Senior strategist vs marketing director

The differences between senior strategists and marketing directors can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 8-10 years to become both a senior strategist and a marketing director. Additionally, a marketing director has an average salary of $114,906, which is higher than the $104,996 average annual salary of a senior strategist.

The top three skills for a senior strategist include digital marketing, client facing and powerpoint. The most important skills for a marketing director are digital marketing, marketing campaigns, and market research.

Senior strategist vs marketing director overview

	Senior Strategist	Marketing Director
Yearly salary	$104,996	$114,906
Hourly rate	$50.48	$55.24
Growth rate	10%	10%
Number of jobs	29,894	93,503
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 73%	Bachelor's Degree, 76%
Average age	39	39
Years of experience	10	10

What does a senior strategist do?

A senior strategist develops and recommends marketing strategies for an organization. Your role involves motivating and inspiring creative teams and writing insightful and clear briefs. Other duties include developing effective strategic plans, studying clients to better understand their needs and business objectives, and developing and maintaining business relations with general managers, dealer owners, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Additionally, you are responsible for promoting creative services to clients, such as design services and content strategy. You will also be responsible for designing security programs to identify vulnerabilities and threats to networks and architectures.

What does a marketing director do?

Marketing directors are responsible for the overall branding and marketing direction of the company. They are in charge of identifying goals and strategies related to marketing. They create strategies that cater to the target market of the organization's products and services to help with sales. They lead the company's marketing department and create the company's brand promise. They ensure that all marketing collateral is in line with the rest of the marketing campaigns of the organization. They should be updated on all the current trends in the marketing world.

Senior strategist vs marketing director salary

Senior strategists and marketing directors have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Senior Strategist	Marketing Director
Average salary	$104,996	$114,906
Salary range	Between $70,000 And $155,000	Between $68,000 And $193,000
Highest paying City	Seattle, WA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	New Jersey	California
Best paying company	BP America Inc	Brookfield Properties
Best paying industry	Technology	Manufacturing

Differences between senior strategist and marketing director education

There are a few differences between a senior strategist and a marketing director in terms of educational background:

	Senior Strategist	Marketing Director
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 73%	Bachelor's Degree, 76%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Georgia	University of Georgia

Senior strategist vs marketing director demographics

Here are the differences between senior strategists' and marketing directors' demographics:

	Senior Strategist	Marketing Director
Average age	39	39
Gender ratio	Male, 58.5% Female, 41.5%	Male, 46.7% Female, 53.3%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 3.0% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 74.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%	Black or African American, 3.0% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 74.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage	10%	10%

Differences between senior strategist and marketing director duties and responsibilities

Senior strategist example responsibilities.

Manage a team of three analysts to successfully execute on clients' Facebook marketing goals.
Create brand messaging, managing marketing media agency to launch company's first paid social PPC efforts.
Manage all top line donation form fundraising strategy including design, copy, naming conventions, redirects and A/B testing.
Assist with the implementation of CRM system.
Copy editing and optimization of content for search / SEO.
Create new SEM offerings including development, performance of and training others in SEO.

Marketing director example responsibilities.

Manage staging of NCAA athletics events.
Manage RFP, RFI & SOQ process; track, analyze and report on sales pipeline.
Train, manage, and develop customer service / sales team strategies and oversight of day-to-day operations.
Manage the portal website build, including PPC and search engine optimization, email broadcasts and affiliate marketing efforts.
Manage all marketing operations - recruiting, hiring, training, retaining, payroll, and continual staff education.
Utilize marketing/sales automation tools (salesforce.com, pardot.com) to help track, manage and properly distribute each individual lead.

Senior strategist vs marketing director skills

Common senior strategist skills

Digital Marketing, 13%
Client Facing, 9%
PowerPoint, 9%
Project Management, 8%
Client Relationships, 4%
Integrated Marketing, 4%

Common marketing director skills

Digital Marketing, 12%
Marketing Campaigns, 6%
Market Research, 5%
Sales Strategies, 4%
Integrated Marketing, 4%
CRM, 4%

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Senior Strategist
Senior Strategist vs Marketing Director

Updated January 8, 2025

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