7 Key Marketing Skills
to Grow Your Business Faster

See also: Creative Leadership

If you are looking to start a business, and then grow it, marketing skills are essential.

In today's fast-paced world it is more necessary than ever to grab people's attention as quickly as possible, and then hold on to it long enough to convert them into your customers. This is where good marketing skills are vital.

In this article, we isolate and examine 7 key marketing skills that will help your business to thrive.

Social Media:

Marketing is one field which has seen drastic change in recent years. Most of these changes have been influenced by the development of technology, although the core ideas remain the same. Conduct market research to find a place which has some market potential, or the potential to generate leads, and then attract the leads and convert them into customers.

Currently, the platforms which have a huge market potential are social media platforms. Millions of people are active on social media platforms every day and it is up to skilled marketers to use this huge crowd to their advantage. You need to have some good social media marketing skills to attract people to your business and convert them into customers.

Social media is a place where people come to relax and look at pictures and memes. They get annoyed when you try to sell them something. So, you have to find a roundabout way to do this. This is where your social media skills will come into play. Social media marketing tools can help you make your social media skills more effective.

Communication:

Effective communication is one of the most crucial aspects of an efficient business. Everyone needs to be kept informed about the projects they are involved in. A lack of communication leads to confusion, misinterpretation and wasted time. Make sure your business has appropriate channels for communication where the employees or teams can share related information easily.

Even when you are dealing with clients, good communication is needed to establish the important terms, policies and guidelines everyone needs to follow during the completion of a project. Customers will be more willing to return if you can communicate with them effectively even during downtime like delays, failures etc.

The more efficient and effective internal business communication is, the better the employee engagement and productivity. So, ensure that your communication skills are on point as it will help your business to grow.

Creative Thinking:

Creative thinking is a skill that you need in various fields. In marketing, creative thinking involves coming up with ways to market a service or product. Even before the advent of the modern era, businesses have tried to think ‘out of the box’ to attract customers, be it by decorating their shops differently or using creative taglines in their marketing campaigns.

If you want to look at examples of creative thinking in marketing, then look no further than political campaigns before elections. Parties spend millions of dollars to hire people who can come up with different ways to attract people to a particular candidate. Now that most of the marketing takes place in the digital world, creativity is more needed than ever.

Most businesses will try to fit into a routine and copy ideas that are already working. Even though this approach can work, it is often only a matter of time before someone comes up with new ideas and everyone else has to follow so as not to be left behind.

So, why not lead the change and come up with ideas to market your business better. Some examples of creative marketing are playable mobile game ads, Dove's advertisements featuring normal women using their products, or LG's Ultra HD TV advertisements, etc.



Decision Making:

Decision making is that one skill which can make or break a business. Of course, not every can be born a good decision-maker as it is a skill which needs to be learned via experience. A person who is a good decision-maker can save a lot of time while bringing in effectiveness and efficiency to the business.

You have to be quick while making a decision. Of course, this does not mean that you make rash decisions, it means being quick enough for your clients not to change their mind and go to your competitor, quick enough to be one of the first companies to bring about an innovative change, quick enough to realize a project has potential and should be pursued, etc.

But you should not just jump head first into making a big decision as a lot of market research and analysis needs to happen for you to make an informed choice, which brings us to the next skill.

Effective Market Research:

Effective market research is often the reason for a company's success or failure. Good market research is essential for effective decision making as it focuses your business on customers which is very important. Market research is all about understanding the market and analyzing the various data related to it. In short, you are trying to find out what the customer actually wants. If you can pinpoint this with your research, then you can easily tailor your business to serve your customers' needs.

Another advantage of market research is gaining a good understanding of your competitors and learning from them if they are doing better. Once you know enough about what they are doing to bring in customers and sell more products, you can use your research to come up with ways to beat them.

Setting Goals:

If you have set out your goals clearly, and devised a strategy to achieve them, then you are far more likely to perform better as your energy and attention will be focused achieving your goals. Setting goals is a skill as you should aim to set goals which are challenging, but not impossible, to achieve.

If you set an overoptimistic goal, then you are likely to fail as you will not have the proper strategies in place to achieve that goal. Similarly, if you have set a too easy goal, you will be able to achieve it but your business will not grow. So, learn to set the right business goals to help you grow your business.

Willingness to Learn:

A career in business is very tough. You will be competing with some of the best in the field and will constantly need to upskill if you want to stay relevant.

So, if you are not willing to learn then you will quickly become static and eventually your business will suffer due to a lack of innovation and competent leadership. Always keep a positive mindset and treat each failure as a part of your learning curve so, soon, it will be engraved in your mind.



Further Reading from Skills You Need


The Skills You Need Guide to Leadership

The Skills You Need Guide to Leadership eBooks

Learn more about the skills you need to be an effective leader.

Our eBooks are ideal for new and experienced leaders and are full of easy-to-follow practical information to help you to develop your leadership skills.


About the Author


Anirban is a working professional at a multinational company. He is passionate about writing and contributes to various blogs and websites. He has a background in Business & Marketing and is motivated to share his ideas based on experience and research to help others.

TOP