Salaries for Marketing, Business Development Professionals in Texas, Nationally Are Growing

Marketing and business development professionals at law firms in Texas were paid as much as $305,000 this year on average, but the salaries are less than what professionals are paid on average in New York or Washington, D.C., according to a survey conducted by Wisnik Career Enterprises, a recruiting and marketing placement firm in New York.

Salaries improved at all levels over the last two years for the industry and in Texas, according to the 2024 Wisnik Law Firm Marketing/BD Survey. It includes data collected this fall from 311 marketing professionals ranging from C-level executives to coordinators, including 30 in Texas.

Eva Wisnik, president of Wisnik Career Enterprises, said the findings are solid because at all levels, the average salary is very close to the average median salary.

The average salary for a chief marketing or business development professional in Texas averages $305,000 in 2024, compared with a survey average of $374,578 for the universe of survey participants, and $512,000 in New York and $369,000 in Washington, D.C. The survey also included responses from professionals in Chicago, California and regional markets such as Atlanta, Boston and Philadelphia.

For marketing directors in Texas, salaries average $211,714, less than the average of $238,058 for the survey, $266,766 in New York and $236,141 in Washington, D.C.

Senior manager salaries in Texas averaged $184,487, compared with the survey average of $195,233, $209,633 in New York and $197,943 in Washington, D.C.

And, manager salaries averaged $144,000 in Texas, slightly less but close to the $148,230 on average for the survey, but also less than $167,238 in New York, and $152,000 in Washington, D.C.

While comparative data from the previous Wisnik survey in 2022 was not available for Texas, because of fewer responses, overall average salaries at each level have improved, with the salary for C-level marketing and business and development officers up 20.8%. However, only 56% of survey respondents are happy with their salaries, compared with 60% two years ago.

Four of every five survey respondents has both marketing and business development responsibilities. More than half, 55%, of the professionals said their marketing department has grown over the last two years, while it stayed the same at 36% and shrank at 9% of them.

Only 32% said their marketing departments are adequately staffed, according to the survey, a finding that Wisnik said is troubling.

“Part of this is people just have so much on their plate more and more,” she said.

She said it is encouraging that 31% of the professionals said they had been promoted with a title change over the last two years. Another positive is that the C-level executives who participated in the survey have been in their jobs an average of six years.

“Even though we are recruiters, too, I like to see stability. When I see the six years … people are being valued for the impact,” she said.

A total of 27% of the marketing professionals changed firms within the last two years, with more money being a factor for 85% of them. Other major reasons are a new title (44%) and greater responsibility (40%).

Wisnik said hiring in the marketing and business development area hit a high in 2022, as the industry recovered from the pandemic, and continued strong in 2023. Hiring slowed this year, she said, but not because of a lack of demand for marketing and business development, but because many professionals were already in place at firms.

“What do I predict for ’25? I think that whenever there is a massive change, lawyers get busy. I can’t imagine with a new administration and a lot of laws and regulations being looked at, there won’t be business for law firms. If law firms are busy, they are hiring more business development people,” she said.