No field is evolving more rapidly than marketing. To navigate the change effectively, marketers need to update their skills. To better understand the skills that senior marketers need to acquire, I turned to Kristin Kelley, CMO of staffing firm Randstad North America. Below are her thoughts.
Skills That Senior Marketers Need to Acquire Now
“The modern marketing role varies significantly. Given that, required skills really depend on the company and individual. But in general, there are a few specific skills that senior marketers to need to make sure they have in order to stay competitive in the field. These include both soft and hard skills.
1. Soft Skills:
- Curiosity: Marketers need to be naturally curious and inquisitive about the outcomes of their work and how their work plays out in the larger organization or how it aligns to company goals and objectives.
- Teamwork: Effective communication and collaboration is essential as the marketing team of today now needs to work with so many other teams (like finance and IT) to ensure both fiscal responsibility on projects as well as continued digital innovation in marketing.
2. Hard Skills
- Finance experience: Today’s marketers should understand how to calculate an ROI and understand what is on a P&L. This is easy to learn – just search for it online and there are a number of useful descriptions.
- Quantitative Analysis. This is a critical area in which the role of the data scientist is very helpful. However, senior marketers without a data science background can start trying to think more like a data scientist – and that means thinking creatively and outside-of-the-box. They need to have a total grasp of data—being able to derive insights and not just collect data. This is an area that will require them to go back to school to learn contemporary statistics and the tools that can enable them to make better decisions.
- Customer Experience: UX/UI experience is important to better understand the voice of the customer and incorporate a customer-centric approach to decision making.
- Storytelling/Writing Capabilities: Much emphasis is placed on being able to create stories that connect with consumers. Equally important is the ability to connect with the CEO, C-suite, Board, and employees. Storytelling is as important in driving internal commitment and alignment as it is in engaging consumers.”
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