What Career Opportunities are Available with a Master’s Degree? 

If you’re an ambitious marketer, it can be frustrating to realize that a lack of knowledge or gap in your skillset can hold you back. 

This is becoming more common for those looking to advance into senior positions as marketing continues to evolve at breakneck speed and technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) are widely adopted to automate, personalize, and optimize marketing activities.  

While certain roles, notably sales positions at junior to mid-level, remain in demand, there’s been a surge in senior positions across sectors. This has led to a demand for mid-level roles as senior marketers look to expand their teams - a pattern expected to continue - according to our upcoming Salary Guide 2024.

With such demand, is it time to ramp up your skills in this age of AI to be a contender for a mid to senior level position? If so, maybe a Master’s in Digital Marketing is the answer.

In this blog, we’ll explore what you can learn in a Master’s program and 11 exciting career opportunities available with such an advanced qualification.  

What can you learn in a Digital Marketing Master’s?

A Master’s program is an advanced qualification that’s designed to help you build practical skills for immediate business impact. 

These skills might include using data to drive better insights, evaluating challenges and opportunities using digital channels or leverag customer journeys to generate demand and maximize return on investment. 

A Master’s (whether it’s online or on-campus) should provide you with in-depth knowledge in key areas of digital marketing and offer insights from the real-life experiences of industry experts.

These are the topics and areas of experience you should be looking for in a Master’s program. 

Core curriculum (these are the topics you would explore to gain an in-depth understanding of digital marketing)

• Professional and digital skills (CX, marketing models, content marketing, etc.)
• Social media marketing
• Search marketing (SEO & SEM) and demand generation
• Business strategy and management
• Analytics and planning
• Digital business strategy and management
• Data-driven decision making
• Brand building

Practical experience (these types of activities would provide you with knowledge and skills)

• Module Assessments (e.g. SEO optimization proposals, content strategy, digital marketing usage)
• Case studies
• Business project or thesis
• Internships

What career opportunities are available with a Master’s?

Sometimes the challenge as a marketer is to pick the right career path for your passion and skills. 

As digital marketers are in such demand and it is a constantly evolving area, there are a number of mid to senior roles to choose from especially with a Master’s degree in your back pocket. 

So let’s see what career opportunities are available. 

1) Marketing Manager

A Marketing Manager needs to wear many hats and juggle a number of tasks to drive the success of a company. The main goal of this role is to develop and implement marketing plans that drive brand awareness, customer engagement, and revenue. 

Someone in this role needs to know how to conduct market research, understand consumer behavior and industry trends, develop engaging marketing campaigns, manage budgets, and oversee content creation. 

Collaboration across departments (e.g. sales and product) is also key to maintain a consistent brand and track the effectiveness of marketing activities using data and KPIs.

Salary: $85 - $105k/£45k - 60k (Aspire & DMI Salary Guide)

2) Brand Manager

Brand Managers are responsible for how people perceive a brand or company. This means they need to ensure that every point on a customer journey conveys the right message to customers and is relevant to the brand. 

This role also involves analyzing customer feedback and sentiment to understand what they like and don’t like about the brand. This information can then be used to see gaps in the customer journey or identify opportunities where future interactions could be enhanced. 

This role also involves traditional and digital PR, industry and trend research, customer research and collaboration across departments. 

Salary: $52k- $134k (Indeed)/£36k-53k (Glassdoor) 

3) Digital Marketing Manager

A successful Digital Marketing Manager or Director must have a solid grasp of everything to do with marketing and business. A person in this position is responsible for the presence of a brand online and using digital channels to generate leads and boost sales. 

A Digital Marketing Manager or Director needs experience in strategic planning and execution which includes developing a data-driven digital marketing strategy and financial forecasting. 

Anyone in this position should also be able to delegate while taking risks, hold firm on decisions, and lead a high-performing marketing team.

Salary: $108-$141k (Salary.com) /£40-£57k (Glassdoor)

4) Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

As a member of the C-suite, a Chief Marketing Officer or CMO is the marketing leader in an organization. 

A CMO oversees the planning, development and execution of marketing and advertising initiatives, plays a role in company growth and uses data to drive business decisions and leverage technology to understand customer behavior.

A strategic mind is crucial, with an ability to understand market trends, analyze competitors and create strategies that align with company goals. As a leader, this role requires inter-departmental collaboration along with managing and motivating members of the marketing team.  

Salary: $79k - $146k /£69k - £135k  (Aspire & DMI Salary Guide)

5) Chief Growth Officer (CGO)

According to LinkedIn’s Job on the Rise 2024 list, Chief Growth Officer (CGO) is one of the 10 fastest-growing roles in the U.S and the newest member of the C-suite. 

A CGO is responsible for developing and executing strategies for driving revenue, expanding market presence and ensuring sustainable growth. A hybrid role, the position bridges the gap between product, marketing and sales to provide insight into customer needs, buyer behaviors, market dynamics, and growth strategies beyond advertising. 

They also are responsible for aligning various departments to make sure a company is more customer centric and to drive sustainable growth. 

Salary: $218k-$360k (Comparably)/£88k-137k  (Aspire & DMI Salary Guide)

6) Social Media Manager

Nearly 6 billion people (Statista) are predicted to be using social media in 2027 so it’s a powerful channel to leverage as a marketer. 

The role of a Social Media Manager has evolved over the years to become more complex and involve more responsibilities as more social channels come onto the market and develop strategies to connect with different audiences. 

Some of the skills required in the role now include social media outreach, platform expertise, social customer service, and influencer marketing.

Salary: $41-74k (Glassdoor)/£35k-£55k (Aspire & DMI)

7) SEO Manager

The Search engine optimization (SEO) function has become even more important to companies in recent years as the competition for online visibility has become fierce.

An SEO Manager has responsibility for directing and managing the SEO activities of an organization. The goal is to to improve organic traffic, online visibility, and search rankings.  

Key tasks of an SEO Manager include:

• Website, social media, and content optimization
• Negotiating backlinks
• Campaign organization and planning
• Website monitoring and user analysis
• Keyword research
• Market analysis  

Salary: $47-120k (Indeed)/£35k-55k (Aspire & DMI)

8) Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

The role of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is the highest ranking in an organization and is responsible for steering strategy and growth.

The CEO shapes the company's goals and ensures they are met. They also help define the company's values and how the company interacts with customers, stakeholders, and the public. 

They also need to regularly communicate with the company's board to report on progress and get guidance.

Salary: $73k-284k (Indeed)/£63k-113k (Glassdoor) 

9) Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs start, manage and scale a business. One of the skills of this role is identifying a gap in the market or a way to provide a better service or product that consumers will want. 

Driven by ambition and innovation, this role can excel in any industry. There are a wide variety of tasks that an entrepreneur could perform which include: 

• Planning and strategy
• Marketing
• Budget management
• Problem solving and critical thinking
• Leadership and communication
• Creativity

Salary: The salary range is difficult to estimate as it depends on the company but an average salary in the U.S.A is $77k and U.K is £43k (Indeed)

10) Digital Marketing Analyst

The volume of data an organization has to process has grown exponentially over the years. This makes the role of a Digital Marketing Analyst a valuable one for an organization. 

An Analyst’s job is to gather, sort and interpret digital marketing data to help drive better business outcomes. This requires the use of tools and techniques for data analysis and data visualization. 

The role also required the identification of insights and trends, optimization of marketing campaigns and collaboration to improve performance. 

Salary: $65k-111k (Talent.com)/£40k-60k (Aspire & DMI Salary Guide)

11) Sales Manager

The role of a Sales Manager is to build and lead a team to generate revenue. It’s important to be able to build client relationships and develop an effective sales strategy. 

As a team leader, Sales Managers must motivate their teams to generate leads, build client relationships, set targets to hit or exceed, and help to meet customer needs and demands.

They also need to create sales plans, develop sales forecasts, analyze team performance, train and coach team members, and assign sales territories.  

Salary: $70k-120k /£50-70 (Aspire & DMI Salary Guide)

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many mid to senior level roles available to ambitious marketers. The key is to do some research and see what area of digital marketing is most appealing to you. 

Do you want to be more strategic and lead the marketing activities of an organization? Are you passionate about social media and want to leverage data and platforms to engage and convert customers? Or do you want to know how to ensure a company features on the first page of search engines like Google or Bing? 

Whichever role you decide is best for you, a Master’s in Digital Marketing could help you stand out from your peers and give you the confidence you need to go for that promotion or career change.    

Advance Your Career with a Digital Marketing Master’s

It can be a challenge to transition into a senior role so it’s important to gain new skills and knowledge. DMI’s Master’s in Digital Marketing, informed by leading industry experts (Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, IBM and more), is an advanced program that provides you with key digital marketing skills and provides you with strategic, management, planning, and analytics know-how expected by employers across industries. Download a brochure today to see what you can achieve. 

Related

• 5 Tips to Supercharge your Career in 2024
• What’s the Difference Between Online vs. On-Campus Digital Marketing Master’s Programs?
• The Road to Digital Leadership with Alan Coleman