Are you wondering how is information technology used in marketing careers? Information technology (IT) skills are essential to marketing career success in the 21st Century workplace. When you begin interviewing for marketing positions, you should be prepared to answer questions specific to your information technology skills. In some cases, employers may even require candidates for marketing jobs to complete performance assessments designed to measure proficiency in certain types of technologies.
Understanding How Is Information Technology Used in Marketing Careers
Effective marketing is all about getting messages in front of potential consumers in appealing ways that have the potential to influence purchase decisions. Doing so in the 21st Century requires the use of various information technology tools. From managing your own schedule to keeping up with previous contact to distributing marketing oriented information via email and online marketing channels, it's a fact that information technology is ingrained in modern marketing jobs.
Examples of information technology tools that marketing professionals are likely to use on a regular basis include:
- Blogging: Many marketing professionals are involved in setting up and managing blogs for their companies.
- Computerized Presentations: Marketers are often responsible for creating computerized sales and marketing presentations using PowerPoint or other applications.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems: Companies often use sophisticated CRM software applications to keep track of all types of customer contact, including sales calls, presentations, purchases, complaints and more. Marketers need to be able to access information that is in the system as well as input additional data as it becomes available.
- Email Communication: Marketing professionals rely heavily on one-on-one email communication in order to accomplish their work. Email communication is quite common with customers, prospects, coworkers, member of the media and others.
- Email Marketing: Many companies rely heavily on email marketing as a way of attracting new business and building relationships with current and past customers. Marketers are often responsible for building and maintaining an email marketing database as well as creating e-newsletters and email advertisements.
- Graphic Design Software: Marketers who are involved in designing advertisements and collateral materials, such as brochures and newsletters, for their companies are expected to be well versed in the use of graphic design software applications like InDesign, PhotoShop and more.
- Websites: Having web design, development maintenance skills can definitely be an advantage for individuals who want to work in marketing. The level of web skill necessary varies from one company to another. In some organizations, marketing professionals are expected to handle every aspect of creating a website, including design, programming, security, content development and more. In other organizations, marketing employees work closely with in-house programmers or an outside web development firm on the technical aspects of site management.
- Social Media: With so many companies incorporating social networking into their promotional efforts, marketing professionals need to be well versed in the use of popular social media technologies as tools for attracting new business and building customer relationships. Marketers are often responsible for setting up and managing Facebook pages and Twitter accounts for their companies, publishing video content to YouTube, and establishing LinkedIn profiles for key company personnel.
Preparing for Marketing Career Success
Becoming a successful marketing professional begins with making sure that you have the knowledge and skills necessarily to effectively promote your company to potential customers within its target audiences. This means that you need to have a working knowledge about marketing theory as principles as well as a solid understanding of how is information technology used in marketing careers. If you don't have the IT skills that are necessary to qualify for the types of jobs you hope to be hired for, it's up to you to get the training necessary to prove your value to prospective employers.
