Sales/Marketing

The sales and marketing departments within an interactive agency will work in conjunction to generate sales leads from large corporations looking for Internet marketing solutions. Typically the marketing department within the interactive agency is structured to provide supporting materials and company collateral appropriate for sales to further close with prospective clients, and are held to generating a certain amount of leads per month. Similar to other corporate structures, the marketing department within an interactive agency is also held accountable for showing ROI on each of their investments and may maintain the corporate blog. Often you may hear return on investment or marketing return on investment used when an interactive agency is promoting a service that can prove and track efficiently this measurement for marketers.

Account executives take control of the leads from the marketing department to begin prospecting and generating business proposals. Often, they will leverage the creative department within the interactive agency to generate unique ideas for a prospective client using untraditional marketing methods for reaching their consumers such as through viral marketing, search engine marketing or email marketing. For this reason, sales and marketing departments at an interactive agency typically look for large corporations that could profit immensely by moving their branding online, but do not currently have the resources to do so. Other leads may come from a traditional marketing agency looking to outsource their client work to an interactive agency.

Because the term "sales" often has a negative connotation, when looking for a job in sales at an interactive agency you may hear the term "new business development" used in conjunction with account executive. Typically, the responsibilities will remain the same of cold calling, prospecting business, drafting proposals and managing the account. An interactive agency may require a BS or BA and a strong previous background in sales, Internet marketing or media buying.