Besides working in marketing, you could use a master’s in marketing degree – one of the highest-paying master’s degrees – to get into other, related business careers. Many of the skills that marketing professionals use in the course of their work transfer easily into other business fields. Some examples of skills that can help you succeed in a variety of business roles include analyzing and interpreting data, creative and strategic thinking and leadership and management skills.
Analyzing and Interpreting Data
Several of a marketing specialist’s core job duties fall under the category of analyzing and sharing data. For example, the most important task for marketing specialists and market researchers, according to O*NET, is preparing reports that communicate data in both written and visual ways. Without context and interpretation, data means little to a business, because it isn’t actionable. In marketing, this data might include sales increases associated with forms of traditional advertising and media placement or the costs and outcomes of digital marketing campaigns. In other fields of business, like finance and human resources, respectively, this same set of skills may be used to quantify sales or understand the rate and costs of employee turnover.
There is also an emphasis on gathering data in marketing. That data can be quantitative or qualitative in nature, but it needs to be gathered through reliable and accurate methods and used to effectively to help campaigns succeed. Research in marketing might revolve around consumer information, preferences and satisfaction. When transferring this skill of gathering data to other fields of business, you might be looking at jobs in management consulting and analysis, purchasing and procurement or aspects of human resources such as training and development and benefits and compensation.
Being able to perform research in an accurate and efficient manner is a life skill as well as a business skill. When you’re making personal purchases or planning for the future, it’s helpful to be able to gather data and put it in context to understand it and make decisions.
Creative and Strategic Thinking Skills
In marketing jobs, you also benefit from being creative, but not only in the sense of devising clever and memorable campaign ideas. Thinking strategically and creatively is the key to making marketing efforts pay off and maximizing the impact of successes. You might, for example, think about the different ways and places in which people consume information and use those channels to get your company’s marketing messages in front of them.
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This sort of resourcefulness also has a place in other areas of business. When you find better ways to use the resources and assets you have, it helps the company grow and thrive. Your creativity and strategy can help guide a company in new directions, such as identifying opportunities for new products and services or for improving internal processes. Strategy can be used to minimize risks in investing or in undertaking new business efforts, to streamline accounting and hiring processes or to systematically make choices in procurement and supply chain management so that you’re saving money on the materials you need.
The higher you rise in the business world, the more important strategy becomes. If you want to hold senior-level management roles, much of what you focus on will revolve around strategic planning of company direction rather than the details of day-to-day operations.
Leadership and Management Skills
Many marketers use a master’s degree to help them advance to a marketing manager role. As a result, they possess strong leadership skills, some of which they developed or honed through their graduate school curriculum. Being able to effectively manage projects and people is a valuable skill in any field of work, whether or not you officially hold a managerial job title.
In its most elementary form, managerial skills make you a better employee because you take initiative and plan your tasks and use your time wisely. When you work on projects with your colleagues, you can use your leadership skills to bring out the best in your collaborations. As your leadership skills shine more, they may prompt supervisors to designate you as a project manager or promote you to higher-level roles within your department or in company administration. For an organization to function at its best, every project and department requires effective management.
Leadership doesn’t just mean taking charge and bossing people around. True leadership means inspiring your workers to reach their potential.
Additional Resources
What Other Business Fields Will a Marketing Degree Help Me Get a Position In?
Which Personality Traits Will Help Me Be Successful in Marketing?