Marketing is an art and a science; marketers’ most valuable skills are both creative and analytical, as well as interpersonal and technical, but knowing which marketing skills to prioritise can be challenging. Here’s Salt’s expert take on the most in-demand marketing skills for 2024 and recommendations for how to showcase them from our specialist marketing recruitment experts worldwide.
The skills you need to succeed in your marketing career depend on your level and role within a marketing team, but an important distinction to make is between generalist and specialist marketing skills.
They’re versatile and valuable in many situations. From communication to stakeholder management, generalist skills are helpful across different marketing roles. They’re also crucial for senior marketers or leaders who need to effectively understand and leverage the talents in their team to drive results.
Each tool has different functions and helps perform different tasks, but they all have a role to play to achieve a marketing team’s overall success. For example, marketing event managers will need distinct skills to plan events, just as campaign managers will need distinct but different skills to optimise paid content across different platforms.
Whether you’re a generalist or a specialist, how effective an organisation’s marketing is depends on your work’s impact on your audiences. Additionally, much like any function within a business, marketing doesn’t happen in a silo. It requires close cross-functional collaboration and partnerships with leadership, which is why strong human skills are a high priority for employers hiring marketing talent in any role or industry. We’ve listed a few in-demand human skills our clients hire for time and again.
The six most valuable human skills for marketing
Creativity is an essential skill for marketers, regardless of role. It’s crucial for generating new ideas and innovative solutions to potential roadblocks. Whether you’re a copywriter producing content or a CRM marketer re-engaging your lapsed client mailing list, developing a strong creative sensibility will benefit your career and empower you to design and develop new approaches for connecting with your audiences.
“In my experience, employers are looking for five key attributes in marketing hires: collaboration, communication, creativity, commerciality, and transparency! These skills might be hard to demonstrate, but testimonials and endorsements from clients and colleagues are a great way to do this. Remember, for lots of the achievements you’re listing; you needed these skills to see success!”
Lizzie Harding
Practice Director, Sales for Salt UK and Europe
Marketers must develop savvy campaigns that drive customers to act. But these campaigns don’t happen by accident; interrupting biases, challenging assumptions, and understanding the nuances of the market are critical to producing successful campaigns. Whether you’re conducting qualitative or quantitative research, using social media listening tools to inform your social strategy, or checking out competitors for inspiration, knowing the value of research and embracing a growth mindset is key.
Crafting a compelling narrative breathes life into a marketing campaign. While marketing roles differ, storytelling is a strength that can elevate many marketing roles. Excellent communication skills are vital for marketers’ interactions with their audiences, team members, and stakeholders. Clear and efficient communication skills will also help you obtain buy-in for projects, manage objections or conflict, and prevent problems that may slow future progress.
Listening skills are a critical part of communication, and active listening goes beyond simply hearing the words another person is speaking to help you understand your internal and external customers on a deeper level.
“Having good emotional intelligence (EQ) is top of the list for marketing hires; you need to be able to read the room, listen to your team, build relationships with empathy, and possess self-awareness. Good communication and understanding are key to a harmonious, efficient workplace.”
Brian White
Principal Consultant, Marketing for Salt New Zealand
Project management skills are crucial for marketers as they juggle demands across a spectrum of needs. Good project management in marketing ensures you can effectively coordinate multiple tasks. By mastering project management, you can manage resources, adapt to changes, and deliver campaigns effectively - on time and within budget. These outcomes will make you incredibly valuable to prospective employers in the job market.
“Project management is a key skill critical to several marketing specialisations, and having excellent project management skills will endear you to any employer. Additionally, it doesn’t matter what type of business you’re working for; it’s pivotal that you engage and communicate effectively with internal and external stakeholders.”
Tim Bradley
Practice Director, Marketing for Salt UK and Europe
As a great marketer, you should constantly evaluate your campaigns’ performance to identify how to reach your target audiences effectively. Developing analytical and critical thinking skills enables you to find learnings in disappointing results to ensure your next campaign better meets the needs of your audience and the challenges of your marketplace. Critical thinking also allows you to see the bigger picture and identify trends that could elevate your marketing strategy or optimise your work as a team and organisation.
Innovation in marketing sets you apart from the competition. It means you embrace change as an opportunity, think creatively, and bring fresh ideas and solutions. It’s a crucial marketing skill that allows you to adapt to the ever-changing consumer landscape and ensures your marketing strategies remain relevant and effective. Demonstrating an aptitude for innovation means demonstrating your ability to drive growth and success in changing circumstances.
“Innovative thinking and adaptability and flexibility are critical for employers hiring marketers, particularly in start-ups and smaller businesses. In these environments, working things out and achieving despite challenging circumstances is so valuable.”
Will King
National consultant, Marketing for Salt Australia
Developing a good balance of creative and technical marketing skills will help elevate your career from satisfactory to cutting-edge this year. Our expert marketing recruiters have identified the top four marketing skills that are increasingly valuable in today’s job market and shared some advice on showcasing your mastery of these skills.
Top 4 creative and technical marketing skills trending in 2024:
Nearly 60% of marketing leaders prioritise candidates with analytics experience, regardless of the marketing role they’re applying for. Learning to identify patterns in behaviours or results and communicate these findings in a clear and actionable way makes the difference between a good marketer and a great one. Showcase your data analysis and decision-making skills in job applications by detailing past experiences where data-led insights were actioned upon to drive success.
Marketing builds brands that excite people by being visible, memorable, and trusted. Depending on your specialisation, showcasing your ability to increase brand visibility and reach could take many forms. In your applications and interviews, outline how your work has directly increased brand awareness by citing performance metrics such as impressions, engagement, footfall and visits, follower increases, and sales.
Marketing is about generating unique ideas and executing them in style. However, optimising strategies for agility and innovating while achieving business objectives is a commercial skill that bridges creative and analytical roles. Creative marketers understand that innovation and experimentation keep organisations competitive. Showcasing your ability to identify and adapt to market changes will demonstrate your agility. So, too, will discussing when you have had to respond proactively and positively to constructive feedback from internal stakeholders or negative sentiment from external audiences.
Whether you’re a marketing specialist or generalist, marketing strategies share one common thread: your audience. To showcase your understanding of the importance of identifying and targeting your audience, demonstrate when you have successfully implemented a strategy that’s resulted in a strong connection with your target audience. Be specific about your tools and techniques and use success metrics to clearly show impact.
Effective marketing is eye-catching and memorable; a creative idea must be strategically sound and well-executed to attract, engage, and nurture audiences online and offline. Our clients seek talented marketers who can seamlessly merge artistic flare with technical precision.
When applying for a marketing role, choosing the right marketing skills to highlight on your CV is essential. Some skills will be in demand industry-wide, and some will likely be specific to the role. Demonstrating both skill sets will showcase your versatility and adaptability and help prospective employers realise all you can bring to their team and organisation.
Consider how best to showcase your work. Many marketing roles, especially creative roles, will require an online portfolio. Content marketers should keep a directory of articles, including reach and engagement. Digital marketers should keep screengrabs of online campaigns, along with ROI metrics. Your CV and LinkedIn profile are also great places to showcase media links and posts showcasing your work.
In interviews, be ready to talk about how you keep up to date with current marketing trends and tech. Candidates with a growth mindset who are motivated to upskill themselves are incredibly valuable in the rapidly changing digital space. Share your knowledge of different marketing platforms, how you use data to direct your activities, and how you can adopt and test new digital marketing methods.
If you’d like more tips to help you stand out, we share additional advice and guidance in this guide to marketing yourself for your next marketing role!
Our team at Salt are specialists in every aspect of digital recruitment. We partner with our clients to place the best individual talent and create some of the most exciting digital teams globally. Our expert recruitment consultants are on the front line of seeing and experiencing the evolution of the talent landscape - to shape your future with Salt, get in touch with us! You can also upload your CV, search for jobs, or stay in the loop by following us on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook.