What skills are most in demand among MARKETING employees?

30 May 2019

The mix of skills that marketers need to effectively perform their jobs changes constantly as a result of innovations and market challenges. Marketers need to continuously expand their expertise in a variety of areas to meet the demands and complexity of work assignments and requirements. To remain attractive in the eyes of future employers, they need to be skilled in digital marketing and know how to work with individual digital channels. Another sought-after skill is expertise and experience with project management. A good marketer should know the sales patterns, have a sense for business and have excellent communication prerequisites. Good marketers should also continue to expand their skills, especially in the field of the psychology of human decision-making and behavioural economics.

This is based on the international Paylab Data Research, which investigated the most critical essentials for marketing specialists to remain relevant on the job market. The targeted survey was conducted in April 2019 and participants included 631 specialists in sales, marketing, PR, advertising and management in 5 Central European countries. The results of the survey were presented at a marketing conference in Portorož, Slovenia, on 29 May 2019. Data was collected in Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia and the questionnaire was developed in collaboration with the Slovenian Marketing Association and media group Styria.com.

According to the Paylab portal, marketing personnel enjoy above-average earnings compared to the salaries in the individual countries. The average salary for marketers in Slovenia is € 1910.

Digital marketing and digital channels

Marketing and other progressive sectors must constantly follow trends in technology and consumer behaviour. The survey determined that the specific areas of marketing and communications that marketers need to master to be attractive to employers are digital channels and digital marketing.

While marketing, PR and advertising specialists see digital marketing as the highest priority, it is critical for management that a marketer be able to properly set up the overall marketing strategy and sales specialists most often noted the need to properly align the communication mix - the 4 Ps (Product, Price, Place and Promotion). Other important areas included branding, target group definition and market research. Other areas of marketing, including User Experience, Social Media Management, Event Management, Copyrighting and Media ranked lower in the overall rankings and are seen more as supporting areas.

Project management skills

Given that marketing specialists promote brands, products and services that continuously evolve and improve, managing a team of people within internal processes is often the end result. Many future employers therefore demand that marketers have project management skills, as marketing assignments are often resolved as a project. Such projects have their own defined phases and patterns. The top choice among work process skills marketers are expected to have in order to be an attractive choice for an employer was project management, which was reported by 38 per cent of respondents.

The respondents also highlighted business development among other work and process priorities, which is defined as new approaches to existing or new business models (30 per cent). Understanding the natural patterns and the inner workings of individual business models was seen as a necessary skill, especially among professionals with more than 5 years of experience. Public speaking/presenting (25 per cent) were among the other skills that a good marketer was expected to have

A good marketer should have a sense for business

Marketing is understood as sales support, and therefore having a sense for business and business thinking is ranked as the most important among complementary skills. The survey showed that this skill was clearly key in the countries in which the survey was conducted. 40 per cent of the respondents highlighted it as a priority for marketers.

An overview of the fields of psychology and product development is among the other necessary complementary skills that predestine marketers to better opportunities.

Marketing, PR and advertising specialists, compared to sales specialists and managers, highlighted knowledge of design and the ability to evaluate data from statistics and analytics.

Good communication skills are a necessity for marketers

Marketing is a dynamic industry and the personal prerequisites and qualifications of individual candidates are taken into consideration along with specialisation and education. While the industry itself is relatively young, all generations of employees are found at the workplace.

The survey showed that communication was clearly the top soft skill that a good marketer should have mastered within their field. Good communication skills are often a key condition in hiring processes for work in marketing. Up to 37 per cent of the respondents in the survey indicated that this was the most important prerequisite for marketers to succeed in their future career.

Other important soft skills include teamwork, which was preferred primarily among specialists in marketing and sales. Managers placed a bit greater weight on leadership skills.

What tools should a future marketer know how to use?

Marketers use various programs and tools in their work. The ability to work with MS Excel is still considered fundamental. It is used for reports, analysis and analytics that marketers have to complete within their work. Another necessary tool is MS PowerPoint, as presentations are a natural part of the marketer's job, both in internal and external communication. MS Word closes out this triumvirate of the most essential tools. The top 10 most important tools also include Google analytics, E-mail clients, Facebook Ads Manager, Google Ads Manager, Adobe Photoshop, CRMs and Adobe InDesign.

Marketers and expanding education

Continuing education is a matter of course for marketing specialists to keep up with the times and the latest trends.

In the survey, we asked about the key areas that they believed marketers would have to master and improve upon in the future. The top ranking answer is the psychology of human decision-making in connection with behavioural economics and the intensive development of soft skills. Product development, design thinking and project/service design were other important parts of continuing education. These areas were identified by strategic specialists working for small, medium and large enterprises.