The evolution of the marketing manager

OPM’s Jordan Adcock examines the changing role of marketing jobs:

Over past years the way we are required to market our products has altered significantly. With the gaming industry ever-growing there is a constant need to evolve, finding new ways to target players and increase revenue. The way that the industry attracts customers is progressively diversifying and as such marketing roles have evolved also.

Changes in job content and requirements have shifted job titles quite dramatically. Previously marketing managers were quite heavily involved in numerous areas of business, such as sales and administration, all in all covering a much wider scope of business. More recently, those specialising in marketing have a much more direct focus in specific areas, such as social and online presence.

Whilst most marketing job titles remain either similar or the same, there has been a large influx of social media and online marketing roles. This is down to enormous growth in online business, where in previous years (and years to come) huge quantities of sales have come from. This rise in online business has resulted in many companies requiring marketing managers with knowledge in social media, subsequently forcing existing marketing professionals to expand their understanding, whilst at the same time making it easier for people to enter the market, graduates in particular who generally have a better understanding of the social media phenomenon.

The expansion in online business also brought about a new area of market, in the form of MMO franchises. These relatively new MMO start-ups enforced more particular requirements amongst marketing managers, making it compulsory to have the natural aptitude at bringing players in and having the know-how to make them stay and boost merchandise sales at the same time. This brings us to point out that today marketing has evolved to become accountable, and work must be justified through facts and figures, almost in an analytical way. Monetisation and acquisition are therefore, huge factors in modern marketing and an understanding of these is an absolutely essential ability in successful marketing managers.