Do I need an MBA for marketing?

Do I need an MBA for marketing?

Hi, I’m Janet Granger, answering your marketing questions  – today I’m answering: should I get an MBA  in marketing? 

Like many things in life, the short answer is: it depends. By that I mean, whether or not you need an MBA, or should get an MBA, depends on what you want to do in marketing and, in fact, most people doing marketing today don’t have MBA’s. 

What is an MBA? MBA stands for Masters of Business Administration, which is typically a two-year graduate level program that covers a wide range of topics: from what marketing research is, to what marketing planning is, to what forecasting is, to understanding consumer behavior, understanding what various marketing tactics exist, different marketing channels you can use, and how best to use them. 

It’s important to know that there are lots of classes and boot camps and other tutorials and ways you can learn about doing marketing, especially in if you’re interested in just getting started – and doing marketing, for now, to see if you like it, or if it’s something that you’re good at. 

If you want to be a member of a team, or get hired by an agency, or just get hired by a business to do marketing for them, you really don’t need to go get an MBA. 

Having said that, if you want to go further in your marketing career and climb the corporate ladder – maybe get to a VP level or a CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) level then, it’s something you might want to think about. 

Here are some reasons why an MBA  in marketing can be helpful: 

First, it will give you an overall, strategic view about marketing, and help you understand strategy.  Strategy is how you position yourself as a company, in marketing, in the marketplace,  versus your competition, according to what your strengths are, what you’re good at, who you want to appeal to, etc. 

When you’re doing marketing strategy, the strategy often-times doesn’t change –  it’s what the company is, who they are, and what they’re about. 

Think about Apple – being the kind of people that are thinking against the grain. They’re different, they’re outliers, they believe in creating beautiful things that are highly functional. 

Given that strategy, they can be in all sorts of different product categories, and you’ll buy anything from Apple, whereas there are other companies, that you don’t know what their strategy is, and it’s harder to understand who they are and how they’re placing themselves in the market.

An MBA can help you understand that strategic level view that you might not get going to some of these other courses. 

The other thing is – and this is why I got an MBA years ago – it gives you credibility: being able to say that you took the courses, and you understand them, and you understand what it’s like to be strategic, adds a lot of credibility – especially if you want to work for a larger corporation or a larger company, and if you want to climb that corporate ladder. 

A lot of larger organizations look for these graduate level degrees, especially when they’re hiring at the VP of Marketing level, or the CMO level. So if you’re interested in one of these roles in your future, or you’re in marketing now and you want to know how to elevate yourself, taking classes – graduate level classes in marketing – and, perhaps, management – or getting an MBA –  might be helpful to you. 

I’m Janet Granger, answering the question: should I get an MBA in marketing?