Marketers well placed to switch jobs for higher salaries in 2016

Marketers well placed to switch jobs and look for higher salaries in 2016

Three in five marketing professionals will seek to move to pastures new in 2016. It’s a staggering statistic, taken from a recent Hays report, which will doubtless set c-suite hearts racing and make marketers who are happy in their workplace start questioning whether they’re missing a trick.

Why are such a significant number of marketers looking to switch jobs this year? Hays’ UK Salary and Recruiting Trends 2016 report suggests the main motivation is the prospect of better pay. The research revealed that marketing salaries rose 2.6 per cent in 2015, which is 0.3 per cent higher than the national average.

Migration of the marketers

A third of those marketers searching for new work are motivated by the prospect of a higher salary, which suggests senior marketers will be forced to increase salaries in an effort to retain and attract top talent.

Richard Carpenter, head of B2B marketing at Lloyds Banking Group, proposes that an upsurge in new marketing roles is also a contributing factor: “The digital revolution and, more recently, trends within content marketing and programmatic, have created so many new roles.

“Hence, it all comes down to a relatively simple supply and demand process. There’s a huge demand to fill all these skills, yet actually a very short supply. This means salaries are going up, as all of a sudden everyone wants to hire an SEO expert who’s capable of understanding the depths of programmatic media, and is a creative genius at the same time.”

Not everyone agrees that marketing is an especially fluid industry. Felix Wetzel, CMO at carwow, argues that brands are beginning to realise that in order to rub shoulders with their competitors, they need the right people to market and sell their products effectively: “Companies have realised (or re-learned) the importance of marketing, which in turn has increased the confidence for marketers to look around and move on.”

This is certainly reflected by the Hays report, which states that 69 per cent of senior marketers expect a busier 2016, with the same percentage aiming to increase their headcount in order to match this demand.

Workplace woes

Of course, an obvious explanation as to why marketers may be looking to switch roles could simply be down to the fact they don’t enjoy their jobs. According to B2B Marketing’s Leaders Report 2015, just under half of marketers admit they do not feel valued by their company.

Bryony Thomas, founder of Watertight Marketing, agrees: “Marketing is a fluid industry because it’s not taken particularly seriously as a strategic driver by the vast majority of businesses.

“People often jump ship in an attempt to find somewhere they are truly valued, only to find that while they may talk a good game, marketing is seen as second fiddle to finance or, increasingly, IT.”

The Leaders Report 2015, reinforcing similar findings from the Hays report, also found that 67 per cent of marketers were either actively searching for new employment, or were likely to start looking for a job in the next six months. Although these figures may initially come as a surprise to some marketing leaders, employee overhaul does not always carry negative connotations; in fact, being aware of other options is a perfectly natural state of mind for most professionals. Employee churn can also often trigger departmental up-skilling and allows for internal improvement.

New roles and functions

Another reason marketers are keen to secure new employment could be due to the temptation of escaping the confines of traditional marketing roles in search of more specialised functions. For example, the conventional account director or campaign manager is likely to possess a fairly rigid set of duties and responsibilities. These marketers are seeing the opportunity to specialise, recognising that their current roles may not be enough to keep pace with the rapidly evolving nature of marketing.

The attraction of becoming a specialist in a media or digital function will, as Carpenter explains, also contribute toward the marketing pay rise: “Because of a marketer’s limited experience in these specialist roles, there’s going to be a demand for a salary increase, because people are crying out for those positions to be filled.”

The fact the Hays report also revealed online and digital marketing roles enjoyed the most significant salary increases in 2015 goes some way in supporting Carpenter’s theory regarding surges in demand for these areas of expertise. It’s clear that marketing companies are craving new talent and capabilities. Social media managers and digital experts find themselves in high demand and, therefore, can call for better pay for their expertise.

However, this poses the question: does this migration between roles dilute the marketing function? Thomas certainly thinks so: “With the advent of digital marketing, it feels like anyone who knows the technical buttons to press, or who enjoys a deep dive into data, feels as if they have the right to call themselves a marketer. These skills are extremely important, but they are absolutely secondary to knowing what buttons to press in the human mind.”

Thomas believes marketing needs to be taken more seriously in a wider professional context. This, she asserts, is why marketing has become such a fluid landscape and its function has continued to dilute: “I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard people jokingly refer to marketing as the ‘colouring-in department’, or employees as ‘those fluffy marketing types.’

“This derogatory view of marketing is not confined to big businesses. In smaller companies, marketing is typically tagged on to other job roles, or they get in a ‘smart young grad’ or even an intern, to ‘do a bit of marketing’. This is like getting someone who’s ‘pretty good with numbers’ to put together your year-end accounts, or a first year law student to knock up your contracts.”

Marketing gaining strength

Yet, many argue the blurring of lines between industries has only served to strengthen the marketing function, as companies benefit from a wider range of skills. Wetzel says: “Marketing has always attracted people from other roles and that is good, because only by mixing in different experiences and influences will marketing progress and maintain its relevance in the modern world.”

It’s a relatively popular view: the more professionals you secure from different industries, the wider the range of skills your company is going to have access to. Carpenter agrees: “You are naturally going to see different skill sets coming into the industry,” he says. “It’s inevitable now and it’s essential for this happen. The days of sitting back and creating a nice TV ad and saying ‘job done, what are we going to move onto next?’ have gone. Nowadays, you have to be far more agile with different channels and ways of communicating with different people.”

This agility and necessity to react to potentially disruptive trends is becoming increasingly common, according to James Perrot, strategy director at Zazzle Media: “There are so many transferrable skills in marketing and this means marketers are becoming more and more agile in being able to deal with different scenarios.”

Surely, it’s narrow-minded and possibly even elitist to see this migration of roles as diluting conventional marketing. The role of the modern marketer is a hotly debated topic, but there is no doubt it is constantly adapting to encompass an ever-widening tapestry of skills.

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