From new social media platforms to changes in consumer behavior, the marketing landscape is constantly evolving. To be successful, marketers need to develop new skills that cover everything from analytics to social media and content creation.
According to a report from Mondo, traditional marketing methods will no longer work in the digital era. Instead, marketers will need to gain a mix of technical and creative skills to reach success in the data-rich environment, that brands operate today.
According to another study by Deloitte, marketers are now expected to have expertise in various areas as the industry is sure to become more competitive in the future. People from different backgrounds, such as mathematicians, data scientists, and engineers are expected to join the Winnipeg digital marketing agency workforce and bring new perspectives and innovative solutions. Of course, basic marketing principles will remain the foundation of the job, but if you want to keep pace with the industry, you need to evolve and adapt.
How can a marketing professional who learned the trade in the old school make sure that he doesn’t get left out? Here are five skills, that marketers should start learning to prepare for the future.
1. Improve Your Analytical Skills
Being able to find relevant patterns and summarize them into easily digestible bits of information is one of the skills that will pay off in the long haul. Most clients can’t sort through the massive amount of information that marketing agencies acquire, so there’s a need for professionals with a technical background especially in analytics and data visualization. If you are data-minded, you will be a hot commodity for marketing agencies everywhere.
2. Learn How to Code
Code is what lies behind a great marketing campaign. From the website, emails, and apps you create to improve the customer experience, almost everything today has a line of code behind making them work. Since coding is the foundation for most of the marketing today, it’s only natural that marketers learn to code.
Understanding the process behind creating a website or an app will enable you to tell a web designer or developer what you want. This skill will also help you to choose the right developer, as it will help you establish whether they can do what you want, for the right price and within your desired timeframe.
You don’t have to take on a full-time masters program to learn to code. There are many online courses you can follow, such as Code Academy or Code School.
3. Learn to Run an Agile Marketing Campaign
Back in the old days of marketing, you were required to plan a campaign in ten months. Now, when everything must be shared in real-time, you are required to plan a campaign in one day (or in a few hours in some cases.) How can you work more and faster while delivering top results?
You can’t.
The more-more-faster-faster approach isn’t effective. Less than 8% of marketers said this mentality has helped them achieve their goals between 2015 and 2016. The rest 92% focused on agile marketing.
Agile marketing takes the methodology invested by software developers and applies it to developing marketing campaigns. It relies on short-term planning, and it focuses on executing targeted tests and making additional improvements. Teams work in sprints, reassessing priorities each time. This mindset enables you to be more effective and get more done without working more.
4. Focus on Consumer Behavior
People pride themselves on being rational beings. But, about 95% of all decisions are made in the unconscious mind. They decide based on how they feel first, and then they justify their decision through logic and reasoning.
Companies need to understand how people choose and connect with brands. They need to learn how and why people buy and try to establish an emotional connection with them.
A marketer who can tap into the mind of consumers and convince them to buy a certain product is a valuable asset for any company. That’s why you should focus on studying consumer behavior and learning how communities work and what values they hold.
5. Don’t Neglect Your Creative Arts Background
Although it’s important to acquire a set of technical skills to remain competitive, it doesn’t mean that you should neglect your creative arts background altogether. Content is still king, but you need to make sure that you are coming with a fresh perspective and original ideas to keep the audience engaged.
Hopefully, these tips will help you assess your strengths and weaknesses so you can focus on developing the skills you need to build a lucrative marketing career.
The best and easiest way to generate HTML tags for your website is using HTML cheatsheet.
