What Is a Brand Manager? Responsibilities, Skills, and Salary

Having a clear brand is an important part of business. It's become a key way to build customer trust and, in turn, loyalty. Brand managers develop strategies that set a company's brand apart from competitors with the aim of building a lasting relationship with customers. 

Learn more about a brand manager’s responsibilities, the tools you may use in the role, and what it takes to become one. Afterward, build important data skills with the Meta Marketing Analytics Professional Certificate.

What is a brand manager?

Brand managers oversee a company's brand management. They typically sit on the marketing team and focus on establishing or strengthening the company's brand by conducting original research that informs brand positioning and strategy.

Being a brand manager can be a broad role that requires familiarity with many areas of marketing, including market research, content marketing, digital marketing, and design. This role can also require business acumen, leadership skills, and an ability to work with data.

Brand manager salary and job outlook

The median total pay for a brand manager in the US is $126,000, according to Glassdoor [1]. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts that management roles in advertising, promotions, and marketing will grow by 8 percent between 2023 and 2033, which is faster than average [2].

What does a brand manager do?

Brand managers are responsible for overseeing any aspect of marketing related to a company’s brand and ensuring that all branding decisions ultimately result in stronger sales.

They often conduct research to better understand the marketplace, identifying factors like competitor offerings and customer needs. This allows them to develop an impactful strategy that ideally drives trust, authority, and loyalty, among other goals. As part of that strategy, brand managers often identify unique reasons why a customer might resonate with the company (called value props).

As a brand manager, you may be responsible for: 

• Conducting market research

• Analyzing data for trends, insights, and information 

• Advising multiple teams on branding strategy

• Communicating with marketing teams to ensure brand alignment 

• Managing projects through various stages of development

• Managing budgets to support branding efforts

• Maintaining relationships with company stakeholders 

• Staying on top of marketing trends

Learn more: Marketing vs. Sales: What’s the Difference?

What tools do brand managers use?

The tools you’ll use as a brand manager will differ depending on the specific responsibilities your company expects you to perform. However, some common tools for brand management include:

• Social media monitoring and listening (Sprinklr, Hootsuite, Sprout)

• Media relationship management and listening (Meltwater, Cision, Muck Rack)

• Customer relationship management (CRM) software (Salesforce, Zoho, Hubspot) 

• Data visualization tools (Tableau, Datawrapper, Google Charts) 

What’s the difference between a brand manager and a marketing manager? 

A brand manager works on brand strategy—or the story a company tells about itself to customers—while a marketing manager oversees several efforts to promote the company and its offerings to customers.

What does it take to become a brand manager?

Becoming a brand manager requires a combination of higher education and experience. It’s often a position marketers hold after working in another type of management role, such as social media management or content management. Consider the following steps if you’d like to pursue a career as a brand manager:

Earn a degree.

While the educational requirements for this job will differ by company, it's common for brand managers to hold at least a bachelor's degree. According to Zippia, 74.5 percent of brand managers have a bachelor's [3]. Given the advanced nature of this role, an MBA may be preferable depending on the company.

Develop related experience.

It typically takes around five years of relevant experience to progress to become a brand manager, though smaller companies may require less. To gain experience, you can get started in some aspect of marketing, such as content or social media, and progress to become a market research analyst, social media manager, content marketing manager, or digital marketing manager. Through these roles, you can bolster your understanding of consumers and the successful messaging it takes to reach them. These are important components in managing a brand.

Develop brand and marketing skills.

A brand manager typically needs to have advanced skills in the following areas: 

• Writing: Messaging is at the heart of brand strategy, so strong writing skills can help you develop effective messaging while ensuring that copywriters execute on it. 

• Communication: Beyond messaging on behalf of the brand, you’ll need to be able to communicate with a company’s marketing team and stakeholders about your strategic recommendations.

• Strategy: Developing or improving upon a branding strategy means understanding the market, how your company fits within it, and how to reach customers. 

• Project management: Your ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously can help as you oversee new campaigns and help teams carry out everything from graphic overlays to email copy. 

• Personnel management: Whether you manage direct reports on your branding team or oversee a number of teams who report to you for branding guidance, having some experience managing others will serve you well. 

• Adaptability: Markets constantly change to reflect consumers’ needs, and it helps if you can be adaptable. Moreover, staying curious about trends and innovation can help you develop a more responsive brand strategy.

If you’d like to gain more insight into managing a brand, consider taking the introductory course Brand Management: Aligning Business, Brand and Behaviour from the University of London. Learn at your own pace as you cover topics such as brand alignment, practices, and execution.

Brand manager career advancement

Once you’ve become a brand manager, you can continue advancing. Possible roles to consider include senior brand manager, brand director, product marketing manager, director of communication, or director of marketing.

The advanced communication and strategic skills you hone as part of your time as a brand manager may help you move into higher-level roles in corporate brand management that oversee more of a company’s marketing plan.

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