There are a number of qualities and skills you need to be an effective marketer. Marketing requires far more than a degree and an outgoing personality (although both of these are essential!).
There are certain attitudes and personal attributes that make great marketers. Whether you are looking for the perfect marketing person for your team, or you are a marketing professional hoping to improve your skills, here are the seven habits that set apart the truly great marketers:
Good strategic skills
Marketing is not a hit and miss activity. To be effective, marketing has to be approached strategically. Really great marketers recognise this, and hone their strategic and planning skills to ensure their campaigns work and bring measurable results.
Great communicators
Marketing is all about communication. Good marketers are able to communicate to a number of different target audiences across a wide range of different platforms.
The ability to work in a team
Marketing does not exist in isolation from other parts of a business. It is important that marketing employees are able to work closely with sales staff and customer service staff, as well as management.
Passion
Enthusiasm is contagious, and to be truly effective in any field, people need to be passionate about what they do. As so much of marketing depends on getting other people interested in a product or service, being passionate about it is essential.
Keeping up-to-date
Staying current with current industry developments and working on self-improvement can help keep things fresh, and stop them getting stale or stuck in a rut. Marketing is an industry where marketers need to stay ahead of the latest trends, or risk getting left behind.
Great people skills
Marketers deal with people from all walks of life, and without the ability to get on with people and put them at ease, marketing anything is a lot more difficult. Marketing is all about persuading people to see a point of view; so great people skills are essential.
Being competent
The effectiveness or otherwise of any marketing campaign can be measured through increased conversions, leads, or any other measure. Ultimately, to be an effective marketer, training and wide experience in marketing is required, as is the ability to use both these things to produce measurable results.
Effective marketing relies on a number of different elements. The best marketers have all seven attributes, and they put them to good use in their work.
Whether you are looking to find the perfect marketing person for your business, or you want to improve your own marketing performance, using these seven attributes as a guide can help you get better results.
