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What is a category manager, marketing and how to become one
Working mainly in the retail industry, a category manager marketing ensures optimization of sales of a particular product or group of products. A category manager marketing is often tasked with the following responsibilities; conducting research and data analysis, establishing market insights, ensuring the availability of a product, strategically positioning a product category to maximize its visibility, manage and track budgets, build and maintain long-term business relationships, especially with vendors, establish long-term development strategies for product categories, and determine optimal pricing through analysis of sales and trends.
The category manager marketing reports to the head of the marketing department. The standard level of education required for this position is a bachelor's degree in disciplines such as marketing. However, most employers search for candidates with some years of managerial experience. In exchange for their expertise, a category manager marketing earns an average annual salary of $120,424.
What general advice would you give to a category manager, marketing?
Tobias Sellier
Senior Director, American Public Power Association
Avg. Salary $104,562
Avg. Salary $59,228
Growth rate 10%
Growth rate 0.3%
American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%
Asian 8.15%
Black or African American 3.04%
Hispanic or Latino 8.67%
Unknown 5.32%
White 74.58%
Genderfemale 39.04%
male 60.96%
Age - 38American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%
Asian 7.00%
Black or African American 14.00%
Hispanic or Latino 19.00%
White 57.00%
Genderfemale 47.00%
male 53.00%
Age - 38Stress level is high
7.1 - high
Complexity level is advanced
7 - challenging
Work life balance is poor
6.4 - fair
Category manager, marketing career paths
Key steps to become a category manager, marketing
Explore category manager, marketing education requirements
Start to develop specific category manager, marketing skills
Skills Percentages Digital Marketing 13.45% Project Management 8.03% Strategic Sourcing 6.64% Channel Marketing 5.41% Integrated Marketing 5.25% Complete relevant category manager, marketing training and internships
Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New category managers, marketing learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a category manager, marketing based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real category manager, marketing resumes.Research category manager, marketing duties and responsibilities
- Manage, allocate, and evaluate all marketing budgets, ROI, and individual account performance reporting.
- Direct and manage clean label starch launch campaigns across NOAM, EMEA, and ASPAC, reporting on monthly ROI.
- Develop and manage marketing programs and partner integration for industry marketing in government, healthcare and education markets.
- Coordinate production including copywriting, list buying, and working with designers and printers.
Apply for category manager, marketing jobs
Now it's time to start searching for a category manager, marketing job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:
- Browse job boards for relevant postings
- Consult your professional network
- Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
- Watch out for job scams
How did you land your first category manager, marketing job
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Average category manager, marketing salary
The average category manager, marketing salary in the United States is $104,562 per year or $50 per hour. Category manager, marketing salaries range between $79,000 and $138,000 per year.
What am I worth?
How do category managers, marketing rate their job?
Category manager, marketing reviews
Reviewing Brand Performance and competitive information. Also, I enjoying identifying the white space and opportunities to grow.
Super tight deadlines.
Overseeing printing For direct mail. Packaging design Developing hot mail list.
Unreasonable deadlines.
- Lot of challenges, a lot - Lot to innovate, to make customer's shopping experience beautiful, every month - Quick decision making, fail at times, learn every time - Big on power, bigger on responsibilities - Buck stops at you
- 24 X 7 on the toes - Manage across categories, across vendors - Keep all vendors happy, which you cannot - Failure of any cross-functional team will make you suffer from every angle
Updated January 8, 2025
