It’s not easy being a marketer today. Marketing is an ever-changing industry, and to be successful today, marketers must possess a diverse skill set, everything from writing to editing, analytics, social media and even graphic design. So what skills will you need to know to keep up with this ever-evolving field? And what killer skills will be in high demand to help you succeed and stand out in 2017?
Venngage analyzed 100 unique skills from over 436,000 marketing professionals on LinkedIn, and compared that to what skills marketing directors want in 2016 and beyond. What they’ve found is that there is a huge skills gap, especially in the technical skills like Data Analysis and HTML. And these are the 3 skills Venngage recommends that all marketers should focus on learning next year:
1. HTML
We’ll start with an old friend and something that made this internet revolution possible, HTML. Now do not freak out, this doesn’t mean you need to know how to build a full website from scratch. It’s important for marketers to be familiar but not an expert in HTML. You should be able to know enough about it that it does not mess up your daily workflow.
And according to their research, marketing managers appear to agree with this. HTML was one of the most demanded skills when they studied the job postings, with around 20% of all the marketing jobs in the sample wanting HTML as a skill. Also, unsurprisingly it was highly demanded in entry and mid level jobs, and less so with the higher level jobs.
And for keeners, the best part is that there is a massive shortage of HTML skilled marketers. There were only about 3% of the 430k marketers having HTML skills. That means that the demand is about 7 times more than the supply!
That may seem like a problem to some, but it’s a great opportunity especially for someone looking to stand out as a marketer! Plus, HTML is one of those skills that you can learn in a few months, but will benefit for years to come. There are many ways you can get started with learning HTML, and one of the resources Venngage recommends is the classes from Codecademy.
2. Marketing Automation
Marketing technologies are helping marketers to automate and manage their work more efficiently, while optimizing their efforts and improving their performance. That may explain why the martech space is growing at such a huge rate in the last few years.
The marketing tech business is worth about $20 billion a year, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime. Especially after only one year the companies in the space doubled to almost 2,000 firms.
According to Venngage, that leads us to two of the most popular marketing technologies, Salesforce and Marketo. Both were demanded across job levels but again were undersupplied. Although Salesforce was the most supplied skill in marketing tech, that was still only half of the demand.
Marketo had it much worse, the supply was so low it did not actually not make in the top 100 skills data set. The demand was closer to 0% than 1%, which is never good.
Which puts us in another skill shortage, and another opportunity. Those are some of the more popular tools but like we saw above there are thousands of others. Venngage recommends marketers to become more familiar with the tools in their particular niche sooner than later.
For example, if you’re in an email marketing role, knowledge of tools like MailChimp is a must-have, and it never hurts to learn other tools like Hubspot.
And martech companies like Salesforce, Marketo and Hubspot have free certification course that could really help you stand out from the crowd. Marketing tech and automation is not going away, learn it before others catch on.
3. Data Analysis
It is so easy to collect data right now that companies are left with mountains of it to go through. They collect data on almost anything, so later on they can use it to hopefully make the right decisions. Especially in the marketing industry where we literally track every visitor, view and share.
That is why so many marketing managers want employees who are skilled in data analysis. In their study, Venngage found that in about 45% of all job posts they looked at, data analysis was a demanded skill. It was one of the most demanded skills they saw in the entire study.
But just like with HTML and marketing automation, there is a massive undersupply of marketers with data skills. This shortage was also the biggest of the entire study, with only 3% of marketers being competent. The demand of marketers with data skills was about 14 times more than the supply!
It would be safe to say that data knowledge is now required in every facet of marketing. It is an encompassing skill that a content producer, writer or SEO analyst will need in their everyday work. Want to become a data wiz? Venngage recommends starting with a place like Coursera.
You can learn more about Venngage’s study here.
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Great post to read… Thanks for sharing.