In this blog post, you\u2019ll find 10 vital marketing skills that your business should start investing in today.<\/p>\n
1. Interpersonal relationship skills<\/h3>\n
Even though a lot of marketing is done online today, marketers still end up interacting with their co-workers and prospects. Of course, the medium has changed but the concept is still the same.<\/p>\n
You need to train your marketers on how to communicate and collaborate with other employees. Otherwise, the lack of proper interpersonal relationships in your business can lead to a poor employee experience (EX) for everybody. In fact, Salesforce found that improved EX led to improved CX, and companies that highly value EX saw almost double the revenue growth<\/a> of those who don\u2019t'.<\/p>\n Beyond relationships with co-workers, marketers also need to learn how to relate to your leads. After all, saying the wrong words or taking the wrong action could be the difference between a customer and a lost prospect.<\/p>\n One of the most important elements of marketing is creating content. Marketing content is a must-have in today's digital environment. Marketers utilize content in some shape or form in all digital marketing channels and platforms:<\/p>\n Now, many marketers have to learn how to research and create the right type of content that will convert your audience to qualified leads. Apart from the written content, marketers also have to create images, videos, and other forms of content.<\/p>\n For example, 84% of customers<\/a> say that they\u2019ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand\u2019s video. Yet, 14% of businesses are planning to not use any videos in their marketing mix 2021.<\/p>\n Don't let marketing skills hold you back from delivering what your customers want. In 2021, all marketers need to learn basic design skills to create compelling content.<\/p>\n Define a planned approach to content marketing<\/strong><\/p> Part of the Content marketing Toolkit<\/p> Learn how to define an effective content marketing process for your business and market <\/p>Learn More<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n Google and other search engines have become a vital part of the customer research process. For instance, your potential customers will likely carry out a series of searches before they decide on a product.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, BrightEdge found that 53.3% of all website traffic<\/a> and 40% of revenue comes from organic traffic. To ensure your website shows up for these important terms, your marketers need to use their SEO skills.<\/p>\n Marketing skills for SEO include keyword research, on-page SEO, link building, and so on. By investing in these skills, you\u2019ll increase your profits.<\/p>\n Understanding consumer keyword search behaviour\u200b<\/strong><\/p> Part of the Digital experience management Toolkit<\/p> Learn about consumer search behaviour in relation to keywords and keyphrases<\/p>Learn More<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n Over the years, social media has become one of the most popular platforms for interactions. Apart from interacting with friends, users also interact with businesses.<\/p>\n For instance, GlobalWebIndex revealed that 54% of social browsers<\/a> use social media to research products. Some popular social media channels for businesses today are:<\/p>\n Having said that, different channels have different audience demographics and best practices. First of all, your business has to decide on the best social media channels to get results.<\/p>\n Where are you likely to reach your potential customers? Then, marketers need to understand how to engage with their audience on each platform.<\/p>\n Create a social media strategy<\/strong><\/p> Part of the Social media marketing Toolkit<\/p> Learn how to structure a social media strategy and translate it into practical actions to improve your goals<\/p>Learn More<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n If you want to reach your prospects faster, target your ideal audience, and increase revenue, you need to use digital advertising. For instance, Google data shows that small businesses get nearly 4X higher revenue growth<\/a>, when they use digital tools such as online advertising and data analytics, compared to those that don\u2019t use them.<\/p>\n Some platforms for digital advertising include: However, different platforms require different strategies and tactics. Otherwise, you\u2019ll be wasting your ad budget. For each advertising platform, marketers need to learn how to set their budget, target the right audience, track results, perform tests, and more.<\/p>\n Select media investments<\/strong><\/p> Part of the Digital marketing strategy and planning Toolkit<\/p> Discover three tools to review the effectiveness of different types of media for \u2018always-on\u2019 marketing<\/p>Learn More<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n Whether online or offline, one of the main tasks of a marketer is outreach.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re marketing your business online, you\u2019ll have to do outreach for: Being able to interact with people who have little knowledge of your business takes great skill. That\u2019s why some marketers get better results from outreach than others.<\/p>\n To put your marketers in the best position possible, you have to invest in training them for better outreach.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy for marketers to spend a lot of time achieving little. Because there are always distractions at the workplace.<\/p>\n Luckily, time and project management will help your marketers get the best productivity possible from their time. To manage their time effectively, marketers can learn skills such as: These skills (and other time management skills) help marketers focus on their daily tasks. As a result, this improves their chances of reaching their short-term and long-term goals for your business.<\/p>\n Marketers waste a lot of time during the week doing manual repetitive work. For example, HubSpot data revealed that marketers spend a third of their time<\/a> doing repetitive tasks.<\/p>\n Apart from that, marketing and sales departments usually have information silos that can make both departments less effective at attracting leads and closing sales.<\/p>\n To solve this problem, many businesses have invested in marketing automation and CRM tools. But it goes beyond that. Marketers need to know how to use these tools to get optimum benefits. That\u2019s why they need training on how to use marketing automation and CRM tools.<\/p>\n With this, they\u2019ll learn how to automate common repetitive tasks, interact more effectively with prospects, set up important alerts, and collaborate better with the sales department.<\/p>\n Today, marketers need to deal with so many numbers. These include numbers from your business website and their marketing campaigns.<\/p>\n In light of this, marketers need to find the right numbers that are most important to their campaigns. Likewise, marketers need to understand their prospects through these numbers.<\/p>\n Another advantage is that these numbers provide insights to launch new marketing experiments. However, marketers need web and marketing analytics skills to understand numbers and draw out the underlying meaning.<\/p>\n As a result of training, they\u2019ll know how to use tools to find the right numbers for analyzing their campaigns.<\/p>\n Reporting on marketing activities using Google Analytics<\/strong><\/p> Part of the Google Analytics Toolkit<\/p> Learn how to use reports to review performance in Google Analytics<\/p>Learn More<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n2. Content creation<\/h3>\n
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![\"Marketing](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Marketing-videos.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Define](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/themes\/smartinsights\/images\/smart\/guides\/covers\/63447.svg\")
3. Search engine optimization (SEO) marketing skills<\/h3>\n
![\"Understanding](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/themes\/smartinsights\/images\/smart\/guides\/covers\/64393.svg\")
4. Social media marketing skills<\/h3>\n
![\"Social](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Social-media-marketing.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
![\"Create](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/themes\/smartinsights\/images\/smart\/guides\/covers\/61679.svg\")
5. Digital advertising skills<\/h3>\n
\n\u25cf Google
\n\u25cf Facebook
\n\u25cf Ad networks
\n\u25cf Instagram
\n\u25cf Twitter
\n\u25cf Pinterest<\/p>\n![\"Select](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/themes\/smartinsights\/images\/smart\/guides\/covers\/63620.svg\")
6. Outreach marketing skills<\/h3>\n
\n\u25cf Lead nurturing
\n\u25cf Guest posting
\n\u25cf Link building<\/p>\n7. Time and project management<\/h3>\n
\n\u25cf Goal setting
\n\u25cf Goal tracking
\n\u25cf Breaking down goals for short periods
\n\u25cf Creating reports about executed tasks<\/p>\n8. Marketing automation and CRM software skills<\/h3>\n
![\"Time_Spent_on_Routine_Marketing_Tasks\"](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Time_Spent_on_Routine_Marketing_Tasks-550x340.png\")
<\/p>\n9. Web and marketing analytics<\/h3>\n
![\"Reporting](\"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/wp-content\/themes\/smartinsights\/images\/smart\/guides\/covers\/63960.svg\")
10. ROI measurement skills<\/h3>\n