The 5 Marketing Skills You Should Hire for Today
By: Clint Perez
Tags: Content Marketing, Recruiting, Social Media, SEO, Marketing

The 5 Marketing Skills You Should Hire for Today

On November 12th, Tim Ito of the Marketing Nice Guys hosted a webinar with Kathy McConnell and Sue Keith of Ceres Talent. Kathy and Sue have been recruiting marketing talent for companies in the greater Washington, D.C. area for over a decade. They regularly interact with CEO’s, CMO’s and hiring managers. They have seen trends come and go. They are acutely aware of the massive shift driven by the coronavirus lockdowns and how those changes have trickled down from corporations to individual contributors. Here they share their wisdom and how marketers and hiring managers can position themselves for success in the coming year.

How the Marketing Landscape is Shifting Due to Covid-19

In order to understand why these marketing skills are important for companies in today’s environment, we must first understand the trends impacting the marketplace. Here are the top trends:

Spend shifting to digital channels: with traditional channels such as tradeshows and events in decline, companies are shifting spend to digital. A greater focus on PR and earned media: these channels aren’t free. You need a human being to manage them. Conversion rates are no longer predictable: across the board, conversion rates are changing. You need people to determine what’s happening and how to optimize those channels.

Emphasis on existing customers: A greater focus is being put on retaining existing customers and managing those relationships throughout the buying and usage cycle. Content is amazingly important: companies have to give their prospects and customers something valuable in order to engage with them. Content is important throughout the marketing funnel for both new and existing customers.

The 5 Marketing Skills

These are the most sought after marketing skills right now based on current trends. As the marketplace continues to evolve, hiring managers are placing a greater emphasis on marketers having multiple skill sets. That is, marketers must be able to understand strategy as well as to execute, a rare combination in some of the most high demand skills in marketing. In fact, this combination of strategy and execution is the primary thread that links these marketing skill sets together. As Sue mentions in our previous conversation, it pays to make use of downtime during the pandemic to expand one’s skill set.

Digital Marketing

Digital breaks down into three subcategories. The first is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This skill is important because marketers are looking for any way to boost conversion rates. SEO helps marketers ensure the organic stuff is doing it’s best work. Furthermore, companies are now focusing on their website as a product and a channel and treating it as such. This aspect involves the more technical stuff like page feeds, page loads, tagging, metadata, backlinks and authenticity.

The second digital skill is paid digital media. This is where companies are putting their money right now. It is also becoming a highly specialized skill set. There are a lot of channels, and each channel has it’s own distinct ad platform. With the proliferation of social media complexity, it is increasingly important to be able to understand strategy as well as execute.

The third digital skill set that is in high demand is content marketing. This again breaks down into two areas. The first is to understand content strategy. That is, what content do we need to engage, influence and drive leads? The second is content writing. This is where copywriters are worth their weight in gold. Podcasts and video are also taking off, so having those content skills are important as well.

PR and Social Media

Social Media is now a table stake for companies and it must be tied at the hip with the overall marketing strategy. Previously, social media was usually managed by a PR person who took it on as an extension of the PR strategy. But as social media becomes more complex and more integrated into the overall marketing strategy and marketing message, executing it requires someone with a broader skill set who understands PR, social media and the overall marketing communications approach. So those skill sets are dovetailing.

Account Based Marketing

This is a fancy name for what marketers have been doing since the dawn of marketing. It’s a more surgical approach to priority prospects and existing accounts, pulling them out of the mass marketing and treating them differently. This is nothing new, but it does require a lot of additional work. For this to be successful, marketing has to be in lock step with sales. What is new are the marketing automation platforms. So this specific skill set revolves around having experience using a marketing automation platform to differentiate your marketing.

Product Marketing

Product Marketing is making a comeback, this time as a mini-CEO role of a product or service. It requires a broad skill set, strong strategic chops, collaboration and political savviness. These people have to be really good at pulling together the overall product strategy, getting the product to market and then continuing to promote the offering. Companies are realizing the value of having someone who has a holistic view of what it takes to make a product successful.

Writing Skills

With the increased focus on content marketing, writing skills are also becoming critical. Marketers, by nature, have to be able to communicate, so everyone has to have some level of writing skills. But not everyone is an agency caliber writer. Being able to get a content piece 80% of the way there is helpful to a lot of companies. Short form writing, being able to communicate in a pithy way, is being driven by the increase in social media.

For a more in depth discussion on the forces shaping the current marketing environment, including bonus skills, trends and recruiting tips, watch the entire webinar on YouTube. This content is reproduced with permission from Ceres Talent.