With the appropriate direction from a brand manager, every company has the potential to become a brand.
Working in brand management entails creating a plan that distinguishes a business from rivals and forges enduring relationships with clients.
Being a brand manager entails assuming a wide-ranging role that frequently necessitates experience with numerous marketing-related topics, such as market research, content marketing, digital marketing, social media marketing, and design. Although brand managers aren’t always expected to carry out these duties, their expertise will help each team generate messaging and assets that are in line with a brand and enhance its position in the market.
Let’s discuss the duties of a brand manager, the resources you might employ in the position, and the requirements for becoming one.
Brand manager tasks and responsibilities: Building a brand strategy entails creating a special narrative and customer experience that will help to establish long-term client loyalty.
Brand managers are in charge of managing any marketing activity related to a company’s brand and making sure that all branding choices ultimately boost sales. Brand managers frequently collaborate with several marketing disciplines, including research, content, social media, and design, to create that alignment.
As a brand manager, you can be in charge of:
- carrying out market research
- data analysis to find trends, facts, and insights
- providing branding strategy guidance to several teams
- interacting with marketing departments to achieve brand consistency
- directing projects through several development stages
- Budgeting to support branding initiatives
- keeping in touch with firm stakeholders
Depending on the precise duties your employer expects you to carry out, the tools you’ll use as a brand manager will change. However, some popular tools for managing a brand include:
- monitoring and listening on social media (Sprinklr, Hootsuite, Sprout)
- managing media relationships and listening (Meltwater, Cision, Muckrack)
- CRM software, or customer relationship management (Salesforce, Zoho, Hubspot)
- Tools for data visualization (Tableau, Datawrapper, Google Charts)
A mix of advanced education and work experience is needed to become a brand manager. After working in a different form of management position, such as social media management or content management, marketers frequently hold this one. If you want to become a brand manager, you should take the following things into consideration:
Earn a degree: The educational qualifications for brand managers vary across different job advertisements. Brand managers are typically expected by employers to have a bachelor’s degree (with some companies specifying majors in marketing, communications, or business). In order to develop their knowledge and enhance their position, several brand managers also pursue an MBA with a marketing specialization.
Develop related experience: Smaller businesses might just need one to three years of experience, whilst bigger businesses might need more. You can lay the groundwork for a career in brand management by working as a market research analyst, social media manager, content marketing manager, or digital marketing manager. Through these positions, you can improve your comprehension of consumers and the effective messaging required to connect with them—key elements in managing a brand.
Develop brand and marketing skills: Typically, a brand manager must possess advanced abilities in the following fields:
- Writing: Because messaging is at the core of brand strategy, excellent writing abilities will help you create compelling messaging and ensure that copywriters will put it into action.
- Communication: You must be able to interact with a company’s marketing team and stakeholders about your strategic recommendations in addition to speaking on the brand’s behalf.
- Plan: Understanding the industry, how your business fits inside it, and how to contact clients are essential to developing or upgrading a branding strategy.
- Project management: You’ll be able to supervise brand-new campaigns and assist teams with everything from graphic overlays to email text by using your abilities to handle several projects at once.
- Personnel management: Having some experience managing others will serve you well whether you manage direct reports on your branding team or oversee a variety of teams that report to you for branding assistance.
- Adaptability: The ability to adapt is important since markets are always changing to meet consumer wants. Additionally, keeping an open mind about innovations and trends will help you create a brand strategy that is more responsive.
