When considering a career in marketing, you want to ensure you have all of the relevant skills and experience needed to execute the role successfully. Whether you already have existing knowledge of the industry or you’re stepping into unknown waters.
Modern marketing works very differently nowadays in comparison to traditional marketing, which means some skillsets might be outdated. With a marketing role, it’s important that you’re willing to adapt, especially as the industry grows and develops even more over time.
There are a whole variety of new skills that are needed for marketing roles, so it’s important to brush up on your skillset before applying for a new job in the industry.
This guide will share everything you need when applying for a role as a marketing professional and what will help you achieve the best returns when it comes to applying for roles currently available on the job market.
How has the marketing industry changed in the last decade?
There have been some major influences in the marketing industry that’s changed the way many approaches their marketing strategies within the business. These changes are important to note so that you can walk into a job role application with an awareness of what’s hot and trending.
It’s a good card to have up your sleeve so that when you do walk into a job interview, you know what the marketing landscape looks like.
A few ways the industry has changed in the last decade are that social media has risen substantially, with many new platforms cropping up in the last few years - Tiktok being one of them.
Smartphones have become more widespread and therefore more users online are now using their mobile phone devices to browse the web. Since 2007, the percentage of those who own a smartphone has grown from 12% to 70%, according to Medium.
As well as the rise of content marketing, the growth of the internet has certainly changed the way we do business, play, and communicate with others.
Top 10 skills needed by marketing professionals in 2022
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There are two types of skill types that exist, soft skills and hard skills. The more skills you have, the better qualified you’re likely to be for the role, so it’s important to have an awareness of what soft skills are needed and what hard skills are best.
Soft skills
Soft skills are considered to be the common and core skills that everyone should have and relate to personality and character. Here are a few soft skills that a marketing professional needs for this job market.
1. Attention to detail
Having a keen eye when it comes to detail is crucial because your work is going to be seen by a lot of people. With billions of users on the internet, if you put one full stop out of place, it’ll be noticed by someone.
As a marketer, it’s important to have attention to detail and be an individual who likes to double and triple-check their content before it goes out. Businesses in the past have made small errors that have resulted in big problems when it comes to the simplest of grammatical issues. Making sure customers have the right information, after all, is crucial for your marketing efforts.
2. Effective in communication
Marketing relies heavily on communicating with the audience. If you’re not effective in communication, then there’s a chance you’re going to miss the mark when it comes to communicating with your audience. Being able to express your feelings and put forward new ideas and concepts is important as a marketer.
Whilst you can still be introverted in nature, being a natural communicator is definitely going to help you gain some points when it comes to your performance and success within a marketing role. According to a study, 89% of people believe that effective communication is extremely important, so it’s certainly a majority that feels this way.
3. Adaptability
The marketing industry as many are already aware is a fast-changing field that needs individuals and teams that are quick to adapt. Using the best practices and tools is important and whilst you may have the right approach in place to marketing this year, that could all change in the space of five years.
If you’re someone that likes the same pace of work life that doesn’t have much change in it, then a career in marketing is not going to be for you.
As a marketer, you want to be challenged and given new opportunities. You’ll enjoy the changes that happen in the market and you’ll be eager to adapt to new ways of working as the marketing world continues to grow and develop. It’s definitely not for everyone but for those that do enjoy change, they’ll love a role in marketing.
4. Creative and ability to problem solve
Being creative is a given but it’s a skill that sometimes marketers can lack. It’s all about finding the right formula that will help cut through all the noise online and to stand out from the crowd. Whilst some may have a creative streak, it might not be quite enough to make marketing campaigns and promotions that excel and smash expectations.
Being creative but also being able to think outside of the box is key to helping to deliver new and exciting marketing materials. Problem-solving goes hand in hand with this as not every marketing effort is going to work out and understanding why that is or how to get through to the customer is key.
Hard Skills
Hard skills are considered to be abilities that you learn and acquire through practice, repetition, and educating yourself on these skills. They help increase your likability and value as a candidate. Here are some great skills that are worth possessing for a career in marketing.
5. Creative email marketing
Email marketing is considered one of the best ways to reach out to customers. With 89% of marketers using email as the primary channel for marketing, it comes as no surprise that this is a hard skill that’s desired by a lot of employers.
Being able to learn how to create product launch emails that stand out is a skill that’s easily learned with the right tools in hand. Flodesk for example is something you can become proficient in outside of the workplace before accepting a job. It’s a great tool to use in order to create email marketing resources that exceed expectations for those you work for.
6. Excellent writing skills
Writing skills are important because you’ll likely need to write some of the copy you produce for the brand and business. Even if you outsource the majority of it, good writing skills are useful to have as a hard skill.
There are plenty of writing courses you can take in order to improve even the most basic writing skills that one might have.
7. Use of marketing innovations like a job to be done template to understand customer needs
As a marketer, it’s good to be innovative in your marketing skills and part of that innovation comes from using the right tools and software. Utilizing jobs to be done template can be a great way of understanding your customer’s needs. A platform like Attest is a great way of creating surveys that can be sent to your audience to gather data intel.
These tools work fantastically well for research gathering, which is key to making the right business decisions within marketing.
8. Data Analysis and Analytics
Marketing needs measurement because you may think you know what’s working but in reality, that might not be the case. As a business getting maximum ROI on your marketing efforts are key and helps your budgets go further.
Being able to work with a variety of data analysis platforms and understanding analytics, in general, is a key hard skill to have as a marketer. It’s going to give you more intel into what’s working in your marketing campaigns and what isn’t.
9. Social media and design marketing
Social media and design marketing are two hard skills that can come in very useful when putting you ahead of any competition you’re going up against. Knowledge of social media marketing and what channels are the most effective for your customers is critical. Adapting to your brand’s voice and the messaging being communicated effectively across these platforms is handy to be successful..
Whilst design marketing isn’t a must-have, it can be a good skill to have basic knowledge of, if anything.
Build on your marketing skills for the best chance of success in your marketing career
It’s essential that you’re proactive in improving on your hard skills where you might be lacking. Whilst there might be many marketing jobs out there as it’s a sought-after role for many employers, it’s an industry where there’s a lot of tough competition that you’ll need to face.
Author Bio: Natalie Redman (LinkedIn)
Freelance writer for many clients across multiple industries. Natalie has two years of copywriting experience. Natalie has a wide range of experience in copywriting for web pages for businesses across many industries. She’s also an owner of two blog websites and a Youtube content creator.