Personal Development Report: Marketing Career Pathways and Trends

This report is a comprehensive personal development analysis focused on a marketing career. It begins by exploring the author's interests in various marketing departments, specifically within the clothing retail sector, and explains the reasons behind these interests. The report details different career pathways within marketing, such as market research, brand management, advertising, and promotions, outlining the roles and responsibilities associated with each. It then delves into the author's specific career interests as a market research analyst and social media manager, highlighting relevant skills and ambitions. The report further examines future trends shaping the marketing sector in the UK and globally, including the rise of social media marketing, the importance of video content, customer engagement, and the use of SEO. Finally, it connects the chosen career path to the author's skills, interests, and ambitions, offering insights into career growth and development. The report also includes a SWOT analysis, an affinity diagram, and a mind map to assess the author's skills, values, and areas for development, as well as gaps between skills and employer needs.

Running head: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Personal development

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 2
Table of Contents
Part 1: Word count:....................................................................................................................3
What job departments are you interested in and why?...........................................................3
What are the different career pathways in growing within that department?.........................3
What career sectors are you interested in and why?...............................................................7
What are the future trends shaping this sector in the UK and outside the UK?.....................8
How is the career path connected to your interests, skills, and ambitions?...........................9
What will this mean in terms of your career growth?..........................................................10
Part 2: Word count:..................................................................................................................12
What are your current skills and abilities and how are they matching the industry or
profession you are applying towards?..................................................................................12
SWOT analysis.....................................................................................................................12
What are your values and career interests?..........................................................................13
Affinity Diagram..................................................................................................................13
What are your areas of development?..................................................................................14
Mind Map.............................................................................................................................14
Any gaps between your skills and abilities vs. the employer needs for the role/profession?
..............................................................................................................................................15
References................................................................................................................................16

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 3
Part 1: Word count:
What job departments are you interested in and why?
I am interested in the field of marketing in clothing retail sector because I did different
courses in marketing.
Market research
Under the marketing field, I worked in the marketing research field where, I have developed
the capability for collecting the information about the target market of the brand and
generates the tool for evaluating the purchase behaviour and predicts the sales. I can
indirectly and directly involve the investigation related to buying behaviour, preferences, as
well as obtaining the survey associated with market research and focus group. I am also
interested in interpreting the data for the marketing team and other fields (Yang, Song, &
Tong, 2017).
Education Requirements
I have done a bachelor’s degree with a focus on advertising, marketing, and business
communication course as well as an MBA.
Digital Marketing
I am also interested in working in digital marketing as more companies are focusing on
putting great efforts on online advertising as well as e-sales. Moreover, digital marketing
experts have advanced knowledge and proficient capabilities in the sector of pay per click,
search engine optimization, web design, and content management (Huq, Chowdhury, &
Klassen, 2016).
Education Requirements
I have done a master course in marketing management as well as a bachelor degree in digital
advertising, marketing, as well as business communication.

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What are the different career pathways in growing within that department?
Under the marketing field, there are several career pathways that can be evaluated as follow:
Market Research
This career involves research on a specified target. Along with this, the target can be
determined by the company. For addressing the condition of the market in the clothing retail
sector, the company can develop an understanding regarding the market. Research focuses on
the first process of understanding the consumers, wants, their needs, as well as the
requirement for buying habits. It also focuses on views and opinion of customers towards the
specific company or their products (Rahman, Wong, & Yu, 2016).
Market research can be obtained through surveys, reviewing the research, and focus group
research. It makes competent the researcher to collect the data on a specific target for the
brand. Market research is conducted within the company and it can hire a specialized
company for performing the research (De Mooij, 2018).
Positions Available in Market Research:
Following position is available in the market research field:
Market analyst
Market research director
Brand management
Market research manager
Market Research Supervisor
It is identified that market research is essential function in clothing industry. In such sector,
the brand manager is accountable for the brand family. They are always focusing on the big
picture. It is my accountability to focus on fundamentals of the brand, identifying the market
opportunity, determining company’s competitors in a brand category along with, launching
the distinct products and services in a significant way (Boström, & Micheletti, 2016).

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The brand manager is responsible for instructing the team of market research by creating the
agenda and criteria as well as selecting the stimuli such as video clips, product samples, as
well as product benefit statement with a picture. After completing the research, the
responsibility of the brand manager is to analyse the data that is gathered through the market
and develops the market strategy accordingly (Homburg, Jozić, & Kuehnl, 2017).
This strategy could be practiced by creating the new advertising campaign, generates new
products, as well as a new mission associated with the brand. The brand manager also assures
the other practices such as promotion, market research, provides support in the
implementation of strategy that they have developed and research and development activities
(Baker, & Saren, 2016). The given below position is created in brand management:
Product Manager
Product Development Manager
Brand Manager
Advertising
Another career pathway is advertising where an advertiser performs with respect to the
marketing of products and services as well as building the strategy. An advertiser can address
the higher amount of job in a company associated with advertising like account management,
media purchases, as well as, account planners. Moreover, the account manager performs as
the association among the several departments related to the agency as well as the customers
(Chandon, Laurent, & Valette-Florence, 2016).
They are accountable to execute the advertising by making sure that they are created within
the predetermined schedules as well as budget. In addition, account planners are highly
focused on consumers. They are accountable to do research related to the demographics of
targeted consumers. The research can comprehend the mode of encouraging customers within
an organization (Smilansky, 2017). The accountability related to media purchaser is to

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 6
identify the media for executing the advertising. The advertiser also practices the
demographic research that is performed by the account planner to choose the best position for
buying the advertising space (Ramanathan, Subramanian, & Parrott, 2017).
Positions Available in Advertising:
The given below position are available in the advertising:
Account Executives
Account Planners
Media purchasers
Advertising Sales Director
Media Coordinator
Media Director
Advertising Managers
Promotions
The company identifies the enthusiastic promotion team within the marketing fields. This
team performs on creating the initiatives that integrated the advertising in terms of providing
incentives such as rebates, samples, special discounts, gift with purchase, coupons, as well as
sweepstakes. For promoting these initiatives, the promotion team can practice the direct mail,
advertisements, telemarketing, in-store displays as well as, special kick-off events (Stone, &
Farnan, 2018).
Following positions are available in promotions:
Promotions Director
Public Relations
Promotions Assistant
Public Relations

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 7
Under the public relation department, it is the responsibility to manage the communication
with the employees, the general public, media, investors, and consumers. They have
combined the spokesperson for the company. They can apply the press release for promoting
the new products as well as maintaining the investments for informing the society for
financial results, partnerships with the broadcasts related to other corporation (Wood,
Wrigley, & Coe, 2016).
While a firm is using the media relation, then it will need to spend a higher time to respond to
the request of data from journalist to the media. The accountability, as well as assurance that
public relation employees take, is to identify the company in pleasing lights, publicizing the
goods and service, developing a positive buzz in around its practices of business as well as
upholding the public image in the crisis (Kennedy, 2016).
Positions that are available in public relations:
The given below position are available in maintaining the public relation:
Government PR Departments
Account Executive
Media Relations
Director, Vice-President
PR Consultant
Public Relations Coordinator
What career sectors are you interested in and why?
Market Research Analyst
I am highly interested in the marketing sector for a career. Market research analyst can be a
good position for me because I am interested in asking the questions. For such a position, I
would like to search for an answer regarding customer experience as well as gaps in the
marketplace. I am also interested in performing the surveys, focus on a specific group, and

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 8
review the existing research. I am also capable of identifying the new chances in the case of
making changes at the workplace (Mamic, 2017). I can also analyze the financial margin as
well as generates it lower after emphasizing on the distribution of budget. I can also identify
the market in terms of creating a more affordable production process. I am proficient for
comprehending the needs and requirement of consumers. I have the competency to create
direct interaction among the offering of the company as well as the purchasing behavior of
customers (Pedersen, Gwozdz, & Hvass, 2018).
Social Media Manager
I am also interested in becoming the social media manager because I love to create the liaison
with others that are logical as this job depends on the competency. The key purpose of this
position is to create knowledge of the brand. It can be accomplished through effective
strategy across all the way of social media. I am also interested in such area as I have
competency for providing the caption about products and services on Instagram (Lundblad, &
Davies, 2016).
I comprehend the ways to interact appropriately within 140 characters through Twitter. I am
also competent for using the performance algorithm together with the Facebook search. It is
one of the marketing responsibilities that are associated with my interest. I am also highly
interested to generate the visual content as well as capable of understanding the research and
data. I am also skilled in contributing to social campaigns because of interaction level and
customer feedback. My responsibility is to entail in the editing process as well as creates the
campaign (Parsons, Maclaran, & Chatzidakis, 2017).
What are the future trends shaping this sector in the UK and outside the UK?
More social media marketing
Social media marketing will be on higher trends in the clothing retail industry within the UK
and outside of the UK. The brand can implement social media for highly generic content that

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 9
a person is avoiding in current times. Social media could be personalized and it is highly
complex for accomplishing. The company can practice social media for forefront marketing
of products and services. This trend would be highly beneficial for involving consumers
(Cox, 2016).
Better video content
It is identified that content is king, however, the kind of content that rules the web is
changing. Moreover, social content, reviews, blogs, and eBooks are a key concept used in
marketing. But, the video can be highly practiced in upcoming times. The company can
consider videos of Celebrities with modern clothes to promote products and services. Brands
that are incompetent for considering the visuals and videos cannot sustain in the business
(Giovannini, Xu, & Thomas, 2015).
Engage with customers
The company can obtain feedback with respect to survey as well as responding in customer
post on a social channel is a good technique in the clothing retail sector with the consumer
perspectives. A company cannot undervalue the views of customers in upcoming times
(Okonkwo, 2016).
Use SEO
Under the UK and across the UK, there are bulks of people who search for something in
Google that are in trend. Company is practicing the moderately inexpensive SEO tools like
penetrating keywords in the clothing sector with respect to identifying the emerging structure
in searching the attitude of a person. The key approach of using this is to implement the terms
and conditions within the niche sector. In the context of SEO, a company can focus on a
certain topic that has a ton of search volume. A corporation can identify the gems as it is a
beneficial method to identify the places where the company can fill the mark (Fine, 2017).

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 10
How is the career path connected to your interests, skills, and ambitions?
VP of Brand Development and Digital Marketing
My career pathway is linked to my ambitious, skills as well as interest. The vice president
related to marketing field is connected with my business, technical, as well as leadership
skills. I regularly act as a spokesperson within the company as VP within the marketing
department is always needed of workers to perform in this field. It is also effective for filling
the gaps and consolidation of the products and services of the firm. Apart from the team-
oriented policies, VP of marketing role involves the questioning as well as, recruiting for the
top position at the workplace (Chaffey, & Ellis-Chadwick, 2019).
Marketing Manager
Marketing managers are related to creating, maintaining, and evaluating marketing strategies.
This role is also linked to the trait of leadership. In addition to this, the marketing manager is
associated with the execution of the marketing approach and creates the process while
generating entry-level development among workforces (Okonkwo, 2016).
What will this mean in terms of your career growth?
Get More Paid:
Career growth is associated with get more compensation and develop myself to become an
entrepreneur. It is addressed that get more compensation is associated with the law of supply
and demand. Furthermore, when demand is higher with respect to marketable services as well
as supply is low then, there would be a possibility for increasing the compensation. I would
be also able to negotiate the salary to the potential employers as well as, picking the highly
compensated tasks. This standard is set at a higher rate for the future. It is not only the
managerial positions that are going through increasing the salary amount. In the entry-level
position, the company is emphasizing on a sizable increase in salary (Mamic, 2017).
Potential opportunity to become entrepreneur

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 11
My experience within digital marketing will not only support for obtaining better job
opportunities. But, it will be highly supportive while I will make a plan to become an
entrepreneur in upcoming times. I am proficient for comprehending the needs effectively as
well as analyze the condition of the market associated with goods and services. I have a
proficiency in evaluating the demand of the market rather than assessing other factors that
can be new for this. I am also sensitive for making the plan as per the changes in the customer
needs and requirements as per the current trends (Okonkwo, 2016).
Higher demand of marketing
Marketing can be different areas like hospitality, production, and clothing industry as it
supports for obtaining the achievements. Business can try to tune itself within digital
activities as people are more reluctantly depend on the internet to perform their
accountabilities. Moreover, there is fewer amount of skilled digital marketer as compared to
the needs of employers. Digital marketing is beneficial for all fields such as from company to
business leader as well as, a political leader is highly relied on digital marketing in terms of
growing their impact. The company has a requirement for sound digital marketers who have
the ability for high-quality initiatives to improve product awareness from scratch (Chaffey, &
Ellis-Chadwick, 2019).

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 12
Part 2: Word count:
What are your current skills and abilities and how are they matching the industry or
profession you are applying towards?
SWOT analysis
Strength
Creativity
Oral communication
Leadership
Reliability
Weakness
Listening skills
Mental Roughness
Written communication
Time management
Opportunities
Internship
Networking
Threats
Industry level competition
Increased job market competition
Economy
I have different abilities as well as skills like leadership, communication, creativity, as well as
reliability. I have also organizational skills as well as sound planning. I have a positive
attitude with respect to high patience as well as the environment. Moreover, I have the
competency for making improvement in products and set the pricing strategies with balancing
objectives of companies. The key responsibility is related to this proficiency is to create and
evaluate the marketing strategy as per the knowledge of market characteristics. I have also
the ability to optimize the product and pricing approach and portfolio in line with respect to
the whole strategy.
I have the ability to develop, manage, and cooperate, the marketing activities, and strategies
to endorse the products, performing the promotion and other type of managers. My skills are
associated with financial as well as sales department to support and facilitate the consumers.