Marketing managers are well-rounded professionals crucial for the success of marketing operations. The job is to plan out the marketing work while considering the overall business strategy. They allocate resources and monitor the operation progress and business development, helping turn ideas into result-yielding campaigns. 🙌
The marketing manager’s list of daily responsibilities is long and diverse. From participating in meetings with upper management and teammates to troubleshooting emerging problems—their day brims with activities. That’s why they must be organized and take advantage of available tools and automation.
If you’re interested in this demanding but rewarding profession, learn more about it in this article. We’ll break down a day in the life of a marketing manager, tackling common tasks, challenges, and tech.
A Day in the Life of a Marketing Manager: Expert Insights
Summarize this article for me pleaseWho Is a Marketing Manager?
Marketing is a multifaceted operation involving professionals of various kinds, such as copywriters, market research analysts, and graphic designers. The marketing manager acts as a link between all these roles.
They plan, coordinate, and oversee marketing or advertising efforts across the team or agency, ensuring operations run smoothly. Besides management, they often participate in content production and editing, ideation, and public relations maintenance.
To navigate all this work, the marketing manager must possess:
- Organization and time management skills
- Communication skills
- Leadership aptitude
- Creativity and curiosity
- Strategic thinking
- Problem-solving skills
Marketing managers have to work their way up to this role. They start out as marketers, then obtain certification in a specific marketing area they feel drawn to, and reach their dream job via internal or external promotion. In most cases, a degree in marketing is not necessary to get into this career, but experience and relevant technical knowledge are. 📚
Roles and responsibilities of a marketing manager
The duties of a marketing manager vary depending on the industry, the size of the organization, and many other factors. Their typical responsibilities include:
- Planning marketing campaigns: The manager needs to understand the employer’s mission and the client’s needs, then employ their creativity and strategic thinking to generate and develop campaign ideas. They also participate in the definition, implementation, and revision of marketing goals and key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Managing different resources: The marketing manager assigns work based on individual capacity and skill set and distributes the marketing budget
- Overseeing campaign execution: The manager monitors and participates in campaign execution, providing support where needed. They have to ensure the marketing project tasks are completed on time
- Analyzing performance metrics: Together with specialists, the manager monitors the KPIs while the campaign is live and after it’s finished. They write marketing reports to update the upper management on their progress and performance
- Creating improvement strategies: By assessing the team’s performance and comparing it to that of competitors, the manager identifies areas for improvement and tailor their approach for future projects
Pro tip: Marketing managers have a lot on their plate, but a productivity tool like ClickUp helps tremendously. It assists them throughout the entire project lifecycle. It lets them stay on top of all the moving parts and automate repetitive administrative work. The ClickUp Marketing Teams Template has all the tools a marketing manager needs to start planning. ⭐
Summarize this article for me pleaseInsight into the Day-to-Day Life of a Marketing Manager
A marketing manager’s daily duties shift with different project stages, emerging problems, and changing client needs. We’ll describe a typical day below.
First half of the day: Strategy and planning
Typically, the first hour of a marketing manager’s workday begins with coffee and checking for emails and messages. ☕
Once they’ve had their caffeine boost, they prepare for the day by reviewing their personal to-do list and the task management platform. They delegate work to their team members, reminding them to respect deadlines and update the database.
A significant part of the day goes to meetings, such as:
- Daily stand-ups
- Weekly brainstorming sessions
- Individual check-in meetings with teammates
- Meetings with the supervisor and other higher-ups
As most communication occurs asynchronously, a meeting offers a valuable opportunity for direct interaction and speedy decision-making.
The marketing manager needs to reach out to teammates regularly to assess their progress, offer help, and answer any questions or concerns. In case any issues emerge, their resolution becomes the manager’s priority. By acting quickly, they can ensure the marketing project plan remains on schedule.
Meetings with executives typically consist of ideation, strategic planning, and progress updates.
Pro tip: Managers can use the ClickUp Meetings Template to schedule any meeting, write agendas, and collect meeting notes.
A portion of a marketing manager’s day goes to research and ideation. They follow trends on social media and other channels, investigate competitors’ marketing strategies, and come up with creative new campaigns.
Despite their supernatural abilities, marketing managers are human, too. They enjoy their lunch break as much as the next person. 🌮
Second half of the day: Application and review
The marketing manager usually spends the second part of the day overseeing work and ensuring it aligns with the strategy—they manage teams. That may include:
- Monitoring the marketing operations and individual performance
- Reviewing and approving content before publication
- Identifying gaps in the calendar
- Brainstorming new content and campaigns
- Writing crucial content, such as ads, landing pages, and social media posts
- Mapping out processes to evaluate and improve the workflow
- Examining performance analytics to identify areas for improvement
Feedback is an essential part of marketing operations. The manager is responsible for receiving, providing, and implementing it.
They are the bridge between the upper and lower levels of the organization. They represent and balance the needs of both of these groups. When higher-ups provide feedback, the manager has to make sure it’s reflected in every participant’s work. If the manager’s team has any concerns that require the upper management’s involvement, the manager is responsible for communicating them.
At the end of the workday, the marketing manager usually handles administration, keeping workspaces organized. They respond to any leftover messages and prepare for the next day. 🌇
Summarize this article for me pleaseMarketing Management in the Business-to-Business Sector
Business-to-business (B2B) marketing calls for a different management approach compared to business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. The target audience is smaller and more knowledgeable, and the stakes are higher, which means longer sales cycles.
The goal of B2B marketing is to build credibility and trust in the brand. It also aims to nurture long-term client relationships with targeted content and personalized messaging. While B2C relies on mass and social media, B2B’s usual marketing channels include:
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Events
- Professional networking
The B2B content marketing strategy revolves around advanced educational content that provides value to the clients and addresses their needs. It also highlights the impact of the marketed product or service on the client’s company.
As far as metrics are concerned, the B2B marketing manager focuses on long-term results instead of immediate ones. They typically measure customer lifetime value (CLV), conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI).
Pro tip: Because of all these intricacies, the B2B marketing manager’s decision-making is more complex and involves more stakeholders. That’s why it’s essential to have an effective tool to organize all the knowledge, participants, and operations. The ClickUp B2B Company Marketing Plan Template is the perfect tool for that! ❣️
Summarize this article for me pleaseCommon Challenges of Being a Marketing Manager
Marketing managers face many challenges daily. While some are sudden and unexpected, others are part of the job. Below, we’ll explore the most common challenges associated with this profession and the best ways to handle them.
Limited budget
Most marketing managers have to deal with budget limitations at one point. Constraints can happen due to many reasons, such as shifting of organizational priorities and economic conditions.
To deal with them, marketing managers must craft their marketing plan and allocate resources carefully. They must define clear goals so they can prioritize initiatives that are the most relevant. After that, they need to evaluate and single out channels and tactics that cost the least but yield the highest results. Typically, those include social media, email, content marketing, and customer referrals.
The manager may be able to cut costs by negotiating with vendors. Focusing their strategy on customer retention instead of acquisition might also be cost-effective. Studies have shown time and again that gaining new customers is far more expensive than retaining existing ones.
The marketing manager should oversee operations to ensure the productivity of the marketing agency across tasks. They must monitor performance analytics so they can fine-tune their marketing plan for optimal results and ROI. 💸
Constant changes
A marketing manager’s plan must never be static. It should evolve alongside shifts in customer behavior and marketing trends. To make sure their department or agency keeps up, the manager must conduct ongoing research and stay informed. They can do so through:
- Market research: Gathering and analyzing quantitative data, such as customer analytics, and qualitative data using surveys and focus groups
- Online sources: The manager should read relevant and credible publications regularly to stay up-to-date
- Competitor analysis: Other agencies may have already picked up on changes, and looking into their practices and adaptation methods may be useful
- Industry events: Conferences and other events are an excellent way to learn about the current state of the industry and discuss trends with other professionals
Pro tip: Marketing managers can build their ideal surveys and share them with customers effortlessly using ClickUp Forms. And the best part? The platform can automatically turn responses into actionable tasks.
Large volumes of data
While data is pivotal to the success of a marketing or advertising agency, it can easily get overwhelming as the agency scales up. 😶🌫️
That’s why the marketing manager must pick their data sources carefully. They should identify KPIs for their goals and eliminate irrelevant data that only takes up space. They should also have a solid data management system to integrate data from multiple sources, organize it, and make it accessible.
It’s advisable to leverage automation to collect, store, and analyze data as it saves time and reduces errors.
Data must also be secure, accurate, and complete—the manager should implement robust data security measures. They should also monitor and validate data to ensure it’s suitable for analysis.
High workload and stress
Given the number of responsibilities each day, the marketing manager’s role is stressful. This is especially true if they’re new to leadership or have the difficult task of scaling operations, standardizing processes, and creating strategies to guide the next few years of growth.
Even if it doesn’t always feel possible, managers must take breaks and practice self-care. Besides that, they should do whatever they can to make their jobs more manageable.
The key to handling a high workload is meticulous organization. The manager can’t take on the work of others. They must know how to delegate tasks effectively so nobody is overworked, including them. They can do so by analyzing the workflow of their marketing team and constantly revising it as new information emerges.
Pro tip: Visualizing the process makes detecting roadblocks, crafting improvement strategies, and aligning the teamwork easier. The ClickUp Swimlane Flowchart Template is a quick and creative way to map out any workflow, break down departmental activities, and indicate the participants responsible for each.
Today, various tech exists to help plan and oversee marketing operations. The manager should take advantage of it to take some burden off their shoulders.
Summarize this article for me pleaseTools Used by Marketing Managers for Daily Tasks and Projects
Whether they’re marketing a small business or a global organization, the marketing manager should use tools to streamline day-to-day marketing operations, ensure work visibility, and prevent errors or miscommunications.
Analytics tools
Marketing managers rely on analytics tools to gather and assess data pertaining to marketing campaigns’ performance. These tools allow them to make data-driven decisions to optimize their efforts.
Business intelligence tools
While analytics tools concentrate on recent and specific insights, business intelligence (BI) tools give managers a broader picture of the business landscape, encompassing data from multiple sources. BI tools and their insights help understand the target customer base and guide the overall company strategy.
Channel-specific management tools
Specialized tools for search engine optimization (SEO), email, social media, and content management allow marketing managers to plan and execute campaigns across different channels. You can use:
- SEO tools: Provide insights into website performance and significant keywords to help increase organic traffic through search results
- Email marketing tools: Enable managers to craft targeted messages, automate email distribution, and lead customers down the sales funnel
- Social media management tools: Make it easier to organize, schedule, post content across platforms, and track its success, ensuring consistency and engagement
- Content management tools: Give the content marketing manager a space to create and edit texts collaboratively, then store them and later distribute them
Project management tools
If marketing was a space mission, a project management tool would be the control center. 🧑🚀
These tools make work visible and allow the manager to assign it effectively, supporting them throughout all projects.
ClickUp’s Marketing Suite is a comprehensive, flexible, and scalable workspace designed with managers in mind. It allows you to ideate and execute complex multi-channel campaigns with ease. You can create and schedule tasks, divide them into subtasks, and add checklists, files, and descriptions. To assign work, turn to the ClickUp Workload view to assess individual availability and ensure nobody is overbooked.
With ClickUp’s Gantt view and Timeline view, you can devise effective project roadmaps and stay on top of campaign schedules. The Calendar view doubles as an interactive content calendar, which you can adorn with colors and stickers to make it less mundane.
ClickUp can be your single source of truth. Besides work, you can store and organize all your documents, employee data, and customer data, including contact details and behavioral insights.
Speaking of data, you can build your perfect ClickUp Dashboard with over 50 cards and assess progress across projects at a glance.
Automation tools
Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing have left a significant mark on the industry and the manager’s job. 🤖
AI can collect and interpret a lot of data at once and predict customer needs and trends. Because of that, managers can get insights and take proactive measures to ensure their campaigns are successful now and in the future.
AI and automation reduce manual effort and save time. They can schedule and personalize emails and posts as well as streamline planning and production.
Recognizing the significance of these technological advancements, ClickUp has implemented them, too. ClickUp can automate various repetitive and administrative work. It features over 100 automations and even lets you create custom ones.
Plus, the platform’s AI assistant, ClickUp Brain, can:
- Craft status reports
- Divide tasks into subtasks
- Auto-fill tables with data
- Write and edit content such as articles, emails, case studies, and content briefs
- Spell-check, summarize, and adjust the tone of texts
- Generate campaign ideas
ClickUp integrates with over 1,000 tools, allowing you to create a streamlined workflow using your favorite stack.
Collaboration and communication tools
Marketing is a team effort, but it needs tools to facilitate it and make it cohesive. 🤝
ClickUp provides marketing teams with many ways to collaborate in real time. You can write and proofread content with ClickUp Docs—the platform’s rich text editor. ClickUp comes with proofing capabilities, allowing reviewers to provide specific feedback on creative assets through annotations. And if you want to brainstorm and create diagrams, use ClickUp Whiteboards.
Communication is just as easy since you and your team can share inputs within the app through task comments, the Chat view, and integrated email.
Summarize this article for me pleaseMaster Marketing Management with ClickUp
Now that you’ve read about the daily routine of a marketing manager, do you think you have what it takes to succeed in this role?
Marketing management is not a walk in the park. It entails many different responsibilities and can make or break the success of a marketing team. Through painstaking planning and thorough oversight, managers help bridge the gap between the initial strategy and the final product—brand awareness and sales.
If all this work seems intimidating, don’t despair. Most marketing managers start their careers as marketers and shape their expertise over time. Anyone can get there with motivation, hard work, and the right tools. Sign up for ClickUp and start your journey toward excellent marketing management today! 🛩️
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