Are you up for the hottest jobs on the market?
LinkedIn recently released the 25 fastest growing roles in the United States. Like many other fields, marketing and sales are changing.
But is this the same old business wrapped up in a more impressive buzzword title? Or do these roles have new functions that didn’t exist 10 years ago? And finally, how does this all fit in with the CMO-less branding trend?
Let’s explore the answers with CMI Chief Strategy Advisor Robert Rose. Watch or read his opinion.
It’s Groundhog Day, and in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, a beastly rodent by the name of Phil will come back out of his hole to see if there are six more weeks of winter left. The job has been around since the late 1800s, although Phil’s title didn’t appear until 1961.
But the jobs and skills you need to perform are changing rapidly. Let’s look at some trends so you can assess your skill sets and think about what preparations you need to make.
CMO disappearance
The first trend involves the retirement of the chief marketing officer. Stories about the demise of the CMO role aren’t new, but logistics company UPS made headlines in December when it eliminated the role.
Or did they? As of now, UPS has created the role of chief commercial and strategy officer to oversee marketing, revenue, product management, strategy and transformation…
Doesn’t that make you scratch your head?
Also in December, Etsy, the online arts and crafts marketplace, eliminated its CMO position and added responsibilities to its chief operating officer. And Walgreens laid off 5% of its corporate staff — including the CMO — shifting responsibilities to others in the company.
Every few years for at least a decade, people debated the true nature of the CMO role—and whether the job was too big for one person. In 2021, the Great Resignation sparked talk of new titles in marketing that ushered sharp elbows into the boardroom and took over — chief experience officer, chief customer officer, even chief digital officer.
The fastest growing job roles
This time, however, the chief marketing officer’s speech looks different, and that brings to light the second trend, as reflected in LinkedIn’s recent article on the 25 fastest-growing roles in the United States. It speaks volumes for the astronomical growth of artificial intelligence.
Five of the 25 roles – or 20% – are precisely in the sales, marketing and communications departments. These include the chief development officer (not really a new trend; see discussion above for 2021) but also the director of revenue operations, external communications officer, influencer marketing officer and head of partnerships.
Increasing, not decreasing, the value of modern marketing
But dig into these fastest-growing role functions identified by LinkedIn and you’ll see they’re just talking about new titles for the duties of a chief marketing officer. The five fastest-growing sales, marketing and communications roles simply combine the classic marketing functions that change rather than the job itself.
Returning to UPS’ impressive history, the new chief commercial and strategy officer oversees marketing, revenue, product management, strategy and transformation. Simply put, UPS isn’t saying the CMO’s job was too big. he thinks it wasn’t strategic enough.
Many are interpreting the trend in CMO role reductions as an indicator that senior leadership (CEOs and boards) do not see marketing as worthy of the C-suite. Instead, what the leadership of UPS and other brands recognize is that marketing — as the great Peter Drucker used to say — is the only innovative function in business.
All of these new, faster-growing roles simply package classic marketing functions in new and certainly different ways.
According to LinkedIn, development leaders “develop and execute an organization’s strategies to grow revenue, expand market presence and ensure sustainable growth.” It just sounds like someone who is now responsible not only for the tactical elements of marketing but also for product development and market strategy.
Revenue operations managers “help oversee the business’ monetization practices, working closely with sales and marketing teams to optimize business growth and ensure overall effectiveness.” The art and science of revenue management has long been the customer journey, now it’s a marketing responsibility. You can see how a role that directs strategic pricing, selling and managing the right product into the right hands at the right time makes perfect sense.
Finally, LinkedIn says influencer marketers “coordinate partnerships with influencers and celebrities and develop corresponding marketing campaigns to increase profit and brand awareness.” Let’s modify it to add “internal subject matter experts”. But this description describes a classic marketing role that has become much more important with the growth of independent content creators and marketing becoming much more of a media function than a classic sales enablement department.
Work on your future career
Why does all this matter? You need to remember these trends when you see the influx of jobs with fancy new titles and the headlines about your marketing roles being replaced. You need to have a healthy side view for those who conclude that marketing is becoming less respected or that companies just aren’t getting the job done. You need to tighten your hands less.
Now, not all companies have it. Some businesses still make short-sighted mistakes and some may reboot their marketing roles in foolish ways. But these new jobs and changing roles mean that marketing is happening more strategic, no less.
Roles and functions change substantially but do not go away. The role of marketing, as Professor Philip Kotler would say, remains to create, communicate and deliver value to a target market at a profit.
You need to realize the responsibility for who does each of these things change with different names and titles, but the function not. When managing your marketing career, your goal should be to learn how to do it they understand and I am doing all these things.
It’s not good enough to just understand the media. It’s not good enough to just understand the technology. It’s not good enough to just create great copy. Marketing now involves being well-rounded all the integrated functions that bring wealth to the business.
Whether you are a professional, middle management or C-level, your future is not to understand a which may be your job today. Your future requires you to understand the entirety of what marketing means to a business. Learning these things will help you get through it all tomorrow.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
