The top high-paying jobs in marketing pay a tremendous amount of money, especially if you have international experience tying audience, culture and media strategies together or know your way around the newest channels, according to data from Salary.com.Marketing jobs have been tough to come by over the last three years, but companies cautiously began hiring again in 2010, says Donna Farrugia, executive director of The Creative Group, a staffing firm based in Menlo Park, California. “In 2011, marketing teams are still lean, but companies can’t grow the business without adding talent,” she says. “It’s not raining money, though. Companies still don’t have big salary budgets.”
Mark Szypko, managing director of international compensation at Kenexa’s Salary.com division, which powers Monster’s Salary Wizard, says salaries are increasing for those in revenue-generating positions.
“Sales and marketing continue to be areas where hiring is picking up to fill slots that have been vacated by either a layoff or voluntary turnover,” he says. “Staffing levels are still below pre-recession levels but for these groups that gap is shrinking. In order to attract individuals into these critical roles, salaries are expected to rise as well.”
Despite current tight marketing salary budgets, paychecks (including bonuses and benefits) are very healthy for people in these seven marketing jobs:
1. International Marketing Executive: $282,100
Companies pay chief marketing officers top dollar to plan and direct international marketing strategies that capture audience attention in many cultures, markets and channels. To land this job at a Fortune 500 firm, you’ll need an MBA from a top-tier program, says Nancy Davis, practice director for sales and marketing at The Mergis Group, a recruiting and staffing agency based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
2. Top Channel Development Executive: $267,200
Companies value marketing pros who can run channel development in ways that maximize revenues. Only a small pool of people have the right mix of traditional marketing experience, analytics knowledge and new channel know-how, yet the number of companies moving into ecommerce is huge, Farrugia says. That’s why salaries for top channel development experts have edged out salaries of domestic top marketing executives.
3. Top Marketing Executive: $244,400
The best of the best marketing executives quickly adapt their company’s strategies and philosophies across a wide variety of ever-changing channels. Want to end up in the chief marketing officer’s job someday? Focus on digital projects. Write the projects into your resume as business cases that highlight your role and the bottom-line results, Farrugia says.
4. Top Market Research Executive: $193,100
Web analytics and market research are driving corporate investments as companies try to pinpoint changing customer preferences and locate the right audience for their products. Salaries for market research executives are up 3 percent to 5 percent in 2011, Farrugia says.
5. Marketing Director: $152,800
In companies that don’t have much of a marketing department, the marketing director handles everything, says Bruce Rowles, a recruiter with Experis (formerly Manpower) in Milwaukee. While every position is different, you’ll often need industry experience, along with marketing managerial experience to land marketing director positions, which are still scarce, he says.
6. Ecommerce Marketing Director: $148,500
Demand is tremendous for ecommerce marketing professionals as companies vie for online dominance. “Companies are all looking for the perfect hybrid person who knows traditional marketing and what’s going to make people click and stick,” Farrugia says.
7. Database Marketing Manager: $97,100
Data analysis is a niche within marketing where there are more jobs than candidates, Davis says. “Generally speaking, there are no more than one or two candidates for data-analytics positions,” she says. And unlike the C-level marketing jobs that take years to reach, you can work your way up to this position and that nearly $100,000 salary in only seven years, Salary.com says.
