July's Expert: Steve Chorlins
A 15-year marketing veteran, Steve Chorlins has held senior marketing positions with several leading professional services and B2C organizations. Before joining Aquent, he was Marketing Director for a global HR consulting firm where he was essential in helping to increase revenues and build awareness for several lines of business in and various regions throughout the world. Steve also served as Principal, Marketing Director for a regional benefits and investments firm and as a senior creative writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the city’s daily newspaper. In his current role as Marketing Agent with Aquent, Steve draws upon his marketing acumen and experiences as a hiring manager to add a critical and practical layer that benefits clients and talent alike.
Question: When researching jobs online to determine the defining differences between a marketing manager and a marketing director. The line between these two roles seems to vary from company to company. Can you explain the determining factors that sets them apart?
Answer: The distinction between marketing manager and marketing director has everything to do with the size of the company’s marketing department, and more importantly is its organizational structure. While the marketing director title typically indicates leadership, small or mid-sized companies with a small marketing department may only have one person in charge of marketing which makes the manager or director title irrelevant. The question to ask yourself is “how are other corporate departments within the organization structured?” Does HR have a proportionately equal number of directors and managers? What about accounting?
On the flip side, you can have a whole army of marketing managers and/or marketing directors all of whom have a narrow focus (i.e. Marketing Director-Web, Marketing Director-Events, etc.) so the title doesn’t necessarily indicate seniority, particularly if they don’t manage anyone other than vendors.
So whether you’re managing a large team of marketers for a Fortune 500© company or singlehandedly managing all of the marketing programs for a small business, it’s important to understand the organizational structure within the company and marketing’s congruence with other departments. And when it comes to salary, it’s most critical to base your demands on the requirements and responsibilities of the position; not on title alone.