How to Become a
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How to Become a Marketing Coordinator: Skills, Requirements, and Career Guide

Reviewed by Marketing Expert and Coach
Juan Alberto Reyes
on
April 16, 2024

Marketing is an exciting and dynamic field that offers a range of career opportunities for individuals with strong communication and creative skills. If you have a passion for branding, digital marketing, and customer engagement, becoming a marketing coordinator may be the perfect career choice for you.

In this comprehensive career guide, we will explore the skills and requirements necessary to launch a successful career in marketing, including the latest marketing strategies and tools. Whether you're just starting your career or looking to take your marketing skills to the next level, this guide will provide valuable insights into this exciting field.

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What is a Marketing Coordinator?

Being a coordinator is a great entry-level way to get experience with several marketing verticals.

A marketing coordinator helps plan, implement and manage marketing campaigns and strategies for an organization. Marketing coordinators typically work with marketing teams and are accountable for a variety of tasks, including facilitating market research, creating marketing materials, coordinating projects or events, and tracking effectiveness of marketing efforts. No day will be the same!

Marketing coordinators can work in a variety of industries, but some of the most popular include advertising, public relations, and retail. They may be involved in promoting product drops, campaign launches, or public events, and could work with several teams to develop and execute marketing strategies.


Responsibilities of a Marketing Coordinator

Responsibilities of a marketing coordinator will drastically vary from company to company, but they all have one thing in common-- it's a great entry-level role. Their counterpart on the product side is a Project Manager, so be on the lookout for that role too!

What does a Marketing Coordinator do?

A marketing coordinator is responsible for a variety of tasks related to strategizing marketing campaigns. Some specific responsibilities of a marketing coordinator may include:

  • Collaborating with other marketing professionals, such as visual designers, copywriters, and product teams, to execute marketing strategies.
  • Budget and project timeline tracking to ensure that all activities are completed on time and within budget.
  • Measuring the success of marketing efforts, such as using Google Analytics to analyze website traffic and conversion data and reporting on this to management.
  • Conducting market research to understand customer needs and preferences as well as competitor plans.
  • Creating marketing materials, such as ads and social media posts, to promote the company's products or services.
  • Coordinating events and promotions, such product launches, holiday campaigns, and special offers, to raise awareness of the organization and its offerings.

Education Requirements

Do I need a degree to be a Marketing Coordinator?

None required for an associate/entry level position. While this role seems more technical, marketing coordinators can come from all backgrounds and degree-types. Job descriptions will often mention a requirement of a marketing-related degree, but often psychology or journalism majors do well here because they’re able to understand the “why” behind user interactions and enjoy the strategy development.

We've seen some very successful marketing coordinators from people like:

  • Data entry and receptionist professionals
  • Teachers and social workers
  • Accounting and budgeting roles

If you're new here to bridged, we're glad to meet you! We are huge fans of alternate forms of education, and recommend specific certifications to target skills. While this job works great with degrees, you have other options.

Our Favorite Marketing Coordinator Certifications


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Social Media Marketing

This was one of the highest rated programs we reviewed, with folks saying it helped them not only kick off a marketing career but also a freelance blogging career. The program has a great mix of technical and theoretical concepts to get you familiar with a lot of helpful concepts, fast.

Learn More

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Become a Marketing Coordinator

This course is great if you're new to marketing and interested in learning about the tactical concepts of the role.
Linkedin also certifies when you complete a class, so this is something you could pin to your profile and show off, if wanted.

Learn More

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The Complete Digital Marketing Guide

This class is a top seller on udemy, and covers "23 marketing courses in 1." There are more than 100 hours of digital materials, including videos and presentation examples to sift through to give a comprehensive guide to the field. More than 75 thousand people have taken the course and rated it a 4.6/5.

Learn More

Salary and Career Potential

What is a Marketing Coordinator's salary?

We've aggregated thousands of salaries across glassdoor and linkedin, and marketing coordinators can make anywhere between 65k - 85k, depending on their location and skillsets.

Career Path of a Marketing Coordinator

While the career path below is very common in the tech industry (and a rather straightforward one), many marketing concepts are also very popular field among freelancers, including SEO and social media marketing. Both of these skills are great for local businesses, so if you're looking for something with a little more flexibility, a marketing career in could be a great fit.

  • Marketing Coordinator: Spend about 2-4 years at each level here.
  • Marketing Specialist: Spend about 3-5 years here.
  • Marketing Manager: Spend about 5-10 years here.
  • Director of Marketing: This one is tricky, but most folks spend roughly 4-6 years here.

Job Requirements and Skills

Popular Job Description of a Marketing Coordinator

We've used AI to aggregate the top job descriptions used by hiring managers looking for marketing managers. When putting your resume together, try to mimic these listings. To learn more about this process, check out our partner Jobscan for a comprehensive resume review.

  • Support the development and execution of marketing campaigns, including content creation, social media management, and event planning
  • Collaborate with the marketing team to develop marketing strategies and tactics that align with business objectives
  • Manage multiple projects, timelines, and stakeholders to ensure that marketing campaigns are executed flawlessly
  • Develop and implement social media strategies to drive engagement and increase brand awareness
  • Create engaging content, including blog posts, email newsletters, and social media posts, that resonates with our target audience
  • Monitor and analyze the effectiveness of marketing campaigns using analytics tools
  • Assist with event planning and execution, including trade shows, conferences, and other promotional events

Top Technical Skills of a Marketing Coordinator

We've compiled thousands of job descriptions for Product Managers to record the most common requirements to save you time. While preparing for interviews, keep in mind specific times you've demonstrated these skills.

  • Refine, track, and optimize content marketing strategies using tools like SEM Rush or Hubspot.
  • Budget creation and resource monitoring.
  • Perform keyword research and on-page recommendations to support editorial production.
  • Identify new areas of opportunity and content gaps to increase marketing footprint.
  • Multi-team and cross-company scheduling.
  • Managing team burn reports.

Top Functional Skills of a Marketing Coordinator

  • Communication with internal and external marketing teams
  • Time management for yourself and others
  • Account Management

Top Tools of a Marketing Coordinator

We've also compiled the most common tools listed in job description. If you're serious about becoming a marketing coordinator, get familiar with these and be ready to talk about them.

For Scheduling & Time Tracking

  • Calendly
  • Harvest
  • Hubspot
  • Google Suite

For Task Management

  • ASANA
  • Trello
  • Clickup
  • Notion
  • Clickup

For Gathering Data

  • Google Analytics
  • Google Search Console
  • SEM Rush
  • Google Keyword / Trends

Other Helpful Tools

  • Basecamp
  • Airtable
  • Wrike
  • Miro
  • Smartsheet

Key Traits of a Successful Marketing Coordinator

Trend Spotting - As a Marketing Coordinator, you must stay up-to-date with the latest trends and keywords to ensure your campaigns and strategies align with current search engine algorithms. You should have a keen eye for detail, be able to analyze data, and continuously adapt your marketing strategies to meet the changing needs of your target audience.
Organization - Marketing coordinators must be highly organized to manage multiple campaigns, launches, and strategies simultaneously. You should be able to prioritize tasks, manage your time effectively, and create an organized system for tracking campaign information.
Detail Oriented - A successful Marketing Coordinator must be detail-oriented, with a strong focus on accuracy and precision. You must be able to pay attention to the small details while keeping sight of the big picture.
Basic Mathematics & Budgeting - While Marketing Coordinators are not required to run in-depth analyses, they need to have a basic understanding of mathematics to analyze trend data, assess the success of marketing campaigns, and make informed decisions about budget allocation.
Research - Marketing Coordinators spend a significant amount of time conducting and synthesizing market research for their teams and clients. You should be proficient in using various research tools to collect and analyze data and be able to translate findings into actionable insights.
Advertising - Marketing Coordinators are responsible for creating and implementing advertising campaigns. To be successful in this role, you should have a passion for the creative process and be up-to-date with the latest advertising trends and strategies.

Get Marketing Coordination Experience

Learning on the job is one of the fastest ways to get familiar with new topics, and showing is much better than telling. Create a few free accounts with some popular project management tools (such as ASANA, Jira, Trello) and create a task manager for a household project. Watch Youtube or take a recommended class to learn how.

A project to "coordinate" could be something as easy as logging steps to a family cooking recipe, or something as complex as managing a home remodel project. This is great content for a mini "portfolio" to talk about and reference in interviews.

Relevant Marketing Coordinator Experience

  • Retail management or team leads
  • Service industry professionals
  • Teachers
  • Veterans
  • Anyone who can spin handling multiple projects at a time successfully.

Some popular coordination activities to get experience:

  • Event Coordination: Coordinating events, such as corporate meetings, conferences, and social events, can provide valuable experience in managing timelines, budgets, and vendors. You could even spin something like planning a birthday party!
  • "Supply Chain" Coordination: Coordinating the delivery of products and materials can provide experience in managing logistics, transportation, and inventory management. This works especially well if you're in the restaurant or retail industries.
  • Volunteer Coordination: Coordinating volunteers for a non-profit organization or event can provide experience in managing schedules, training, and communication. Check out some local organizations to see who could use your help!
  • Team Coordination: Coordinating team activities, such as managing schedules, delegating tasks, and providing guidance and support, can provide experience in managing people and resources. This use-case can be relevant in almost any work environment.

Difference between Marketing Coordinator & Project Manager

Marketing Coordinator and Project Manager are two distinct roles that require different skills and expertise. While both roles may involve managing timelines, resources, and stakeholders, they have different areas of focus and responsibilities.

Marketing Coordinator:

  • A Marketing Coordinator is responsible for supporting the development and execution of marketing campaigns, including content creation, social media management, and event planning. They work closely with the marketing team to ensure that campaigns are aligned with overall marketing strategies and objectives.
  • A Marketing Coordinator must be creative and possess excellent communication, writing, and editing skills. They should be proficient in content creation, social media management, and have a basic understanding of marketing analytics tools.
  • Marketing Coordinators need to have a passion for branding, digital marketing, and customer engagement. They should be able to work collaboratively with different stakeholders to ensure that marketing campaigns are executed flawlessly.

Project Manager:

  • A Project Manager is responsible for planning, executing, and closing projects within the constraints of time, budget, and scope. They work closely with cross-functional product teams to ensure that projects are completed on time and within budget.
  • A Project Manager must possess excellent communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills. They should be proficient in project management methodologies and tools, such as Agile, Scrum, or Waterfall.
  • Project Managers need to have a deep understanding of project management principles, including planning, risk management, and resource allocation. They should be able to manage multiple priorities, stakeholders, and teams to ensure that projects are completed successfully.

In summary, while both Marketing Coordinators and Project Managers may share some common skills and responsibilities, they have different areas of focus and expertise. Marketing Coordinators are responsible for managing marketing campaigns, while Project Managers are responsible for managing (often engineering) projects from start to finish, regardless of the industry or type of project.

Get Started with a Bridged Recommendation

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Review: Social Media Marketing Specialization by Northwestern

Northwestern hosts a brilliant program on marketing tactics, including things like content strategy, influencer relations, and budgeting design.
Read Full Guide

Conclusion

Being a coordinator is a great entry-level way to get experience with several marketing verticals. It's also a great way to break into a tech career in marketing because it's lesser-known, so the roles get less applicants.

Here at Bridged we are huge fans of stacking micro-certifications to achieve desired career results. We're building a product to make your career planning fun and affordable, and we'd love to talk to YOU! Was this article helpful? Did you land an interview for a marketing coordinator role?

Let us know at hello@getbridged.co

Check out our sources!

Glassdoor Team. “Salary: Marketing Coordinator (February, 2023) | Glassdoor.” Glassdoor, 1 Feb. 2023.

WRITTEN BY
Juan Alberto Reyes
Bridged co-founder Juan Reyes is head of product at a popular wellness company and knows all things growth & marketing. He's probably working right now.

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explore careers

Find information on career paths for high-paying roles that align with your strengths and goals. Try our easy quiz to help you get started.

Help Me Pick
target skill gaps

View the skills you need to learn and develop with our state-of-the-art gap identifier. This is your next stop once you've found a role!

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review certifications

Learn about affordable and reputable certifications that won't break your bank. No expensive bootcamps or schooling required.

Review Certs
identify dream roles

We've vetted jobs at top companies that need talent! Easily match with companies that work with your job preferences.

Explore Roles

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