Who’s the best marketing professional body is a question many marketers and potential marketers ask.

The list includes these three as the main bodies:

• Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM)
• Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM)
• Institute of Sales and Marketing Management (ISMM)

With these bodies being also useful:

• Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM)
• Chartered Management Institute
• Institute of Directors

For marketing practitioners, junior professionals and executives the first list is likely to be more useful, with the second list for decision makers and senior professionals. It is also a popular practice to mix membership of one of the top list of institutes with one of the bottom list; especially when getting higher up within an organisation’s hierarchy.

Membership of a professional body is a demonstrable tool to prove knowledge, provides further qualifications, shows competence and develops individuals professional status. Indeed one of the main benefits is the opportunity to network with like-minded professionals, thus providing additional information and perhaps business opportunities (including job opportunities for students and young professionals).

Which body’s best depends on the type of role and organisation is represented, but if the overall career goal is to become a chartered marketer, then CIM is the best one. It’s also the one who’s qualifications are widely requested in job description and advertisements.

The disadvantage however is that to become chartered one has to fulfil the Full membership criteria for MCIM, which is notoriously difficult. A colleague of ours who has an MBA found the CIM Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing harder and more difficult than his MBA! This qualification is one of the two qualifications that are accepted as MCIM entry requirements.

For Full membership of any of the other bodies it’s the usual case of proven experience and qualifications, which is why many choose the ISMM and IDM routes to become senior members of a professional body.

We hope this is useful information, and merely reflects our opinion of the differing membership bodies that exist for the marketing profession. Whichever body is chosen, it has to be the right one depending on career goals, type of organisation being represented, career opportunities and the necessity of information to provide professional development to you the individual.

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