A marketing assistant is an employee who works within a company’s marketing department. He or she typically works to help with data collection and analysis for market research. The assistant likely helps perform administrative duties for the rest of the marketing department. The assistant can be tasked with researching various cost factors for prospective marketing campaigns, as well as helping to coordinate existing campaigns by filtering necessary information among marketing, sales, and advertising teams.One of the primary tools in marketing is data, and that is typically one of the areas where marketing assistants will do most of their work. This can include data collection, which may be as simple as culling information from purchased mailing lists or mass information profiles. It may also require more specific work, like competitor pricing surveys that require more intensive hands-on work of the assistant. In any event, the marketing assistant will typically be tasked with finding specific data points and collecting them into useful reports or spreadsheets for the marketing team to put to use.The position of marketing assistant is typically the first step to working in marketing, and it is normally entry-level. Marketing assistants need to have excellent computer and communications skills, and they also need to exhibit outstanding organization characteristic. Most companies will hire marketing assistants with associate's degrees, but in this competitive field, many employers may prefer candidates with four-year degrees. Most marketing assistants work regular business hours in an office environment.