IT Sales & Marketing: Insights for 2023

Learn about the roles in IT Sales & Marketing departments in the Tech Industry.

“This article is a forecast about IT Sales & Marketing salaries & roles for the upcoming 2023, regarding the previous market situation of 2022“

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Among the Tech Industry, we find a variety of companies with different business models, that adapt a certain sales strategy depending on the product/service they sell – and therefore – their target or buyer persona.

We find FinTechs, RegTechs, HealthTechs, EdTechs,… They are considered as Software as a Service (SaaS) companies, because they provide software solutions either to people (Business to Consumer, B2C) or to other companies (Business to Business, B2B). We can find other business models such as Business to Goverment, B2G, and forth.

Along the article, I will focus deeply in B2B Sales, as they count with more types of different roles.

In B2B IT Sales departments, in terms of what we have been able to learn about the market, are usually divided into two big sections, which are New Business and Existing Business.

Depending on the strategy of the company, they will invest more resources in one or the other.

New Business

New Business is usually focused on International and Growth expansion strategies.

If a company has a New Business department, quite often is because they want to expand to new markets, such as geographical markets, new areas, or even new continents.

With this methodology, the idea is to hire 1 or 2 Account Executive for every geographical market you’re targeting from scratch, and then reinforce it with 3 SDRs for each Account Executive, which will source qualified leads for the AE.

This is the organizational chart you can find inside an IT Sales – New Business Department:

Senior Account Execuitve

A Senior Account Executive is usually the most experienced salesman with a “hands-on” position (meaning that it is not a management or C-level role) within the department.

Is responsible for growing the company revenue by convincing new customers to try the products or services of the company through Demos and Meetings.

Usually, +5 years of experience and a successful track record in sales are a must.

This professional is specialized in closing the most important deals of the company, with leads provided by an SDR or a BDR.

This role exists in Scale-up and Enterprises but is less common in Startups.

The salary range of the position is between 55.000,00€ – 90.000,00€ depending on if it is a Start-Up, Scale-Up, or Enterprise and the level of seniority.

Account Executive

An Account Executive is the first contact or relationship between the company and a new customer.

This professional is responsible for introducing a product/service to a new client, closing contracts, attending to the client’s needs, developing long-lasting relationships, and coordinating events so clients are always well provided and happy.

Moreover, this role usually involves traveling and meeting the client face to face to do a sales pitch or a product demonstration.

This role requires a minimum of +3 years of experience in a successful track record in sales. In the same situation as the Senior Account Executive, the SDR and the BDR will provide qualified leads so the Account Executive can schedule meetings with potential customers.

The wage for this position is between 30.000,00€ – 85.000,00€ per year.

Sales Manager / Head of SDR

The Sales Manager or Head of SDR role is more related to management.

It is the step forward from the Inside Sales role, meaning that Inside Sales-man that has been promoted, has chosen the management path instead of the hands-on one.

This role has quite different responsibilities in comparison with the Account Executive or the SDR.

Some of them are; hiring new team members, training them, providing professional development, and setting weekly, monthly and quarterly goals, based on the team’s performance.

The requirements for this role are +3 years of experience as an Inside Sales or as an SDR with a successful track record in sales or in team management sales.

The compensation for this position is between 40.000,00€ – 65.000,00€ per year.

Inside Sales Representative

An Inside Sales Representative is the role between the Sales Development Representative and the Account Executive.

More specifically, the ISR is in charge of doing prospection, finding potential leads, qualifying them in the Customer Relationships Management (CRM) software, and then closing a deal with product demonstrations.

The main difference between the Inside Sales Representative and the Sales Development Representative is that the first one is doing the entire sales cycle (prospection and closing sales deals).

Meanwhile the Sales Development Representative only does prospection and then hands off the leads to the Account Executive so he can organize a meeting and close deals.

Typically, you need at least +2 years of experience in a Sales Department to promote from SDR to ISR.

The Inside Sales role is much less common in Startups, that prefer to hire SDRs and AEs directly, or promote SDRs to AEs and save time sourcing and training new AE.

The yearly compensation for this position is between 35.000,00€ – 50.000,00€.

Sales Development Representative / Business Development Representatives

The Sales Development Representative role is the first step in a professional Sales Career. It has the most basic responsibilities and is the easiest to execute.

With the help of a senior Account Executive giving support, the SDR will search for potential leads using different tools like Sales Navigator or Lusha.

SDR usually use an Outbound methodology, which means cold-calling, sending e-mails, LinkedIn In-Mails, and messages.

The goal is closing meetings with potential clients in strategic companies and industries that are the typical buyers of the product that the company is selling.

In other words, the SDR will provide qualified leads to the Pipeline, so the AE can book product demonstrations with these leads, show them how the product works & benefits them, and make a sales pitch to eventually close a deal.

This kind of role is common in Scale-Ups and Enterprises, however, it is difficult to find it in Start-Ups.

The annual wage for the position is between 24.000,00€ – 40.000,00€, depending if it’s a Start-Up, Scale-Up or Enterprise.

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Existing Business

Existing Business is often the most common Sales Department in B2B companies, consisting of managing the existing accounts/customers that the company has, and up-selling & cross-selling the products or services that the customers are currently purchasing or using.

The goal is to grow the revenue that the company is already invoicing from existing customers.

In this section of the article, I’m going to divide the Existing Business roles in IT Sales (referring to existing accounts of the company) and Customer Support (those professionals in charge of customer happiness and product usability).

IT Sales (Existing Accounts)

Strategic Account Manager

The main purpose of the Strategic Account Manager is to contact key targets in strategic departments of exisiting customers and perform like an Account Execuitve to develop new business with existing clients, often in new geographical markets.

It is a completely different role from the Account Manager because the SAM will not focus on customer satisfaction or renewals (it is not his main goal).

The only goal they have is to achieve a Sales-quota and therefore, they need experience as “Quota Carriers” being the ones that oversee the performance of the overall existing business department.

The Strategic Account Manager will create new relationships with existing accounts, in different departments, will target only Tier S companies, and will perform as an Account Executive, opening new geographical markets with the same client, using up-selling methodologies.

The yearly wage for this position is between 45.000,00€ – 75.000,00€.

Key Account Manager

The Key Account Manager is in charge of the biggest and most important accounts of the company.

Usually, these accounts bring the largest percentage of revenue to the company, so it is a must to keep these customers happy and well aware-of all the perks and benefits your product or service has to offer.

The Key Account Manager will have periodic meetings with the customer, ensuring satisfaction, and will work very closely with the Customer Support / Client Success team, to solve any doubt or issue that may happen.

The yearly compensation for the Key Account Manager role is between 35.000,00€ – 65.000,00€.

Account Manager

After a deal has been closed by the Account Executive, the Account Manager will be responsible to ensure the customer’s happiness and knowledge about the product.

The Account Manager will send e-mails with news, updates, and onboardings, and make sure they understand the product and get the most out of it.

Additionally, an Account Manager will try to offer extra services of the product, that will fill similar needs.

So in that line, the AM will try to cross-sell and up-sell the product to the client, and increase the revenue obtained with the specific account.

An extra key function of the AM will be to look after the churn rate of the clients and understand why some of them are stopping buying the product.

The compensation for this position is between 35.000,00€ – 60.000,00€ per year.

Customer Support

Client Success Manager / Relationship Manager

A Client Success Manager is a professional responsible for making sure that the global client that is purchasing a specific product or service is getting the expected value from the purchase.

So, what’s the main difference between Customer Success and Client Success Manager?

The main difference is that the CSM will take care of the global success of the customer company, not only the individual or the department that is purchasing the product, which is the Customer Success responsibility.

Additionally, the Client Success Manager will lead a team of Customer Success professionals, which are individually checking on the customer satisfaction of every client they have.

A Client Success Manager will hire, train, manage, and set Quarter goals and KPIs for each worker.

Moreover, will make sure the established sales quota is achieved within the deadlines established by the C-Level of the company (usually de VP of Sales or Sales Director).

The annual salary for this position is between 30.000,00€ – 45.000,00€

Customer Success

A Customer Success is a person responsible for ensuring that an individual customer is satisfied with the product he/she has purchased or contracted, knows how to use the tool and get the most out of it, solves all doubts, problems, or questions that may arise as the customer uses the tool, product or service.

This person will follow up with the customer and calculate ratios such as loyalty rate, abandonment rate and note the reasons why the customer does not want to renew their purchases or subscriptions.

The main goal of the role is assuring the client’s happiness with the product and therefore assure the renewal of the product or service purchase, and keep growing the company’s revenue for the assigned accounts.

This role usually requires skills such as loyalty, empathy, leadership, problem-solving skills, industry knowledge, and good communication.

The main difference with the Account Manager is that the Customer Success will make sure the client is using the product correctly and gets the most out of it.

Meanwhile, the Account Manager is more focused on making sure the revenue for this account is the same or is growing due to a cross-sell or an up-sell.

The annual salary for this position is between 25.000,00€ – 40.000,00€.

Marketing salaries & roles for 2023

SEO & SEM Manager

The SEO & SEM Manager or Search Engine Marketing Specialist is responsible for designing and implementing the company’s overall SEO & SEM Strategy.

Some of the duties they oversee are; defining SEO & SEM KPIs, web marketing, web analytics, content strategy planning, link-building, keyword strategy, Ads Strategy, and establishing a quarterly or yearly budget for all those actions.

Moreover, companies usually ask for +5 years of experience when hiring this level of profiles, experience in planning & implementing successful SEO & SEM strategies, experience in web analytics, business development, A/B testing, knowledge of HTML, CSS & JavaScript, and problem-solving & soft skills, among others.

Additionally, the SEO & SEM Manager will lead the team in both SEO and SEM departments, establishing the Quarter goals, overseeing the deadlines, and ensuring the success of SEO & SEM global strategies.

The salary range for this role is between 30.000,00€ – 55.000,00€.

SEO Specialist

A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialist is the professional responsible for optimizing every landing page and the copywriting of every page inside a website, in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) of any search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, among others).

It is also responsible for defining and managing the different SEO campaigns of the overall marketing strategy.

An SEO specialist will create advanced SEO Strategies and establish SEO KPIs (such as CTR, Visitors, Users, Sessions, Bounce Rate, & more).

Will do Keyword Research and will index all the pages with Google Search Console, detect errors, create a blog & link-building strategy, and have knowledge of different Front-end programming codes like HTML, CSS, or JavaScript.

The SEO Specialist will be responsible for the traffic that the website is receiving, and will study why and where users are leaving the website.

Furthermore, this person will oversee user behavior and journey and will improve the design and optimization of those pages that are less performing.

The salary range for this position is between 20.000,00€ to 40.000,00€.

SEM Specialist

The Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Specialist is responsible for creating an Ads strategy for every landing page of the company that needs to be advertised.

This Ads will be Keyword focused and will try to find the strategy that brings more impressions and therefore more clicks to the product that is advertised.

To create a successful SEM campaign, doing proper Keyword Research and understanding keyword demand, difficulty, and CPC (Cost per Click) is a must.

The SEM Specialist will make sure that all the Ads are enhancing the ROI of every product or service in terms of sales, and increase the overall revenue of the company.

Some tools used in an SEM campaign are Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing & MSN AdCenter, and more.

The salary range for the senior position is between 20.000,00€ – 50.000,00€.

Demand Generation Specialist

The Demand Generation Specialist role’s main purpose is to define, execute & measure a marketing campaign that is focused on lead generation to qualify & lead them to the sales pipeline.

This role is most common in companies that execute Inbound Marketing Campaigns.

This role is key for both the Marketing and Sales departments.

The main goal is to increase the ROI of Marketing campaigns and provide qualified leads to the SDR and AE of the Sales Departments, especially in New Business.

The Demand Generation Specialist will monitor, analyze test and continuously improve the landing pages and the campaign lifecycle to optimize lead generation.

Some channels they get leads from are e-mail marketing, social media, Google Ads & SEO.

The salary range for this position is between 35.000,00€ – 50.000,00€.

Content Marketing Manager

The main goal of a Content Marketing Manager is to define, implement & manage the results of the overall content marketing strategy of the company.

It involves content planning and daily content creation – such as social media posts, blog posts, and e-mail marketing templates – as well as measuring the results of each action launched.

The day-to-day responsibilities of a Content Marketing Manager are; competitor research & analysis, preparing Content Marketing Plans, creating an Editorial Calendar, Content Creation, SEO, publishing & creating content, and monitoring content performance.

In this kind of role, it is very important to understand the navigational intent – what is the lead or the user looking for?

The goal of a Content Marketing Manager is to create useful content, solve the needs & search intent of the user, and is aligned with the SEO Strategy of the company.

The salary range for this position is between 35.000,00€ – 55.000,00€.

Community Manager

A Community Manager is the professional responsible for building & maintaining the community of a brand.

How to achieve it? The actions can be online and offline, and always trying to improve the public’s perception & image of the brand.

The Community Manager is responsible for managing the success and the public’s view on how the brand interacts with the rest of the people.

So, CM will create content for Social Media, will respond to messages, engage with fans & followers, and will manage image crises when there is one.

As a Community Manager, you have to be in control of the situation at all times, be a calm person, and manage all Social Media situations, either positive or negative, because you can lose authority and recognition within your industry.

This person is in charge of Social Media Managers and Specialists, that will post periodically to keep the brand image fresh and up-to-date.

The salary range for this position is between 20.000,00€ – 40.000,00€.

Social Media Manager

A Social Media Manager is in charge of overseeing the overall Social Media Strategy of a company or a brand.

The main goal of the Social Media Manager is to gain followers in each Social Media platform, through content creation – with the help of a Content Calendar – reviewing analytics results and communicating them to the Stakeholders.

The Social Media Manager needs to be good with the following skills: writing, editing, understanding each social media platform (why are you using Twitter and what’s the user intention on that platform?)

Being a good designer, analyzing your results (new followers, engagement rate, among others), learn new trends and update your content so it doesn’t seem old, is also important to be good in this area.

The wage for this position is between 20.000,00€ – 40.000,00€.

Social Media Specialist

The Social Media Specialist is the most junior role in the Social Media team of a Marketing department.

This professional is responsible for creating the content design & copywriting of social media posts for every platform (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, among others).

The Social Media Specialist will make sure every post is posted on the scheduled time and will analyze the success of each post to make sure brand awareness and image are being enhanced properly.

The main goal of this role is to boost the sales of the company through brand awareness and periodic posting.

A Social Media Specialist will commonly practice A/B Testing and other methodologies with different types of content and post, to see which ones are getting more engagement from the brand community.

The compensation for this position is between 19.000,00€ – 35.000,00€.

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“What separates good content from great content is a willingness to take risks and push the envelope.”

Brian Halligan, CEO & Co-founder, HubSpot

Who am I?

Hello, reader!

Welcome to my section of the blog, it is a pleasure to have you here!

I’m Roger Howroyd, and I currently live in Barcelona, but before that, I was living in Sant Vicenç de Torelló, Vic, in the center of Catalonia.

I’m an animal lover – I live with 2 cats – and I love playing the guitar, listening to music, and playing computer games in my spare time and on weekends.

Traveling & discovering new villages and forests to walk by are always great plans – I quite enjoy being in contact with nature!

An interesting thing about myself that I’m half British and half Spanish – my father is from the United Kingdom and my mother is from Spain – quite a mix!

My Expertise

In this article, I want to help you understand what is my purpose at IKIGAI Talent Group, the roles that I manage, and a short description of all IT Sales & Marketing salaries for each role, so you can have precise knowledge about the near salary situation in the Tech Industry, for 2023.

On one side, I’m glad announce that right now I’m the SEO & SEM Manager of IKIGAI’s website.

So I’m really happy if you enjoy the content and design you will find in it!

On the other side, with my track record at IKIGAI, my main expertise has been in IT Sales & Marketing positions.

So far I have been able to help 15 people find their IKIGAI with a company they love, so that’s very rewarding.

I love helping professionals to find their IKIGAI, a role and a company they are comfortable doing and enjoying, and also that feels like a challenge to them.

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And that’s all for this article!

Thanks for reading & learning about the IT Sales & Marketing salaries & roles for 2023!

If you want to discover the roles & salaries for Executive, Technology & Digital departments, you can download our Salary Guide for 2023!