Top 10 Skills of a Marketing Manager

Marketing managers develop and monitor campaigns and policies for companies, products, and services. These skills make them able to identify the audience for a product or service and persuade them to engage with the brand. They also have the responsibility of assembling and developing a company's marketing team to build the company's brand steadily. If you're interested in becoming a marketing manager, it's important for you to understand which skills and qualifications you need to succeed in the role.

In this article, we describe what a marketing manager is, the top 10 skills you need, and some training and certifications you can get to excel in this role.

What is a marketing manager?

A marketing manager is an executive responsible for ensuring that a company's brand, product, services, or ideas appeal to the target audience. They manage a team of marketers to cover traditional and digital forms of media and launch campaigns. They're tasked with the responsibility of using various marketing techniques to raise the awareness of a company's brand. Therefore, they need a great work ethic and experience in a managerial role. Marketing managers report to the company's chief marketing officer.

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Here are some of the key duties and responsibilities of a marketing manager:

Assemble a marketing team

If you want to become a marketing manager, you need to set up a functional marketing team to fulfil the company's marketing responsibilities. Doing this effectively requires you to hire, monitor, and develop marketing talent. You should be able to point out the required skills specific to your organization's niche to be an effective marketing manager.

Develop marketing strategies

As a marketing manager, you need to define the business goals, mission, and vision of your company and take steps to achieve them. It's highly important that you work with key stakeholders in your company to structure how the public perceives your brand. You will probably work with the managing director or other executives to discuss strategies and achieve company goals.

Market research and analysis

It's your responsibility as a marketing manager to examine and study a target audience or market segment. This provides insight into how your company's products, services, and ideas can provide value to potential buyers. Market research and market analysis will make you better understand how you can best position your company in any market. You also need to process raw data to gain actionable insights, research sales, and distribution channels within the market.

Monitor marketing budget and track KPIs

A marketing manager directs and guides marketing decisions with budgetary analysis. This implies that you would decide how much budget to allocate to raising brand awareness and marketing a product or service through a specific channel, strategy, or tactic. To ensure productivity, you also monitor the progress of the strategy until it's successful.

Oversee marketing campaigns

Before you launch any marketing campaign, you need to outline the key objectives, devise the best means of achieving those objectives and monitor the process of achieving those objectives.

Overseeing marketing campaigns requires strong attention to detail and the ability to track and measure effort with Key performance indicators/indexes as marketing processes advance.Content

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Top 10 skills for a marketing manager

You need the following skills to be successful and thrive in a career as a marketing manager:

1. Customer-focused thinking

Understanding a target market's needs and wants is crucial for this role. You need to know how they perceive your brand and what strategies you can use to encourage new customers. It also helps with brand loyalty and repeat business. You should be able to make decisions based on the customer's interests and get them excited about your products or services.

2. Communication skills

As a marketing manager, you will work with and manage a team of other marketers to achieve the marketing goals of the company. Therefore, you need to be able to convey your visions, ideas, and strategies to these teams. Strong communication skills are an essential part of ensuring a team works cohesively towards a shared goal.

Effective communication skills require active listening and the ability to understand the perspective of others. You also require strong written and verbal communication skills to be a marketing manager. You may need to write press releases or write copy for marketing materials, which requires effective communication.

3. Project management skills

A marketing manager needs leadership abilities and excellent project management skills to lead their team. This is because the role requires managing campaigns and strategies, which requires buy-in from team members. Some aspects of project management include organizational skills and experience using scheduling and project management software like Microsoft Project. Marketing managers also need to lead by example and inspire their teams.

You should have the requisite expertise to plan, manage, and execute projects related to marketing campaigns. You'll need strong attention to detail, budgeting experience, and the ability to meet deadlines.

4. Budgeting

Budgeting skills determine the amount to be spent on marketing for a company within a specified period. Knowledge of basic finance helps monitor hiring costs, payment for promotions, advertisements, and more project elements.

5. Creativity

You need creative skills as a marketing manager to come up with fresh ways to engage with existing and potential customers. You'll need to manage the design and production of marketing materials like campaign visuals meant for television, internet advertisements, or social media. Furthermore, you'll need to come up with different sales and distribution channels to boost and grow the business.

6. Talent acquisition and development

A marketing manager needs to be very skilled in talent acquisition and development to assemble and develop the right marketing team equipped to fulfil a company's marketing goals. Effectively carrying out this duty requires you to identify the right individuals for specific roles through profiling and effective interview processes. You also need to guide these talents and promote them to higher roles as they grow and develop with time.

7. Salesperson skills

Salespeople skills refer to the different ways to sell and promote your company's commercial product. While marketing and sales processes may differ slightly, it is highly imperative to have a sales-focused approach to marketing, as that is often the motive behind marketing.

You'll need to innovate ways to infuse marketing into the sales process to turn customers into promoters and automate the process.

8. Technology skills

In this modern age and time, most customers spend a lot of time on mobile devices, the internet, and social networks. Therefore, any marketing endeavour should be able to match up with the current user and customer behaviours. You should have adequate skills to move your company's marketing efforts online as this is where most of your customers are.

This includes managing social media campaigns across several channels, email campaigns, online advertising, and staying up to date with trends in technology.

9. Leadership skills

Marketing managers are in senior leadership positions. You should be able to do what it takes to direct the affairs of others to achieve the company's set goals and objectives.

Achieving this feat requires you to have proven active listening and delegation skills, empathy, and flexibility. You should also have the ability to take initiative, call others to action, think of creative solutions to problems and implement them as well.

10. Networking and interpersonal skills

The marketing needs of a company are just as dynamic as customer behaviours and preferences. Attending industry networking events and building strong working relationships with other like-minded professionals has several benefits. It opens up opportunities for collaboration and keeps you up to date on the latest industry trends.

Strong interpersonal skills help to establish the right rapport with individuals on your marketing team, other executives, and major influencers for the benefit of the company's marketing goals.

Read more: The Most Important Digital Marketing Skills for Your Resume

Training and certifications that can help you become a better marketing manager

Becoming a marketing manager requires both formal or professional education and on-the-job experience. The following are training and certifications that can help you become a better marketing manager:

On-the-job training

As you take on more advanced marketing roles, you'll learn new skills and gather experiences invaluable to your career development. Also, you will be exposed to certain courses and training at some workplaces to help you discharge your duties effectively.

Professional marketing certifications

Having professional marketing certifications gives you the theoretical basis for most marketing strategies and approaches. While they do not equal to success as a marketing manager, they often provide the confidence someone just starting might need to have a strong start.

Marketing manager membership, diploma, and degree programs

The following programs can help you prepare for work as a marketing manager:

• CIM Marketing leadership programme

• Certified marketing professional (CMKP)

• Canadian marketing association certificate course

• Membership with the Chartered Institute of Marketing Management of Ontario (CIMMO)

• University degree or college diploma in business administration

Please note that none of the companies, institutions, or organizations mentioned in this article are affiliated with Indeed.