Marketing is integral to business. It promotes a product or service, message and brand to the consumer — grabbing attention, attracting people and motivating them to make a purchase. The more people who do business with an organisation, the more it is able to grow to the scale it is targeting.
Marketing is not easy. For marketing to work, the people running the various campaigns need to learn key marketing skills to achieve growth for the organisation. Here are seven skills worth mastering in marketing.
1. Focus on Results to Prove ROI
The goal of marketing is to convert leads into sales to drive revenue. If a marketer is unable to tie efforts to revenue growth, CEOs or other decision-makers tend to reduce their support. Knowing how to demonstrate return on investment is therefore critical.
Marketing professionals at senior levels have long advocated for Market Mix Modelling as one of the most reliable ways to measure ROI. Using data and statistical models such as regression analysis, it is possible to calculate how much sales volume depends on marketing activity. This is particularly useful when justifying the marketing budget or making the case for a new strategy to senior stakeholders.
2. Know the Audience
Marketing success relies on understanding the customer — what they want and how they want it. Being able to define an organisation's target audience and understand consumer behaviour makes it easier to clearly articulate the marketing message.
Knowing how to listen to consumers through quantitative and qualitative data, as well as real consumer stories, enables the creation of better buyer personas. With more complete buyer personas, it becomes possible to shape a better buyer's journey across the sales funnel.
3. Goal-Oriented Marketing
Not selling goals is one of the most common mistakes in digital marketing. Conducting marketing without a clear purpose risks becoming overwhelmed by the volume of channels available and losing direction entirely.
Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely — or SMART — goals set a direction for marketing efforts and channel activity towards achieving real results. They make it easier to know what to do, how to do it, measure it, and be more effective when doing it.
4. Create Memorable Customer Experiences
The contemporary consumer is aware of the market, which makes it more important than ever to create an experience that resonates with them. Being able to highlight the benefits of a product or service, and doing so in a way that is aligned with what customers want, will produce a compelling and memorable experience.
Businesses that invest in creating strong online customer experiences — from the quality of their e-commerce presence to the clarity of their customer journey — consistently see the benefit in increased engagement and sales.
5. Use Storytelling
Creating a memorable experience is not just about understanding what customers want and delivering it to them. It is also about using a good story. Successful marketers are typically very capable storytellers.
Compelling and inspirational stories connect with the emotions of consumers. They create identification and make the core marketing message more resonant than a straightforward promotional message alone. Marketers who promote offers using testimonials or tell stories through their campaigns make their brand more attractive and attention-grabbing — another key aspect of effective marketing.
6. Base Decisions on Solid Data
A marketer also needs to be decisive, but decisions must be based on fact. With a wealth of usable data available, basing every effort on evidence and checking its performance is what separates effective marketers from ineffective ones.
Using analytics tools to track performance is critical in digital marketing. Tools that enable A/B testing across virtually any aspect of a campaign — from copy to the colour of a CTA — provide the evidence base needed to optimise continuously. Testing everything and assuming nothing is a hallmark of a results-oriented marketer.
7. Continue Learning
The field of marketing is constantly evolving. Good marketers need to stay on top of these changes if a business is to succeed. This relies heavily on continual learning and self-education.
Following recent trends in the industry, investing in automation, learning new software, acquiring new skills and testing new channels all allow marketers to innovate and gain access to a higher market share. By increasing individual capabilities, the collective knowledge within an organisation grows and becomes a significant competitive advantage.
How Professional Academy Supports Your Journey
For those looking to develop marketing skills with a formal qualification, Professional Academy offers CIM marketing qualifications at every level — from the CIM Level 3 Foundation Certificate through to the CIM Level 6 Diploma in Professional Marketing. To find the right starting point, the Qualifications Navigator is a useful first step, or the team is available to discuss options on a call.
