A Marketing Director oversees the entire marketing function in an organization and is responsible for the entire organization’s public presence. This is a senior role, highly strategic in nature. The Marketing Director will typically run a team of subordinates responsible for individual brands, products or divisions, and will be expected to coordinate the team’s activities into a cohesive organization-wide marketing strategy.
The role is both internal and external.
Externally, the Marketing Director will analyse the market, understand global trends and be able to plan the organizations holistic marketing presence.
Internally, the Marketing Director will direct, lead and coach the team to understand market insights and translate them into individual plans for each brand, product or division. The Marketing Director will then collate the plans into an umbrella plan for the whole organization and ensure the team delivers against agreed targets.
This job demands a multitude of diverse skills, both technical and interpersonal, including:
- Knowledge of best-in-class marketing practice
- Deep insight into the marketplace
- Excellent analytical skills
- Understanding of every brand, product or division within the organization and how each one fits into the whole
- Thorough knowledge and experience of performance management
- A visionary mindset
- Ability to think and act strategically, without becoming bogged down in day-to-day tactical concerns
Similar Job Titles:
Marketing Vice President, Commercial Director, Head of Marketing, Chief Marketing Officer, Senior Marketing Executive
What Does a Marketing Director Typically Do?
A Marketing Director oversees the entire marketing function of the organization, and is responsible for global planning and target achievement. The Marketing Director is responsible for ensuring that the entire organization is aligned to and delivering what its customers and consumers need. This will include potentially coordinating diverse brands, products or divisions into a cohesive, unified whole. The specific tasks will include:
- Overall market analysis
- Competitor insight
- Strategic planning and collation of individual department/brand/product plans
- Results analysis
- Budget control and management
- Team management and development
Overall Market Analysis
Understanding the market will be the most crucial part of the job, defining how the market place is segmented, how it behaves and how it is currently reacting to the organization as a whole. If the analysis is done well, the consequent marketing activities of each brand, product or division in the organization will be focussed, relevant and effective.
Competitor Insight
This entails using networking, forums, thought-leader groups and other opinion-driving bodies to understand competitor strategy and probable future direction, in order to pre-empt threats and maintain a leadership position for the organization
Strategic Planning
This entails taking the insights from market analysis and defining strategies by which the organization’s global marketing effort will be guided, in addition to providing direction for each individual brand, product or division. This is important to ensure that the marketing activities all push in the same direction and are aligned.
Results Analysis
The Marketing Director will track relevant results from all marketing activities across all brands, products or divisions to ensure that targets are being reached. If so, market analysis can be re-started to determine any changes in the market. If not, corrective action can be suggested to address the issues.
Budget Setting, Control and Management
The Marketing Director will set marketing budgets and ensure that all activities stay within these constraints, and that marketing spend is tightly controlled and balanced against incremental profit generated by the marketing activities. The Marketing Director will own budgeting process annually.
Roles a Marketing Director typically collaborates with
| Sales Director | Chief Executive Officer | Operations Director |
| Marketing Manager | Chief Financial Officer | Brand Director |
| Product Manager | Director of Production | Creative Director |
Marketing Director Salary
The national average salary for a Marketing Director will typically be between $106,000 and $193,000 per annum in the U.S. The median is around $145,854.
What is the Marketing Director pay difference by location?
Average salaries for a Marketing Director differ by location as follows:
| City | Average Salary |
| San Francisco, CA | $182,317 |
| Seattle, WA | $159,477 |
| Denver, CO | $147,502 |
| Austin, TX | $143,447 |
| Washington, DC | $162,365 |
| Milwaukee, WI | $144,350 |
| Boston, MA | $164,334 |
| New York, NY | $175,462 |
What is the Marketing Director pay difference by experience level?
Depending on experience, pay will vary as follows:
| Experience Level | Average Salary |
| < 1 year | $138,924 |
| 1–4 years | $138,924 |
| 5–9 years | $141,129 |
| 10–19 years | $147,678 |
| 20+ years | $150,231 |
Marketing Director Job Description Template
Key Responsibilities
[Company Name] is looking for a dynamic, experienced and talented Marketing Director to lead our marketing team, provide direction for the organization and its entire portfolio and drive future growth.
As the Marketing Director with [Company Name], you are at the center of the strategic direction of the marketing function, with an ability to drive and understand numbers-based research, develop coherent strategy across the entire portfolio and ensure your team delivers against target.
You and your team will be working alongside our [insert relevant departments here] teams to enhance our presence in the marketplace, drive long-term sales growth and increase our profitability.
The Marketing Directors tasks will include, but are not limited to:
- Conduct and coordinate in-depth ongoing market research to understand marketplace dynamics
- Analyze current marketing activities to determine effectiveness against strategic targets
- Create the annual global marketing plan, including targets, individual portfolio strategies and budgets
- Control and manage marketing budgets to ensure maximum return on investment
- Lead, inspire and empower the marketing team to be best-in-class and achieve sustainable excellent results
- Produce regular marketing reports for the Board of Directors
- Be actively involved in the industry as a recognised thought-leader and influencer
- Create vision, future perspective and direction for the entire organization
Required Skill Set
The Marketing Director should possess the following qualifications, skills and attributes:
- Recognised tertiary qualification in Marketing
- 10+ years’ experience in a Marketing Management position
- Proven planning and analytical ability
- Excellent communications skills on all levels
- Financial acumen and an ability to maximise ROI
- Strategic thinking combined with tactical nous
- Excellent team leadership, people development and interpersonal skills
- Ability to sustainably get the best out of a team