Here is B2B Marketing’s list of the fundamental skills marketers need in 2014:
1. Marketing planning and strategy: Think of this skill as your bricks and mortar. You must underpin anything you do with a solid strategy, otherwise there’s a danger your marketing activity will either sink into the ground at the start or else unexpectedly crumble down around you.
2. Customer insight and understanding: Never before have marketers had such a window into what the customer is really thinking. Broaden your digital skills to enable you to take advantage of every engagement opportunity available – whether this be through social, web or mobile interaction.
3. Aligning and integrating marketing with the business: How does what you do impact on your organisation as a whole? Skills that promote and facilitate cooperation among multiple departments are key to success, as are those that address internal buy-in.
4. Measurement and reporting: Whether it’s to build a business case and justify investment or create allies among your c-suite colleagues ahead of buy-in; analytical and data skills are central in proving marketing is not just the ‘colouring in’ department. Best of all there’s a stack of digital tools out there to help you make sense of the numbers.
5. The role of the brand: An important but often overlooked fundamental. Marketers who spend time developing this area of expertise will help foster empowerment among internal and external stakeholders and promote organisational cohesion.
