

while many companies have a single vp to control sales and marketing, they are totally seperate functions. marketings job is to analyze the marketplace to determine how to position the companies products (including product mix and pricing) and also convey marketing messages to its consumers.

sales is responsible for presenting specific products to the consumer/client and collect feedback regarding pricing, product mix (which have been determined by marketing), etc. the number one difference is sales is revenue GENERATING whereas marketing is just a cost center. this is the reason why marketing folks get axed when times are bad.

good salespeople have the BEST knowledge of the customer because they are the ones who made the sale. they know the competition better because they had to sell against them. this is firsthand knowledge based on experience vs. spreadsheet analysis of gathered data on the marketing side. operations and finance people often become officers because they know how to run a business efficiently and at low cost.

of course a marketing teacher is going to tell you execs are from marketing, more marketing students means job security for them. dont get me wrong, there are a lot of really cool marketing jobs and im sure there are marketing people who are officers, but i seriously doubt they are the highest percentage. the new favorite mba focus is product marketing and im sure a lot of those people will move on to become execs somewhere.