MARKETING SKILLS: A DIVERSE WORLD TO UNDERSTAND.

Whether a person studies management or does business, understanding what marketing is an art and essence of both. The marketing concept is quite diverse. It includes myriad of skills like research, strategic planning, networking, etc. But the basic marketing concept is the exchange of relationships as customers are the essence of business so, one of the marketing strategies is to identify and satisfying customer needs and wants. The marketing research help to know the actual target market for the product. Market research basically is to identify the market pattern and consumer behavior and to do such research one requires, “marketing skills”. As from fresh strategies for emerging trends, there’s always something new to learn. Learning these skills will not only make you a good marketer but add on great values to your resume. As the marketing world is evolving so to be in the game one needs to constantly work on skill sets that are needed to be successful and stand out of the crowd. A marketer acts as a chain between the products and the customer, so he/she needs to acquire some marketing skills because they enhance a business's success to provide insight into customer behavior and marketing campaign results. In short, they allow you to know the market in which you are working. Marketing skills provide you with the sting over other job candidates because they create you more responsive to industry developments and predictions.

¬ Internal Communication Skills

You’re not just communicating with your target audience. Communicating internally with your co-workers and boss as well is required. Keeping clear and consistent messaging within your marketing team means you can get more done and you don’t have to worry about another team member running a project off the rails. In addition, to communicate with your co-workers, you also need to be able to talk to your boss and upper management to address your marketing research, strategies, etc.

¬ Be A Confident Public Speaker

Whether you’re standing up in front of your boss or client in the middle of a pitch meeting, or you’re giving a live press conference, public speaking is inevitable. While that may have made you cringe in your high school speech class the fact of the matter is that as a marketer you need to be able to pitch your project or your product with ease. If you appear to have confidence in what you’re saying your audience will too have confidence in what you say.

¬ Maintain an Attitude of Lifelong Learning

Another basic skill that should be on the resume of every marketer is maintaining the attitude of lifelong learning. As a marketer, we’re always taking in new information whether that be in a new advertising tactic or a research report that’s been published about our target audience. In other words, our job of learning new things is never done. The minute you close yourself off and think you know everything there is to know you’ll end up falling behind. So read every book you can get your hands on and listen to a podcast or two on your way to work.

¬ Understand the Difference Between Goals, Strategies, and Tactics

Goals, strategies, and tactics go hand in hand when it comes to marketing, so, it’s easy to confuse them with each other. However, being able to tell the distinction between the three is going to ensure you don’t get tripped up on one of them during your marketing process. Goals are the objectives that have been set by your marketing team that you need to meet by the end of a specified time period. Marketing strategy is an organized plan that are composed of different tactics that outline how to reach your goals. Your tactics, on the other hand, are the steps that you take to help you achieve your goals.

Research Everything

Marketing research helps to see what everyone else is doing. Successful marketers can research current trends and strategies, and figure out which ones would work best for their company. There’s always new information out there for marketers to research and gather. Whether that be case studies, academic research reports, or white papers, there are thousands of sources out there just waiting to inspire your next great idea and researching can open new paths or market ideas to work on.
Openness To Trying New Things
One more basic skill that should be in a marketer’s mind is an openness to try new things. Part of marketing involves simply testing these new things to see if they’re going to work. You’ll never know if something is going to work or not unless you try. Who knows, maybe your next great marketing tactic is the one you haven’t tried yet. It can be a new marketing strategy or doing research for a new product.

¬ Know-How to Collaborate Across Multiple Teams

A marketer should have leadership qualities. Your marketing team doesn’t exist in a vacuum where it’s you vs. everyone else in your company. You need to be able to collaborate across multiple teams to complete your projects, marketing research, etc. This could mean working with developers, your video team, your product team, and more. All of that cross-team collaboration means you need to know how to manage and communicate, so, everyone who is involved in one project is always on the same page.

¬ Be An Active Listener

We all know that one person in our lives who is just waiting for their chance to speak in a conversation. What you’re saying is mostly going in one ear and out the other. As a marketer, you cannot afford to passively ignore your customers or your co-workers. This is why being an active listener is an essential skill any marketer who knows his job knows how to do it. Actively listening to the people around you mean that you can find out the messages they need to hear. Doing this can help you perfect your campaigns and hopefully convert more people into paying customers.

Storytelling

There seems to be a general belief that marketing has always been about storytelling – which marketers have always identified as natural storytellers. But that may not be the case. LinkedIn found that just seven years ago the number of marketers listing “storytelling” on their profile as a skill was obsolete. It didn’t exist in the least as a respected marketing discipline. Today, 7 to 8 percent of all marketers on LinkedIn worldwide identify themselves as storytellers who supported their profile descriptions and list of skills.

Marketing is vital because it allows businesses to keep up long-lasting and ever-present relationships with their audience. It is not a one-time fix, it's an ongoing strategy that helps businesses flourish. It engages: Customer engagement is that the heart of any successful business Once you know what skills are required to make a good marketer you will be able to have strong overall communication skills, a solid grasp over analytics, and especially the ability to understand buyer needs and sales process. While working in a market a person can easily make marketing network to work on, a marketer need to have an ability to tell a story to sell a product along with all these marketing skills help in building critical thinking and problem-solving skills helping when a customer throws a curveball to catch it at the end of the day.

~ By Inboxharleen for Young Engine