8 Essential Marketing Skills to Build to Your Resume in 2016

By Brittany Laeger Tuesday, 5th April 2016

In the world of modern marketing, it's essential to stay on top of the latest and greatest technologies and in order to be an effective marketer, you need to constantly be reinventing yourself — just like the market. As a marketing agency, we are always looking for the best talent to help us drive business results for our clients. It's so important for marketers to continue to add to their toolbox and become well-rounded consultants who understand what's possible in the current marketing landscape! Here are 8 essential marketing skills that we look for when hiring new people to join our team. 1. Content Marketing As an inbound marketing agency, we are strong believers that content drives consumers' buying decisions. They are well-informed and have constant access to the internet to influence their buying decisions. If you aren't familiar with the world of content marketing, we strongly suggest the Hubspot Inbound Certification as a place to start. Spend time understanding how you and the people around you interact with content on the internet. How do 20-year-olds search? What about 50-year-olds? Take note of the difference in how people search for a new products. How is searching for a new computer different than searching for new running shoes? 2. Design Awareness Media is no longer a nice-to-have bonus for companies with large budgets. With access to graphic design tools, mobile cameras, and the largest surge in video consumption yet, it's become increasingly important for companies to have a strong design presence. Not every marketing department is going to have access to a dedicated graphic designer — take time to understand the importance of color, space, imagery, etc.  Having a basic understanding of the visual elements that come into play will not only help you craft better website pages, emails, and blog posts, but it will also aid you in having intelligent conversations with graphic designers that will help you get to the best possible result. If you are a graphic design newbie, Lynda.com offers a series of video courses that will help you brush up on your skills, from graphic design to Adobe Creative Suite photo editing. This is a great resource that will help you polish up your marketing materials and more! 3. Grammar In a world where content is the centerpiece of how consumers get their information, it's critical to have a basic understanding of grammar. If you are not a nerd about words and syntax, there are a ton of resources that can help you get the right checks and balances in place. Install the Grammarly plugin, to check your grammar in emails and documents, and if you really need some extra lessons, subscribe to their blog for great insights and tips on how to improve your grammar! 4. Copywriting Copywriting is about so much more than grammar. As a marketer, the copy you write has the power to compel people to action. Whether or not someone clicks on your blog or registers for your webinar is all based on your ability to convince them that the action is worth their time. This is about so much more than words on a page, it's about understanding the needs, pain points, and buying motivations of your potential customers. 5. Coding (HTML/CSS) With WYSIWYG editors being prevalent in most content management systems, a lot of marketers can get by without knowing any HTML or CSS code. However, a basic understanding of the coding languages can help you identify problems in formatting, change default colors and spacing, or create a new template without having to rely on a dedicated developer. Code Cademy is a great resource to help you understand the basics of coding and then provides a creative playground for you to test what you have learned. The site provides tutorials for everything from basic HTML/CSS to Ruby on Rails, SQL, and other more complex coding languages. Adding these skills to your toolbox can help you understand how to bring your creative visions to fruition online. 6. Conversion Rate Optimization  At it's heart, conversion rate optimization (CRO) is about understanding your visitor's signals. A website's CRO is a customer success metric. If you don't understand how to isolate and identify the pieces that are causing your visitors to pause before converting, then you can't hope to fix it. Unbounce offers "The Smart Marketer's Landing Page Conversion Course," an 11-part course that is hosted by 10 conversion rate experts. This is a great crash course that will introduce you to the power of images, copy, and social proof in helping the conversion process. 7. Storytelling Humans have always been captivated by stories, and as marketers continue to improve their ability to craft flashy marketing language, storytelling can be a huge advantage over the competition. Every client you serve, every happy customer is an opportunity to tell a story. "Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but the stories you tell." - Seth Godin Learning to be a good storyteller is about learning how to identify the amazings that are happening around you all the time. One of the best ways that you can improve your storytelling skills, is just to set a goal of writing something every single day. Start by writing about something you are passionate about, recount an interesting story from your day, maybe even publish your best content on LinkedIn's Pulse tool. 8. PPC PPC is about so much more than Google. From Facebook to LinkedIn, Instagram to Twitter and beyond, there are a lot of ways that companies can spend their advertising dollars online. Each PPC channel offers different advantages and disadvantages, so it's important for marketers to understand the role of each platform and how to get the most out of the marketing budgets that are being spent on these methods. These are just a few of the skills that will help you build your resume and take your marketing to the next level. It's becoming increasingly important for marketer's to have a huge toolbox to be able to draw from at any time. And if you are looking for a marketing job, don't forget to check out our open employment opportunities! About the Author Brittany Laeger is an Account Strategist at StoryTeller Media + Communications. StoryTeller is an inbound marketing agency based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Brittany blogs about marketing strategy, blogging and graphic design. Find her on Twitter @bmiyo. www.storytellermn.com

-->

Happy New Year! 2016

As one year comes to a close, another takes wings.  I don’t have much wisdom to share, although personally for me the year 2015 has been a revelation if nothing else, I have put together some ideas / thoughts for you to ponder over as you step into, yet another new beginning. 

-  Make a list of people you would have loved to spend more time with but could not in 2015.  tell the people on this list that they are on the list and make plans for 2016.

- Think about the plans you did not work on in 2015.  no, wait, I am not asking you to work on them with renewed focus in 2016, what I am suggesting is that you think about why you didn't or could not work on them.  if you were not compelled to work on them in 2015, maybe the plans were not that exciting and mind consuming anyway.

- Make a list of new skills added, new stuff tried, new lessons learnt (and I don't mean life lessons, something real, tangible).  Feel good? brilliant.  do better this new year.  Feel bad? do more this new year.

- Think about your family and friends.  think about how their year went.  Good, bad, ugly, something in the middle?  reflect how you could have made the year better for them.  this year, vow to do just that.

- Last but not the least, think about yourself.  are you a little bit wiser, secure, loving, caring, grounded, ambitious, than last year?  if not, then you know what you need to wish for and if yes, you know what to thank for.

Have a fabulous new year!

-->

The Thing About Focus & Small Goals

Focus.

Go ahead, Focus.

Try again.

It's difficult.  Even if you can do it for a while, it is difficult to sustain it for long stretches of time.  While you should build your ability to focus, one should also recognise the limitation and work around it.

In the world of micro attention span, how do you find the focus you need to deliver, create the successes you have in mind.

The answer is small goals.

Let me tell you a story.  I heard this from my father.

A long time ago, at a wedding, the bride's father said his family hospitality included serving an entire large animal to the wedding party, especially the groom and immediate family. The wedding party beamed, until they were told, they would have to consume the entire animal or else the marriage could not take place.

The groom was in dismay and as many of his family took to angry protests, an old man walked up to the bride's father and said, you shall have a feast and a wedding.  Bring the animal, but place it in the tent over there.  I do not want my family to see it.

He spent 10 minutes in the tent.

He then started sending small portions, pre-plated, with all the accompaniments that he could rustle up.  

The family started eating. One bite, then another.  Bite by bite, bit by bit, the wedding took place.

The animal was eaten, the hospitality proven and the groom's family tested.

The bride's father was a happier man.

Moral?

Many actually, but for the moment it is this 'break it down to small, delicious size pieces and you can eat a horse!'

p.s. no horses were harmed in the writing of this story.

That is the key to goals.

And focus.

Break it down.

Sit for 10 minutes, then 20, then 40, then an hour.  But then, get up, walk around, faff, do something else.  There is no need to create history with you focus.

Similarly, a goal of 1 crore may seem large, but break it down.  50 lacs from A, 30 lacs from B, 20 lacs from C, 10 lacs from D.

50 Lacs from A further down to 20 Lacs from A1, 20 lacs from A2, 6 lacs from A3, 4 lacs from A4.

4 lacs from A4, so 1 lac in Jan, 50K in feb, so on and so forth.

Now, dont tell the team your goal is 1 crore.
Tell them it is A4, B, C etc.

Create your epic stories, fabulous successes, one small delicious bite at a time.

Anything New Out There?

One of the things good bloggers tell you is that you should keep going back to your old posts and see if you can add to them, improve them or take a whole new road starting from them.  Whenever I have tried to do that, it just seems lazy.

Yes, I need to link back to my old articles, or how else am I going to increase the page views and the time spent on the site.  But again, I find that tedious.  I assume you must have read the old articles and just linking them here is not going to add any new value to you.

But maybe I am wrong.  What if, you are in the middle of job search now and not when I wrote XXX.  It would help you now.  What if you wanted to read about a whole new you or realised today that XXX interests you.  Well, then I would end up linking everything here that would be ridiculous.

Old wine, new bottle.  I thought the same way when I started writing about resumes.  I thought, truly there must be nothing I can add to a topic that gets a gazillion links on google search.  But I did have something useful to say and I did add to the tons of stuff already out there.  Some of it, was new.  Was it useful, yes, it was. 

So, what is this post about?  well, for one it is to inspire you, cajole you, tell you or plain advice you that even in the most common task, knowledge, topic, information, there must be something new that you can bring to the table.  Your personal experience in managing events, in hosting parties, in running companies, in running bosses, managing a home, driving a car makes your information new.  Can you share that with others?

The same old things done better, differently can make all the difference.  At Eclat Hospitality for example, we are going back to Talent Acquisition in a whole new way.  Yes, the boring recruitment vertical is now called Talent Acquisition.  The work remains the same, the name makes it edgier.  We are now trying to see if we can develop some games around it!  It seems like fun and suddenly we have a new focus on it.  Can you find something similar at your work? In your life?

Personally, something new happened in my personal life too!  Last evening, I decided that I will walk around the park that my daughter plays basketball at.  I have never walked that path and why I do not know.  It was amazing.  The track is well laid out, clean and circles a well manicured cricket field.  As I was walking, I realised that there is something new in every interaction if required and it is right there for the taking.

Are you taking it is the question?

Are you looking for it? 

Are you hunting for it?

It is no longer a question to ask - Anything New Out There? - but an adventure to dive into!

-->

A Good Routine And What It Can Do For You

-->

A routine is boring.  Now that, that is out of the way, let me go on to the good of it.  

A routine is centering.

A routine is calming.

A routine is productive.

A routine is predictive.

A routine is mind memory.

and more...

Routine is a challenge to me.  I love sleeping till my body decides it has had enough sleep.  I like to follow my mind and work, read, play, stare, day dream at will.  I like the freedom I have and I extend that freedom to my thoughts, my time and my mind.

I don't even wear a watch.  I find it irritating, like a leash, actually worse, like a master that I need to keep looking at for approval.  I used to feel the same way about 'routines'.

wake up @ X

shit, shave, smoke & s#$z5 @ Y

get ready @ Z

and on and on the list used to go, till I quit a job and went rogue.

For the last 10 years I have stubbornly refused to be tied down to a routine.  I experimented with part routines, like for 4 hours a day, or for certain days of the week, but my travel and penchant for giving up on hard work kind of brought all that to naught.

Only, recently, I have found a routine and with it, I must confess a rhythm. I wake up without an external stimuli (alarm, bell, screams, sirens etc), I drink my tea, read my paper, do the necessities and sit down to write.  It comes naturally, without an extra effort, without having to put down a lot in terms to making it happen.  it happens as routine.

It is calming, because somehow I know the next step, the next hour.  I still take meetings, handle situations, but I know I have accomplished some things before I spend the day fire fighting.

The mind just remembers what it was supposed to do where.  I sit at the table, get the computer fired up and everything else happens without an effort.  My writing music comes on, the white (imagine) page I like to write on covers my entire screen and an Idea will be born.  

The fingers will type, since they know they must.  The arrangements of the alphabet do not matter, they move in tandem with my thoughts, what matters is that they move effortlessly, like they know they must, like they know its time.

I still don't wear a watch, but rather set alarms.  I define how much time I should work on something and set up an alarm to remind me it is time.  I may choose to continue working on that much longer, but that is a conscious choice. I may finish earlier, and then I reward myself.

I am still lazy, but the routine helps me but removing a lot of my mental inertia.  I do not need to fight with myself.  I like watching the sunset from my balcony, but it happens because I walk out from my work room to see the day end. I am at my desk, till that sky turns a glorious hue and then I know, its time.

Its natural, and it mirrors nature.

Set up a routine for yourself and you will see miracles unfold as if on schedule!