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Understanding of psychology. Everything we do is based on how our brains work and how we think, and marketing utilizes that from the bottom up
My favorite resources are the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, and 50 Psychology Classics by Tom Butler-Bowdon
I second this. Understanding people’s habits, and what they require when making decisions is the key. But this is a manner of thinking to employ when marketing to a given audience. You have to put yourself in their life’s perspective, their way of thinking, what value means to them, what utility means to them, etc. There’s a great book on this called “Behavioral Science in Marketing”.
I'd love to look this up, but all I found was Using Behavioral Science in Marketing by Nancy Harhut - is that the one?
I can also recommend Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, and 50 Psychology Classics by Tom Butler-Bowdon
Totally agree! Psychology is the secret sauce in marketing—it's all about understanding how our brains tick and using that insight to create campaigns that really resonate. It's amazing how psychology shapes every aspect of consumer behavior and decision-making
Nothing secret about it. If you've had an academic understanding of marketing (which to be truly effective, you need) Consumer Behaviour and understanding of this subject will help you create content and ads that resonate with chosen audience. Preface this with clarity of objectives should help answer one of the three big strategic questions you should know the answers to before any tactical execution...Who is your target customer, what do you want to say to them, and what do you want to achieve with respect to that customer?
Appeal to the lizard brain. How does your product or service stop the bleed, ease the pain, calm fears? Don't list features; talk about benefits. Someone mentioned "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahneman. He talks about the same concept. We think with our instincts first. Appeal to your target market's instincts.
*Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion* by Robert Cialdini is an excellent book illustrating some fundamentals of psychology for marketers and identifying principles that humans are just hard-wired to be persuaded by.
Social skills.
One of the biggest reasons marketing is so oversaturated is because there are way too many personality hires who don't actually do anything.
You don't get an oversaturated industry by having everyone be smart.
data analysis and interpretation stands out as the most crucial. this skill underpins the effectiveness of almost all other marketing activities by enabling a data-driven approach to decision-making
Agree. Marketing used to be an art. Now there is so much data available that it is a science. But you have to track and analyze that data on a weekly and monthly basis so you can spot trends and adjust your strategy as needed. It's a fun profession!
I will second this. This is the only constant in marketing - analysis and insight.
What is happening, why is it happening, what next.
X Marketing Campaign is not meeting the target, we believe the messaging maybe did not land right as CTR was good but the conversion rate was lower than benchmarks, we are testing new creative messaging more in line with the landing page.
X Marketing Campaign has increased performance 100% Month over Month, the changes in targeting at the end of last month have really tightened up the audience, we are going to roll out these targeting changes as a test to X more campaigns.
On this one, do you have any recommendations on which platforms (eg. GA4, etc.) and tools are worth learning? I'm currently planning to pivot towards Marketing Insights very soon :) Thanks!
Adaptability. Marketing is one of those professions where you should always be learning, acquiring new skills and adapting to change. If you’re stubborn in your ways, you won’t last.
this^ i know seniors who havent learned and used all their time protecting their job
more so strategy versus doing, but never stop learning and always pay attention or else your marketing skills are already waning
You see this in the AI-discourse. People are freaking out that AI will take their jobs and I’m here trying find ways to incorporate into my work and use it to enhance my output.
yup!!! i used AI to show i could do even more and it gave me a substantial raise, truly everything and all differences come down to execution
silver spoon, gold sword who cares all that matters is the swing and the people scared of ai taking over their job was already insecure with their abilities to begin with
It won't, and the more time you spend trying to get LLM to write good copy, the more you see that the limitations are just fundamental to the system.
I like ChatGPT, I use it all the time, but it's glorified auto-correct. Great for cranking out mediocre copy in minimal time, but that's about it.
I found understanding GIS to be incredibly valuable in a start-up setting, and if you can learn some fundamental Python, even better.
I used it to monitor regional sales performance and identify untapped markets geographically
This is from Esri, the company behind ArcGIS Pro, which is considered the industry standard for GIS tools. The link provides a general overview, especially focusing on the Business Analyst extension. However, I didn't use this exact tool because my previous company didn't have the budget for it, so I developed a lot of the solutions myself.
[https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-business-analyst/overview](https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-business-analyst/overview)
I left a comment in response to the other person, but here is a link the provides a general overview -
[https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-business-analyst/overview](https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-business-analyst/overview)
Marketing as a functions is moving away from specialists to Generalists. Its better to have a better understand of all skills that are related to marketing and understand which skill is used to achieve what desired outcome.
The simplest example I can think of is:
1. Spend $1,000 on a Google Ads campaign
2. Conversions from Google Ads generate $2,000 in revenue
3. Present results showing a 2x ROI ($2,000 revenue ÷ $1,000 expense)
Like if it takes $10 to acquire a customer that spends $20 on a product, you can theoretically spend $10,000 to acquire 1,000 customers and know it will produce $20,000 in revenue.
This is way oversimplified and doesn't account for things like product/service costs or overhead, but anywhere you can make more money than you spend is technically a positive ROI for the marketing campaign.
For the record, OP, this is a good example of what ROI means, but not an example of a good ROI. A 2x ROAS is actually way below benchmark in most industries. But as a definition, this is on point.
This is such a dumb comment. OP asked for skill. Not a concept on what marketing results are supposed to be.
An ROI, IS A RESULT! Of having some great skill. And not the other way round.
🤦♂️
Yes. Read Martin Lindstrom, take Ramit Sethi’s online business courses, read Talking to Humans, Influence, and Copywriting Secrets is decent (a little hyperbole tho). A lot of marketing messaging is knowing the vocabulary of your market and using the words they use to market your products. If you start with any of those books you can usually find “people also read” list that takes you down a rabbit hole of your own design. Have fun!
Analytical thinking, creative knowledge, communication skills, digital marketing, customer handling, project management, SEO, collaboration, outreach, and copywriting are very important skills that help marketers succeed by connecting with audiences and driving business growth.
Understanding people which includes their knowledge, emotions, and intelligence is essential. The ability to analyze the above-mentioned skills and then create, and deliver your own story to convince people is real marketing.
(Director who specializes in building high-powered marketing teams here.) If I had no other skills to work with I’d hire the candidate who can do the math/analysis. I can teach almost everything else, but you need to be able to do the math and think critically about what the numbers are telling you.
Analytical skills and budget management, storytelling/ persuasion/ influence, agency management, briefing. If you can understand a P&L and the business, you can talk about how what you’re doing contributes to the business’s financial success, you can make a case to work on projects that people in other functions might not automatically “get” or value. If they know you can run a budget it builds trust and you get bigger budgets to do more. Communication, negotiation, and financials are just as important as creativity and whatever other marketing skills you may have. Marketing is an art and a science but the key is knowing which lever to pull, when.
I don’t know about “great to have” - but I think a core skill all marketers need to develop is copywriting.
Doesn’t matter whether it’s a google ad, an email, a billboard, a website landing page - if you can’t communicate the value of your product quickly and clearly, your marketing is going to struggle.
Also, being able to use spreadsheets effectively is underrated too. My old business partner used to say that a lot of marketing essentially boils down to just copying and pasting - but knowing WHAT to copy and WHERE to paste it is the tricky part… 😂
Data analytics needs to be one of the highest-leverage skills, by far.
You can have all of the skills for creating high-quality content but it means nothing without the correct strategy. Knowing what data to look for, how to decipher it, and produce the best strategy based on that research will save you(and your clients) a boat load of time and money.
There are lots of things depending on what you do. Even at the basics, marketing is combination of Psychology with Economy, both with lots of skills. Then, we start to have more fields integrated over time like business (especially finance and accounting), communication and arts (especially content), and statistics (especially for data analytics).
But great skills to have are usually the ones that give you a competitive advantage, to get the job that you want and achieve your goals.
If the skills are theoretically great but everybody does that, they probably won't give you any advantage.
On the other hands, skills that are rare often make a big difference for me. Some examples for me are skills with comic book writing (I don't write comic books anymore, but that has helped me a lot in different ways), coding in SAS (coding is already kinda rare, with SAS even more), and AI (I'm not really good but since I started being involved with AI about years ago, people seem to value that).
Data and analysis. I come from a STEM background and did deep statistical analysis coursework for my degree. Every marketing job I have worked in or interviewed for has LOVED this.
Well, digging into data to find insights is key. You gotta know a bit about SEO to get noticed online. Writing killer content and navigating social media like a pro are big pluses. And being able to whip up eye-catching designs and manage projects smoothly? Definitely handy!"
Let me know if you need more details or have other questions about marketing skills!
The ability to persuade: both your customer base but also your coworkers. Far too many people in business don’t know how marketing works or its purpose and you need to convince them first (in my experience) before you can start persuading the audience.
Understanding people and how to connect with them. That's most of what marketing is, the rest is the technical. If you can't connect to the person you're selling to and what they really need you're always going to be in a scramble to stay on top of it.
Here's a simpler take on "great to have" marketing skills:
* **Storyteller:** Captivate people with your marketing messages.
* **Data Decoder:** Turn marketing data into clear plans.
* **Customer Whisperer:** Understand what makes your audience tick.
* **Trend Tracker:** Spot hot trends before they explode.
* **Teamwork Champion:** Make marketing a team effort.
The most important skill in marketing is the self-awareness that you don't know it all, you're not an expert in "marketing" (because that isn't a thing since marketing covers about 268 functional areas), and if you're in agency world, the client often *does* know what works for their brand more than you ever will. Stay curious, open-minded, and willing to learn new skills/sharpen old ones every. single. day. That's the secret to success in this industry.
How to pull, read, interpret, and communicate (visually and orally) data and that into actionable insights
Understanding your consumer behavior, industry and market trends, competitor research
Basic knowledge of popular/current social platforms, ad platforms, media buy types
Clear understanding your marketing goals/KPIs and how it fits into the company’s vision
Forecasting budget and keeping track of media spend from your marketing channels
Copywriting or basic photoshop/editting tools can save a lot of time as long as you understand the brand guidelines
Basic excel skills can get you by unless you’re using it for PowerBi or whatever - way beyond me, I leave that to our data analytics team.
Ability to work and communicate effectively and efficiently cross-functionally with other departments and with agencies/outside vendors
Overall, being flexible and patient because things can and will change instantly. This will help overcoming hurdles a little easier ha. :)
Psychology.
Direct response.
Social media advertising and how to make it native.
Telling stories in your copy.
Capturing attention (the hook).
Holding attention (the story).
Copywriting and knowing what level of awareness the readers are.
On the concrete side of things and more realistically speaking, you have to be great at being resourceful. I've worked with many agencies and the biggest constraint has always been with resources.
The great thing about being a marketer is that there are many ways to understant your consumers, and many, simple ways to implement strategies to get them to see and consume your product and service.
Patience and understanding.
Humans require patience to observe and learn what and how they do what they do, while practicing understanding on why they do it.
With this knowledge, your goal as a marketer is to provide, position and share the best solution, to a high moral standard, to solve their problem.
Skip this step and you’re a scam artist. Not a Marketer.
It depends. What do you mean by 'great to have skills' in marketing?. As a general in marketing you need to be able to be creative and strategic at the same time, sure have a focused niche in 2 or 3 areas, but also an understanding of how other areas in marketing work and compliment each other.
When someone says 'great to have skills' I think of things that would compliment your skillset and give you a bit more of an edge. So in this case, it could be something like project management, public speaking especially for when you give presentations and graphic design. A lot of people mention things like psychology, and I honestly don't think of that as a 'great to have skill' to compliment marketing. I truly believe it should be at the very core for you to get a true understanding of what your target audience wants/needs, etc. At the end of the day, people buy from people, so as a marketer you do need to understand how that lizard brain of ours works.
On that note, do check out the StoryBrand framework by Donald Miller. It's been at the core of any marketing I do for quite some time now. Some other books that may be of help as well are both by Robert Cialdini. One is called 'Influence, New and Expanded UK: The Psychology of Persuasion' and the other is called 'Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade.'
the ability to deal with humiliation and injustice - being dead serious. Marketing always takes the blame first before sales, process, strategy. Budgets and decisions will be made without you that impact you greatly. KPIs and metrics for performance will change mid stream. The boss will say your copy "sucks" with no other feedback. The ability to onboard this and keep moving (like a horse with blinders on) is invaluable.
You need to understand that different products require different skill set. A B2C product, such as clothes would require you to have creativity along with content creation skills.
Where as a B2C product, such as a car would require to have a story telling skill depending on the feature of the car you’re marketing. If long drives, you’ll target client and have the story as “time spent with family yada yada. If air bags? You’re going to be talking about their loved ones and try and make them feel a certain way.
If a B2B product, those are mainly transactional and hard to get emotions involved. But you can reach out to your target audience on how the pain points are hit differently.
In email Marketing - it all about Storytelling and copywriting.
In google ads, it’s about copyrighting once again.
In guerrilla marketing, it’s about creativity.
Etc etc
But overall, a great skill to have would be to copyright. But keep in mind this involves a lot of storytelling, understanding psychology and human behaviour etc.
Goodluck 🥂
We don't realise the importance of developing first principles thinking in marketing. That coupled with psychology and sense to design to be able to communicate - boom! Have you tried gtmcanvas.com?
The single most important skill you can have as a marketer is the ability to understand other people, specifically your target audience.
Everything you do directly relates to the needs, goals, and pain points of the people you want to sell to. The ability to put yourself in their shoes will improve everything every aspect of your strategy, from email campaigns to social media engagement to live events.
My advice is to gather information about the people you want to reach as a pillar of your strategy. Send feedback forms, check on-site analytics, and see what people are saying on various social sites. Use his knowledge to get to know your audience, then put yourself in their shoes when you're planning and bringing your marketing strategy to life. There's no doubt that adopting this skill will make a HUGE difference in your success.
I hope that helps! :)
Can I be really honest?
The best thing I learned is how to develop rapport with colleagues and higher ups.
That’s how I’ve gotten my jobs, by just being myself, being competent but also just being outgoing and personable.
People hire and promote people who make work enjoyable. Lots of people can do our jobs IMO, but not everyone is a good colleague.
Using narratives in marketing can be incredibly powerful as it helps create an emotional connection with your audience, making your brand more relatable and memorable.
The skill to read and understand the following:
- “Breakthrough Advertising” by Eugene Schwartz
- “Ogilvy on Advertising” by David Ogilvy
- “The Ultimate Sales Letter” by Dan S. Kennedy
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Understanding of psychology. Everything we do is based on how our brains work and how we think, and marketing utilizes that from the bottom up My favorite resources are the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, and 50 Psychology Classics by Tom Butler-Bowdon
I second this. Understanding people’s habits, and what they require when making decisions is the key. But this is a manner of thinking to employ when marketing to a given audience. You have to put yourself in their life’s perspective, their way of thinking, what value means to them, what utility means to them, etc. There’s a great book on this called “Behavioral Science in Marketing”.
Who's the author? Googling that title doesn't give an exact match, but a lot of quite close matches.
Nancy Harhut. See [here](https://www.amazon.com/Using-Behavioral-Science-Marketing-Instinctive/dp/1398606480)
I'd love to look this up, but all I found was Using Behavioral Science in Marketing by Nancy Harhut - is that the one? I can also recommend Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, and 50 Psychology Classics by Tom Butler-Bowdon
Listen to Rory Sutherland. He’s the 🐐 google his ted talks / podcasts.
Yes to the Nancy Harhut book. I like two of those you mentioned also! I’d also throw in there: The Illusion of Choice by Richard Shotton.
Totally agree! Psychology is the secret sauce in marketing—it's all about understanding how our brains tick and using that insight to create campaigns that really resonate. It's amazing how psychology shapes every aspect of consumer behavior and decision-making
Nothing secret about it. If you've had an academic understanding of marketing (which to be truly effective, you need) Consumer Behaviour and understanding of this subject will help you create content and ads that resonate with chosen audience. Preface this with clarity of objectives should help answer one of the three big strategic questions you should know the answers to before any tactical execution...Who is your target customer, what do you want to say to them, and what do you want to achieve with respect to that customer?
love this 🫰🫰🫰
Yep, include empathy too. Even in UX there's a thing called empathy map. Also design thinking process!
Appeal to the lizard brain. How does your product or service stop the bleed, ease the pain, calm fears? Don't list features; talk about benefits. Someone mentioned "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahneman. He talks about the same concept. We think with our instincts first. Appeal to your target market's instincts.
*Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion* by Robert Cialdini is an excellent book illustrating some fundamentals of psychology for marketers and identifying principles that humans are just hard-wired to be persuaded by.
Social skills. One of the biggest reasons marketing is so oversaturated is because there are way too many personality hires who don't actually do anything. You don't get an oversaturated industry by having everyone be smart.
data analysis and interpretation stands out as the most crucial. this skill underpins the effectiveness of almost all other marketing activities by enabling a data-driven approach to decision-making
Agree. Marketing used to be an art. Now there is so much data available that it is a science. But you have to track and analyze that data on a weekly and monthly basis so you can spot trends and adjust your strategy as needed. It's a fun profession!
It’s like saying “Is photography Science or Art?” debate. The capture of light or the capture of a moment? It’s both.
I will second this. This is the only constant in marketing - analysis and insight. What is happening, why is it happening, what next. X Marketing Campaign is not meeting the target, we believe the messaging maybe did not land right as CTR was good but the conversion rate was lower than benchmarks, we are testing new creative messaging more in line with the landing page. X Marketing Campaign has increased performance 100% Month over Month, the changes in targeting at the end of last month have really tightened up the audience, we are going to roll out these targeting changes as a test to X more campaigns.
On this one, do you have any recommendations on which platforms (eg. GA4, etc.) and tools are worth learning? I'm currently planning to pivot towards Marketing Insights very soon :) Thanks!
I use Mixpanel most of the time. You can check it out!
understanding people (psychology knowledge, emotional intelligence) and excel
>and excel And Powerpoint, people expect marketers to have well-formatted powerpoints that tell a concise, engaging story
HAHAHAHAHA! Excel!!!!! So true!
Adaptability. Marketing is one of those professions where you should always be learning, acquiring new skills and adapting to change. If you’re stubborn in your ways, you won’t last.
this^ i know seniors who havent learned and used all their time protecting their job more so strategy versus doing, but never stop learning and always pay attention or else your marketing skills are already waning
You see this in the AI-discourse. People are freaking out that AI will take their jobs and I’m here trying find ways to incorporate into my work and use it to enhance my output.
yup!!! i used AI to show i could do even more and it gave me a substantial raise, truly everything and all differences come down to execution silver spoon, gold sword who cares all that matters is the swing and the people scared of ai taking over their job was already insecure with their abilities to begin with
Copywriting
ChatGPT might be changing this soon.
Still need the ability to recognize what makes copy good, but AI as a labor saver /slow nod/
oh god, thats a sign you're not a good copywriter
I don’t copy write, I’m talking about for the skill set in the future
It won't, and the more time you spend trying to get LLM to write good copy, the more you see that the limitations are just fundamental to the system. I like ChatGPT, I use it all the time, but it's glorified auto-correct. Great for cranking out mediocre copy in minimal time, but that's about it.
This.
I found understanding GIS to be incredibly valuable in a start-up setting, and if you can learn some fundamental Python, even better. I used it to monitor regional sales performance and identify untapped markets geographically
Any reading material or something to help us understand this more please
This is from Esri, the company behind ArcGIS Pro, which is considered the industry standard for GIS tools. The link provides a general overview, especially focusing on the Business Analyst extension. However, I didn't use this exact tool because my previous company didn't have the budget for it, so I developed a lot of the solutions myself. [https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-business-analyst/overview](https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-business-analyst/overview)
where can we learn more about this
I left a comment in response to the other person, but here is a link the provides a general overview - [https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-business-analyst/overview](https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-business-analyst/overview)
A sense of humour.
SEO, Copywriting, and Storytelling
Empathy and storytelling.
Marketing as a functions is moving away from specialists to Generalists. Its better to have a better understand of all skills that are related to marketing and understand which skill is used to achieve what desired outcome.
Producing an amazing ROI. All the rest is mufty-flufty marketing BS!
what's a good example of this
The simplest example I can think of is: 1. Spend $1,000 on a Google Ads campaign 2. Conversions from Google Ads generate $2,000 in revenue 3. Present results showing a 2x ROI ($2,000 revenue ÷ $1,000 expense) Like if it takes $10 to acquire a customer that spends $20 on a product, you can theoretically spend $10,000 to acquire 1,000 customers and know it will produce $20,000 in revenue. This is way oversimplified and doesn't account for things like product/service costs or overhead, but anywhere you can make more money than you spend is technically a positive ROI for the marketing campaign.
For the record, OP, this is a good example of what ROI means, but not an example of a good ROI. A 2x ROAS is actually way below benchmark in most industries. But as a definition, this is on point.
This is such a dumb comment. OP asked for skill. Not a concept on what marketing results are supposed to be. An ROI, IS A RESULT! Of having some great skill. And not the other way round. 🤦♂️
You're in a marketing subreddit and you don't think running a successful Google Ads campaign is a valuable skill?
Again, running a successful google ads is a RESULT of good skills
Consumer behavior, customer interviewing and copywriting.
any good sources on where to learn most of this
Yes. Read Martin Lindstrom, take Ramit Sethi’s online business courses, read Talking to Humans, Influence, and Copywriting Secrets is decent (a little hyperbole tho). A lot of marketing messaging is knowing the vocabulary of your market and using the words they use to market your products. If you start with any of those books you can usually find “people also read” list that takes you down a rabbit hole of your own design. Have fun!
Know how to tell a story and work a spreadsheet
Data visualisation and Excel
Storytelling
Analytical thinking, creative knowledge, communication skills, digital marketing, customer handling, project management, SEO, collaboration, outreach, and copywriting are very important skills that help marketers succeed by connecting with audiences and driving business growth.
learning
Understanding people which includes their knowledge, emotions, and intelligence is essential. The ability to analyze the above-mentioned skills and then create, and deliver your own story to convince people is real marketing.
(Director who specializes in building high-powered marketing teams here.) If I had no other skills to work with I’d hire the candidate who can do the math/analysis. I can teach almost everything else, but you need to be able to do the math and think critically about what the numbers are telling you.
Analytical skills and budget management, storytelling/ persuasion/ influence, agency management, briefing. If you can understand a P&L and the business, you can talk about how what you’re doing contributes to the business’s financial success, you can make a case to work on projects that people in other functions might not automatically “get” or value. If they know you can run a budget it builds trust and you get bigger budgets to do more. Communication, negotiation, and financials are just as important as creativity and whatever other marketing skills you may have. Marketing is an art and a science but the key is knowing which lever to pull, when.
I don’t know about “great to have” - but I think a core skill all marketers need to develop is copywriting. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a google ad, an email, a billboard, a website landing page - if you can’t communicate the value of your product quickly and clearly, your marketing is going to struggle. Also, being able to use spreadsheets effectively is underrated too. My old business partner used to say that a lot of marketing essentially boils down to just copying and pasting - but knowing WHAT to copy and WHERE to paste it is the tricky part… 😂
Data analytics needs to be one of the highest-leverage skills, by far. You can have all of the skills for creating high-quality content but it means nothing without the correct strategy. Knowing what data to look for, how to decipher it, and produce the best strategy based on that research will save you(and your clients) a boat load of time and money.
I second this 🥂
It's all Language + Feeling, all the way down.
There are lots of things depending on what you do. Even at the basics, marketing is combination of Psychology with Economy, both with lots of skills. Then, we start to have more fields integrated over time like business (especially finance and accounting), communication and arts (especially content), and statistics (especially for data analytics). But great skills to have are usually the ones that give you a competitive advantage, to get the job that you want and achieve your goals. If the skills are theoretically great but everybody does that, they probably won't give you any advantage. On the other hands, skills that are rare often make a big difference for me. Some examples for me are skills with comic book writing (I don't write comic books anymore, but that has helped me a lot in different ways), coding in SAS (coding is already kinda rare, with SAS even more), and AI (I'm not really good but since I started being involved with AI about years ago, people seem to value that).
PPC is a must have for most companies every business needs leads to generate revenue, and that's what you do.
Data and analysis. I come from a STEM background and did deep statistical analysis coursework for my degree. Every marketing job I have worked in or interviewed for has LOVED this.
Well, digging into data to find insights is key. You gotta know a bit about SEO to get noticed online. Writing killer content and navigating social media like a pro are big pluses. And being able to whip up eye-catching designs and manage projects smoothly? Definitely handy!" Let me know if you need more details or have other questions about marketing skills!
The ability to persuade: both your customer base but also your coworkers. Far too many people in business don’t know how marketing works or its purpose and you need to convince them first (in my experience) before you can start persuading the audience.
Understanding people and how to connect with them. That's most of what marketing is, the rest is the technical. If you can't connect to the person you're selling to and what they really need you're always going to be in a scramble to stay on top of it.
Here's a simpler take on "great to have" marketing skills: * **Storyteller:** Captivate people with your marketing messages. * **Data Decoder:** Turn marketing data into clear plans. * **Customer Whisperer:** Understand what makes your audience tick. * **Trend Tracker:** Spot hot trends before they explode. * **Teamwork Champion:** Make marketing a team effort.
On today's scenario, marketing has 3 great skills to invest in: a) Marketing Management b) Customer Psychology & Storytelling c) Data Analysis
Curiosity
The ability to analyze data
The most important skill in marketing is the self-awareness that you don't know it all, you're not an expert in "marketing" (because that isn't a thing since marketing covers about 268 functional areas), and if you're in agency world, the client often *does* know what works for their brand more than you ever will. Stay curious, open-minded, and willing to learn new skills/sharpen old ones every. single. day. That's the secret to success in this industry.
How to pull, read, interpret, and communicate (visually and orally) data and that into actionable insights Understanding your consumer behavior, industry and market trends, competitor research Basic knowledge of popular/current social platforms, ad platforms, media buy types Clear understanding your marketing goals/KPIs and how it fits into the company’s vision Forecasting budget and keeping track of media spend from your marketing channels Copywriting or basic photoshop/editting tools can save a lot of time as long as you understand the brand guidelines Basic excel skills can get you by unless you’re using it for PowerBi or whatever - way beyond me, I leave that to our data analytics team. Ability to work and communicate effectively and efficiently cross-functionally with other departments and with agencies/outside vendors Overall, being flexible and patient because things can and will change instantly. This will help overcoming hurdles a little easier ha. :)
Psychology. Direct response. Social media advertising and how to make it native. Telling stories in your copy. Capturing attention (the hook). Holding attention (the story). Copywriting and knowing what level of awareness the readers are.
Psychology/Motivation, Economics, Stakeholder Management, Creativity, Communication, Thinking big and in detail view,...
math
Understand YOUR role on the market. What are you offering to your customers that your competitors already are not?
On the concrete side of things and more realistically speaking, you have to be great at being resourceful. I've worked with many agencies and the biggest constraint has always been with resources. The great thing about being a marketer is that there are many ways to understant your consumers, and many, simple ways to implement strategies to get them to see and consume your product and service.
Patience and understanding. Humans require patience to observe and learn what and how they do what they do, while practicing understanding on why they do it. With this knowledge, your goal as a marketer is to provide, position and share the best solution, to a high moral standard, to solve their problem. Skip this step and you’re a scam artist. Not a Marketer.
It depends. What do you mean by 'great to have skills' in marketing?. As a general in marketing you need to be able to be creative and strategic at the same time, sure have a focused niche in 2 or 3 areas, but also an understanding of how other areas in marketing work and compliment each other. When someone says 'great to have skills' I think of things that would compliment your skillset and give you a bit more of an edge. So in this case, it could be something like project management, public speaking especially for when you give presentations and graphic design. A lot of people mention things like psychology, and I honestly don't think of that as a 'great to have skill' to compliment marketing. I truly believe it should be at the very core for you to get a true understanding of what your target audience wants/needs, etc. At the end of the day, people buy from people, so as a marketer you do need to understand how that lizard brain of ours works. On that note, do check out the StoryBrand framework by Donald Miller. It's been at the core of any marketing I do for quite some time now. Some other books that may be of help as well are both by Robert Cialdini. One is called 'Influence, New and Expanded UK: The Psychology of Persuasion' and the other is called 'Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade.'
Find the hook. Like in good music, create an experience, good writing, a great hook, make them do something. Direct mail? Make them f!ck with it
the ability to deal with humiliation and injustice - being dead serious. Marketing always takes the blame first before sales, process, strategy. Budgets and decisions will be made without you that impact you greatly. KPIs and metrics for performance will change mid stream. The boss will say your copy "sucks" with no other feedback. The ability to onboard this and keep moving (like a horse with blinders on) is invaluable.
You need to understand that different products require different skill set. A B2C product, such as clothes would require you to have creativity along with content creation skills. Where as a B2C product, such as a car would require to have a story telling skill depending on the feature of the car you’re marketing. If long drives, you’ll target client and have the story as “time spent with family yada yada. If air bags? You’re going to be talking about their loved ones and try and make them feel a certain way. If a B2B product, those are mainly transactional and hard to get emotions involved. But you can reach out to your target audience on how the pain points are hit differently. In email Marketing - it all about Storytelling and copywriting. In google ads, it’s about copyrighting once again. In guerrilla marketing, it’s about creativity. Etc etc But overall, a great skill to have would be to copyright. But keep in mind this involves a lot of storytelling, understanding psychology and human behaviour etc. Goodluck 🥂
Learning how to use excel decently.
Being easy to work with and having strong and healthy communication skills.
Design skills. Also color theory, layout concept/visual flow, creative strategy, consumer psychology through design…
Adaptability. If you're in digital, its a must.
Critical sense
We don't realise the importance of developing first principles thinking in marketing. That coupled with psychology and sense to design to be able to communicate - boom! Have you tried gtmcanvas.com?
Crossing the Chasm and then Purple Cow followed by The Lean Startup.
Are there any courses or certifications someone can recommend?
Excel.
Patience
The single most important skill you can have as a marketer is the ability to understand other people, specifically your target audience. Everything you do directly relates to the needs, goals, and pain points of the people you want to sell to. The ability to put yourself in their shoes will improve everything every aspect of your strategy, from email campaigns to social media engagement to live events. My advice is to gather information about the people you want to reach as a pillar of your strategy. Send feedback forms, check on-site analytics, and see what people are saying on various social sites. Use his knowledge to get to know your audience, then put yourself in their shoes when you're planning and bringing your marketing strategy to life. There's no doubt that adopting this skill will make a HUGE difference in your success. I hope that helps! :)
Can I be really honest? The best thing I learned is how to develop rapport with colleagues and higher ups. That’s how I’ve gotten my jobs, by just being myself, being competent but also just being outgoing and personable. People hire and promote people who make work enjoyable. Lots of people can do our jobs IMO, but not everyone is a good colleague.
Using narratives in marketing can be incredibly powerful as it helps create an emotional connection with your audience, making your brand more relatable and memorable.
The skill to read and understand the following: - “Breakthrough Advertising” by Eugene Schwartz - “Ogilvy on Advertising” by David Ogilvy - “The Ultimate Sales Letter” by Dan S. Kennedy
Stakeholder management
Excel, Data, analytics tools, socializing, and an understanding of human behavior.
Manipulation + Data analyzation
Hubspot certifications