Ah… the world of marketing, a sphere of aesthetic, data, predictions, and persuasion used to promote anything and everything. Whether you are selling a product, service, or belief, there is a level of marketing tactics that is used. As a marketing strategist, you have probably mastered most, if not all the skills needed to thrive in the industry. However, marketing has changed over the years with the advancements of technology and the rise of digital advertising. Due to these steady changes in the marketing industry, skill sets should be assessed and advanced as the world around us does the same.
As marketing experts at VUP Media, we have gathered some of the most influential skills that will take you to the next level as a marketing professional.
Critical Thinking & Problem-Solving
A basic skill needed as a professional in the marketing sphere and many other industries is critical thinking and problem-solving skills. As a marketer, you are constantly adapting to optimize your brand message and find different ways to promote it. This takes out-of-the-box thinking to come up with something authentic and unique. Problem-solving goes hand in hand with critical thinking, as everything worth creating comes with risks or unexpected adversities. Taking a problem and turning it into a solution takes a specialized approach and an optimistic mindset. With critical thinking and problem-solving skills at hand, you can truly accomplish anything!
Storytelling
We all love a good story. The kind that paints pictures of people, places, and things so vividly within our mind. The kind that is packed with emotion and elicits feelings, while being delivered effortlessly. These are some of the components of great storytelling. Storytelling is a niche skill that will help you stand out in the marketing industry.
Storytelling is one of the oldest practices in communication and is considered a universal language. Every good story comes with a beginning, a crisis, and a solution. This formula of sorts is a model marketers use to establish a customer’s need for a product or service. Marketers identify a pain point, which is an inconvenience within a product or service, then provide a solution. If you take this pain point and wrap it around intentional storytelling to express a solution, you have a better chance of connecting with your target audience on a personal level. As a marketer, you must be able to paint a picture to your audience through various means whether it’s written, verbal, or visual, storytelling is crucial in expressing your brands’ vision.
SEO & Analytics
Marketing is not all about communicating a creative concept. There are multiple factors behind the scenes of everything you see. An immense amount of intention is instilled in every promotion, and this can be assessed and tracked in various ways. Data collection lets marketers know if their means of promotion are effective and helps them understand when and how to pivot their strategies.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a tool that any professional marketer should be versed in. During this process, your website is optimized in a way that increases its visibility when customers search for products or services that are the same or closely related to your own. This helps lead potential customers to your site and increases the chances of exposure to your products and services. To establish efficient SEO, you must be extremely intentional about what keywords, which are words that directly relate to your product or service, which you then incorporate to your website and other promotional platforms.
Analytics are also a huge part of the marketing world. Analyzing data helps marketers understand and move forward with their marketing efforts. For example, data analytics can tell us, among other things, how many people went on your website, the time they visited, and how long they stayed. These small pieces of information can help marketers understand the behavior of their audience and in turn allows them to tailor promotions to their targeted market.
Social Media Management
Today social media plays a huge role in marketing. This marketing strategy is called “social media marketing”, and as a marketing professional, if you don’t have a clue what this is… learn fast. Social media has taken over the marketing world since people began using social media platforms as their sole means of entertainment and news. Fewer people are watching TV and being influenced by commercials. More time is spent on phones where people scroll through Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter. These platforms have become the perfect place to target specific demographics on a large scale. Social media helps marketers get to know a lot about their audience based on how they interact on social platforms. By analyzing social media data, marketers can alter ads to show their audience the right message at the right time.
Not only are companies advertising on social media but selling their products right from these platforms. Social media has become a significant outlet for marketers to get their message out and has allowed them to utilize the many functions created for businesses and advertisers on these social sites.
Teamwork
A skill that is essential in marketing is being a team player. Having an open mind and supporting your fellow creatives no matter the situation will yield the best ideas and the most opportunities to grow in the industry. Communication and coexisting in the workplace is important for all team members. When there is positive energy in the creative process, it is bound to result in a prosperous outcome. No one likes a sour sally, get it together and make magic happen with your marketing team!
The strategies and skills mentioned above are just the basics and are enriched with experience. The marketing world is always evolving, but with these basic skills, there is no telling the heights that strategic marketing can take your brand or business. VUP Media has been a successful marketing agency for over a decade and we are always learning more and finding new ways to optimize our efforts. If you are interested in establishing your brands marketing strategies and assessing the skill level of your effort’s, contact VUP Media. We work with businesses from the first audit to establishing the next steps of their marketing journey.
