What is a marketer?

When most people want to research the word “marketing,” they visit the “What Is Marketing?” page on the American Marketing Association website. It’s the definitive page for the whole industry.

Yet, as complete as that page is, we’d like to expand on it.

As the largest AMA chapter in North America, we meet a lot of people who are interested in our offerings and events, yet still don’t think of themselves as “marketers.” But they are!

The definition of “marketer”

The AMA defines “marketing” as:

The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

– American Marketing Association

So, we’d like to establish our definition of “marketer” as:

Anyone who contributes their skills, knowledge and/or efforts to the activity of creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings of value.

– AMA Chicago

In other words, you might just be a marketer if you:

• Conduct, deliver or make use of marketing research
• Play any role in any facet of digital marketing
• Design, implement or use marketing automation technology
• Generate, deliver or deploy marketing analytics or metrics
• Teach marketing in an academic setting
• Work (in any capacity) for a marketing agency
• Work for a recruitment agency that places people in marketing roles
• Work for a vendor that serves brands or marketing agencies
• Perform a marketing function for a non-profit organization
• Belong to a marketing association

In fact, current AMA Chicago members list 329 different job titles for themselves. You can call yourself a lot of different things and still be a marketer.

Questions about marketing and marketers

One definition, of course, can’t even begin to answer all the questions about marketing and marketers. That’s why we ask our members a new question on the topic every month.

This month’s question: What is the best part of marketing? Let us know!