The most in demand skills for marketing in 2024

Curate the marketing skills that’ll draw the eyes of your dream employers and discover the skills to build your ultimate team.

Marketing is an art and a science. The most valued skills for marketing roles are both creative and analytical, interpersonal and technical. Whether you’re a marketer looking to get ahead in your career or you are creating a high performing marketing team – it can be hard to know what marketing skill to prioritise.

Here’s our expert take on the most in demand skills reported for marketing in 2024 – confirmed by our specialist marketing recruitment experts worldwide.

Visualise yourself in a crowded art gallery – this is the world of marketing. The modern business marketplace is crowded with vibrant show-stopping masterpieces, all vying for attention. So, visionary marketing is key to businesses competing for attention. To succeed as a marketer, you must blend different marketing skills to captivate and engage your target audiences, as well as your employers!

As much as the industry is rapidly changing, with avant garde skillsets constantly emerging, there are also key skills for marketing that remain timeless classics which employers will always value. Here are some of the most in-demand skills to add to your CV or portfolio to wow your future employers.

Skip ahead to:

• Most in demand interpersonal marketing skills
• Most in demand creative and technical marketing skills

The difference between generalist and specialist marketing skills

The skills you need to succeed in your marketing career depend on your level and your role in a marketing team. An important distinction to make before we get into detail about what’s trending is between generalist and specialist marketing skills.

Think of generalist marketing skills as your Swiss Army knife.
They’re versatile, so they can be used in lots of situations. From communication to stakeholder management, generalist skills are useful in a wide range of marketing roles. They’re also crucial for senior marketing roles or leaders who need to effectively understand and use the talents in their team to drive results for the business as a whole.

Think of specialist marketing skills as tools on a tool belt.
Each tool has different functions, and help perform different tasks. They all have a role to play to achieve a marketing team’s overall success. For example, marketing event managers will need specific skills to plan events, just as campaign managers will need specific skills to optimise paid content across different platforms.

Marketing is ultimately about persuasion.
Whether you’re a generalist or a specialist, how effective a company’s marketing is depends on the impact your work has on your audiences. And much like any function of a business, marketing doesn’t happen in a silo. It requires working closely with other teams around the organisation, and with its leadership.

That’s why interpersonal skills are among the timeless classics for employers hiring marketing talent in any role or industry. We’ve listed a few in demand human skills we see clients hiring for time and again.

The 6 most valuable interpersonal skills for marketing:

1. Creativity
2. Insight
3. Communication
4. Project management
5. Critical thinking
6. Innovation

1. Creativity

Creativity is an essential skill for marketers whatever their role. It’s crucial for generating both new ideas to test and innovative solutions to any roadblocks. Whether you’re a copywriter or social media coordinator creating content, or a CRM marketer re-engaging your lapsed client mailing list, developing a strong creative sensibility benefits your marketing career by empowering you to produce and test new approaches to reach your audiences.

“In my experience, employers are looking for 5 key attributes in marketing hires: collaborative, communicative, creative, commercial, and transparent! These might feel hard to demonstrate on your own profile, but testimonials and endorsements from clients and colleagues are a great way to do this. Remember, for lots of the achievements you’re listing, these traits were needed to see success!”
Lizzie Harding
Practice Director, Sales for Salt UK & Europe
See our open Marketing Jobs in the UK & Europe here

2. Insight

Marketers need to develop savvy campaigns that encourage customers to take action. But these don’t appear out of thin air – or at least they shouldn’t! Interrupting bias, challenging assumptions, and getting a detailed lay of the land is key to a successful marketing project. Whether you’ll be conducting qualitative or quantitative research yourself, using social media listening tools to inform your social strategy, or checking out competitors for inspiration, knowing the value of research and embracing a learning mindset is key.

Beyond conducting and using research, listening skills are key to develop for marketers of all kinds. Listening helps you to understand your consumers as well as your stakeholders. Requiring both empathy and flexibility, listening well means you can adapt and iterate your work based on feedback. This key interpersonal skill is needed time and again to produce the best possible marketing for a business.

3. Communication

Crafting a compelling narrative breathes life into a marketing campaign. It’s a crucial skill marketing leaders look for in their new hires: someone who understands the story their brand is trying to tell. While marketing roles differ, storytelling is a strength that can elevate most marketing roles, whether you’re writing copy, reports, or emails to customers or clients.

Excellent communication skills are vital for marketers to interact with their audiences, team members, and stakeholders. Clear and efficient communication helps you with planning, strategising and preventing problems that might slow progress in future. It’s a skill needed to manage conflicts and work seamlessly with the rest of the business. The list of examples here is endless – from responding to customer complaints respectfully, drafting emails to team members, or leading presentations to company stakeholders.

“I would say having good emotional intelligence ( EQ) is top of the list for marketing hires, so being able to read the room, to listen to your team, to build relationships with empathy and having self-awareness! Good communication and understanding are key to a harmonious efficient workplace.”
Brian White
Principal Consultant, Salt New Zealand
See our open marketing jobs in New Zealand

4. Project management

Project management skills are crucial for marketers as they must juggle demands across a spectrum of needs. This skill helps you to keep to timelines and stay within budget, ensuring campaigns are delivered efficiently. Good project management in marketing means you’re able to effectively and transparently coordinate multiple tasks, which is vital for a successful strategy overall. By mastering project management, you can better predict outcomes, manage resources, and adapt to changes, making you incredibly valuable in the job market.

“Project management is a key skill that is critical to several areas of marketing. It doesn’t matter what type of business you’re working for, it’s pivotal you can engage and communicate with stakeholders (internal and external). Having excellent project management skillset will endear you to any employer.”
Tim Bradley
Practice Director, Salt UK & Europe
See our open marketing jobs in the UK & Europe

5. Critical thinking

As a great marketer, you are always evaluating the success of your campaigns and how you can reach the target audience effectively. Developing analytical and critical thinking skills empowers you to see learnings in disappointing results, so you can direct your next attempt to better meet the needs of your audience and the challenges of your marketplace. This skill also involves identifying trends that could elevate your marketing strategy, or optimise your way of working as a team and business. There are so many directions marketing can go creatively that adopting a more critical mindset is crucial to keep the bigger picture in mind, avoid burn out and prioritise effectively. Employers recognise that.

6. Innovation

Innovation in marketing sets you apart from the competition. It means you embrace change as an opportunity, that you think creatively and bring fresh ideas and solutions to the table. It’s a crucial marketing skill to have to allow you to adapt to the ever-changing consumer landscape, ensuring that marketing strategies remain relevant and effective. Demonstrating your innovation means demonstrating your ability to drive growth and success in changing circumstances.

“Innovative thinking, being adaptable and flexible, are key to employers hiring marketers, particularly in start-ups and smaller businesses. In these environments, being able to work things out and achieve despite unideal circumstances is so valuable.”
Will King
National consultant, Salt Australia
See open marketing roles in Australia here

Find Marketing Jobs worldwide with Salt Recruitment
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Fine-tune your marketing job applications with this a blend of technical and creative skills

Effective marketing is eye-catching and memorable. To attract, engage and nurture audiences online and off, a creative idea is wonderful but it also must be strategically sound and well-executed. Employers are invested in seeking out talented marketers able to achieve technical precision alongside artistic flare.

Top 4 creative and technical marketing skills trending in 2024

1. Data based decision making
2. Increasing visibility and reach
3. Agile creative strategy
4. Audience insight and focus

These marketing skills are increasingly valuable in the job market of 2024. Developing a good balance of both creative and technical marketing skills will help elevate your career from satisfactory to cutting-edge this year.

Focusing on developing these trending marketing skills can help you decide on a marketing specialism for your career, build a strong dual-competency application, or become a marketing leader adept at managing marketing specialists in a managerial capacity.

These skills all bring businesses benefits that support them in achieving their vision and mission, so these are marketing skills employers value highly and prioritise in their hiring activity.

1. Data based decision making

57% of marketing leaders prioritise candidates with analytics experience, regardless of the marketing role they’re applying to.

How to showcase data analysis and decision making skills in your job applications
Learning to identify patterns and communicate findings in a clear and actionable way makes the difference between a good marketer and a great one. Be specific! Detail past experiences where data-led insights were actioned to see success.

2. Increasing visibility and reach

Marketing is all about building brands that excite people: that are visible, memorable and trusted. So, being able to increase visibility is a skill that really matters to employers.

Top tip to showcase brand reach expertise in your job applications:
Depending on your role, this skill could take many forms, from PR and Communications to SEO Specialists. For applications, outline how your work has directly led to increased visibility, and cite performance metrics, like impressions, engagements, visits or increased followers. 

3. Agile creative strategy

Yes, marketing is about generating amazing ideas and executing them in style, but that creativity is being directed for a purpose. Marketers are aiming to achieve a goal or objective for a business with every campaign, web page, or asset they put out into the world. For CMOs, optimising strategies for agility, empowering creative teams to innovate while advancing towards business objectives is a commercial skill that bridges creative and analytical roles.

How to showcase creative strategy in your job applications
Today, agility in a marketing strategy is key. Creative marketers understand that innovation and experiment helps businesses stay ahead. By showcasing your ability to pivot and adapt to market changes, you can demonstrate how creative skills captivate but also align with objectives. Emphasise performance and conversion skills to balance the creative experimentation.

4. Audience insight and focus

Whether you’re a marketing specialist or a marketing generalist, there is one common thread most marketing strategies share: it’s about your audience. Audiences underpin all marketing activity. One particular specialism provides a real lens into this process, search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO skills combine technical know-how with optimised content strategies to ensure that a brand not only reaches its audience but also offers them value, boosting engagement and performance. 

Top tip to showcase your understanding of audiences in your job applications:
Mention any successful strategies you’ve implemented, and how, to understand your online audiences. Be specific about tools, techniques and testing. Show your success in metrics to clearly show impact.

How to show your marketing skills applying for marketing jobs

Select and highlight skills employers want and need.
When applying for a marketing job, it’s important to choose the right skills for marketing to highlight on your CV. Some will be in demand skills industry-wide, some might be specific to the job specification. Showing employers the marketing skills that can help them realise their vision showcases your value as a marketer and all you can bring to their business.

Showcase results and impact, as well as your skills.
Think about how you could showcase your work, depending on the marketing role or level you are at. Some roles especially in creative marketing could create an online portfolio. For example, if you are a content marketer, keep a directory of your articles, for a digital marketer, keep a record of your campaign successes and ROI results. CVs and your LinkedIn profile area great place to showcase media links and posts where you showcase your work.

Demonstrate your interests and ability to learn.
In interviews, be ready to talk about how you keep up-to-date with current marketing trends and tech. Lovers of learning able to upskill themselves are so valuable in the digital space which changes so rapidly. Share your knowledge of different marketing platforms, how you use data to direct your activities, and how you’re able to adopt and test new digital marketing methods.

Want more tips to help you stand out for marketing jobs?
We share more advice and details in this ultimate guide to marketing yourself into your next marketing role!

More career guides to help with your marketing job hunt

Here is some further reading to help you showcase your marketing skills to land you the role you’ve been searching for:

• How to write a great CV for 2024
• How to write a stand out cover letter
• How to update your LinkedIn to get noticed
• Interview your way into your dream role

Looking for your next role in Marketing?

Find Marketing Jobs worldwide with Salt Recruitment
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