Top Marketing Skills
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What Are Marketing Skills?
Marketing is the process of promoting and selling products or services. There are certain invaluable skill sets that have incredible potential to persuade, sell and build lasting customer relationships.
The skills you possess in marketing can boost your confidence, help you sell yourself, and turn you into a more in-demand professional.
Why marketing skills are important
Marketing is the heart and soul of successful companies. It’s the strategy that drives a business to grow and prosper.
Marketing skills help cultivate deep, meaningful relationships with customers. Instead of just focusing on short-term results, marketing skills help win customers for the long haul by ensuring long-term brand affinity and loyalty.
Marketing also builds a company’s reputation. By focusing on consumer needs, it aims to sell products and services that offer a positive solution.
Strategic marketing is essential to growing a business. With the right tactics, marketing skills boost product sales and increase profit.
Types of Marketing Skills
A successful career in marketing requires a mix of hard skills. Let’s look at the top in-demand marketing skills that are valuable to employers across all industries:
SEO
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a marketing tool to attract search engines. It optimizes your content in a way that it will show up when someone is searching for the information.
In order to do so, SEO uses keyword research. This is the process of finding and analyzing terms that people enter into search engines. The goal is to use that data to understand consumers, often for search engine optimization or general marketing. By implementing SEO correctly, you could build an incredible flow of traffic toward your website.
Data analysis
Data analysis is a technique used to collect all the available information regarding a specific market to create an effective marketing plan. It takes into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of the company to measure its progress and results.
WordPress
Marketers create written information that includes keywords that can trigger search engine optimization. WordPress is a blogging tool used to strategically place content marketing on websites and digital platforms.
Google Ads
Google Ads is a powerful tool. It’s a paid advertising platform offered by Google so that your products or services appear in the consumer’s top search results.
Blogging for SEO
Marketers write blog posts with strategic keywords that position the products or services in search engines. If done correctly, it can skyrocket your traffic more than any paid campaign ever will. It uses SEO tactics to give you more opportunities to rank in search engines and make your site more appealing to visitors.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing creates content for platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and YouTube to connect with a targeted audience. The strategy is to engage and interact with followers, analyzing your results, and running social media advertisements. This creates brand awareness to increase sales and drive website traffic.
Digital media
Digital marketing refers to advertising through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. It’s goal is to promote brands and connect with potential customers to build brand awareness.
UX/UI design
UI or user interface are the online tools needed in order to read the text or view images. This includes buttons, screen transitions, interface animations and any sort of visual element that has to be designed so the user can navigate.
Graphic design
Graphic design creates visual elements including text and art to connect with the consumer. These design elements promote and sell products through advertising to help businesses develop an identity for their brand.
Now that we have discussed the important hard skills in marketing let’s keep in mind that soft skills are equally important. Soft skills are the character traits that inspire trust and show that you are reliable.
While certifications and training look great on a resume, soft skills are also important to differentiate yourself from competing candidates like the willingness to listen and the ability to multitask impact how you work and interact with others. In marketing, soft skills such as leadership and communication are truly essential.
Overall, marketing skills are valuable for professionals in any field. They strengthen your thinking strategy and engagement. Whether you work in a post office or at a doctor’s office, understanding how to communicate effectively with different people is crucial in the workplace.
How to Showcase Marketing Skills
You can impress recruiters by strategically placing key marketing skills throughout your resume, cover letter and during interviews.
It’s important to tailor your resume according to the position for which you are applying.
The first step is to review the job description carefully to identify the qualities and skills you emphasize on your resume. Select the skills and qualifications that align with your knowledge and abilities.
Here are the top keywords employers use in a marketing job description
- Sales and marketing
- Business administration
- Marketing strategy
- Account development
- Market segmentation
- Field marketing
- Marketing planning
- Social media
- Promotional skills
Now you are ready to tailor your resume and cover letter with targeted keywords and the required experience.
How to showcase marketing skills in your resume
Skills section
The best way to show off your marketing skills is to create a dedicated skills section on your resume that targets your most valuable skill sets. Your skills section should include a mix of six to eight hard and soft skills, listed in a bulleted format.
Keep in mind that hard skills are abilities that we learn and can be industry-specific, while soft skills are those that define your personal traits. Here’s an example of the top hard and soft marketing skills that you can showcase in your skills section:
Hard skills:
- Email campaigns
- Content writing
- Search engine optimization
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Social media management
Soft skills:
- Creativity
- Communication
- Interpersonal skills
- Problem-solving
- Researching
- Negotiation
- Time management
Remember, the closer you match your skills to the job description, the better your chances of being selected for an interview. For more expert tips on how to optimize your skills section, check out our 3 Simple Steps to a Stellar Resume Skills Section.
Work experience
Ideally, you should have skills in your work experience section as well. When elaborating on your work experience, use your skills to describe how you reached your accomplishments.
Example:
Designed and implemented a social media campaign that included close captioning for the deaf community. As a result, this increased interaction by 80% and included diversity in our brand awareness.
Your professional experience section will vary depending on how many years you’ve been working and the resume format you choose. JobHero offers a complete guide on How to Write a Resume, or to create an interview-winning resume in just minutes, simply follow the prompts in our Resume Builder.
How to showcase marketing skills in your cover letter
A cover letter is the opportunity to quickly lead hiring managers to your top credentials. Like a great resume, a well-crafted cover letter can help you sell yourself to an employer.
Show highlights of your career path and use your exceptional marketing skills to provide in-depth examples about your experiences and the value you can bring to the company. This will not only show that you have experience, but it will demonstrate that you can get the job done.
Express how eager you are about the job and write a couple of paragraphs to connect your past achievements with the requirements listed in the job description. This will keep your letter relevant and show why your background and experiences make you a great fit for the new role.
Marketing skills have the power to persuade, and that's exactly what you're trying to do. Write a compelling paragraph with the top reasons why you're worthy of a job interview.
Tell a little bit of a story about yourself that brings to life the details in a way that speaks directly to the employer's needs!
Here is a good example of how to show off your marketing skills in your cover letter:
You mentioned in the job post that you are looking for a digital marketing manager. At Total Health Care, I was responsible for similar projects, from developing the pricing strategies to maximizing the return on investment. I was also responsible for overseeing and coordinating product development and marketing trends. During my time there, I increased sales by 13% through targeted marketing strategies and successfully optimized their marketing budget with an additional 10%.
Always submit a cover letter to go along with your resume. This will distinguish you as a serious candidate and set you apart from the rest.
You can impress hiring managers with a strong cover letter. Try our Cover Letter Builder to create a customized and professional letter in just minutes!
How to showcase marketing skills during your interview
Before your interview, you need to know as much as you can about the company. Review the company’s mission statement and core values.
To showcase your marketing skills, you should be ready to speak about marketing and strategy. To do so, look up the company’s revenues, annual data reports, target audience, competitors and any new products or services.
Be prepared to provide real examples of your written work or past achievements that showcase your marketing skill sets. Numbers don't lie and can be convincing to get the job. Instead of saying what you can do for their brand, prove it with measurable results. For entry-level positions, you can emphasize on soft skills such as your level of communication, problem-solving and creativity.
Remember to show confidence. Even if you're nervous, if you prepare yourself, do enough research on the company, and focus on what you can do to help them, you will have the confidence you need to dominate the interview.
Not sure what questions you may be facing? Check out JobHero’s most commonly asked interview questions.
How to Improve Marketing Skill
Your career development depends on you. To avoid a stagnant career, there are several measures you can take to continue to flourish and feel excited about your work.
Keep up with industry trends
Marketing is a hectic and fast-paced career. It relies on ever-changing trends and digital tools, such as data analytics, to understand and respond to each customer’s unique needs.
Learning is a never-ending process.There’s always new ways to create fresh content and use innovative technology to generate more leads and invent new ways to advertise.
Be on a constant quest to find the latest technology trends and tools that enable marketers to better predict customer behavior. This includes data analytics, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. Implementing these tools is essential for marketing success.
Some of the marketing tools that you can use include: web forms, popup forms, and live chat software for lead capture and email marketing campaigns.
Grow your strategy
Many institutes offer short online courses that you can take to continue your education. Harvard Business School online discusses the importance of adding strategy to your career and offers several courses to unlock your greatest potential.
Here are some ideas of digital marketing courses to boost your marketing skills:
- Google Online Marketing Challenge
- Inbound Marketing
- Global Business
- Strategy Execution
- Sustainable Business Strategy
- Advanced Analytics by Google Analytics Academy
- Marketing Measurement Strategy
Polishing up your skills inspires trust and loyalty and allows you to deliver high-quality work.
