Top 13 Marketing Management Skills Every Manager Should Have

Being a manager is difficult, being a marketing manager, more so. Marketing management is an attractive career many students consider, but it is not for everyone. You need to have a mix of some natural, and some acquired skills to do well in this field. A marketing manager is not a position where one gets to just sit in an office and order people around. Many times, the marketing manager needs to roll up their sleeves and get out there in the field. Yes, this is a career that pushes you to the limit, but the rewards are worth it. 

Along with a good deal of money, marketing managers also acquire many skills and are some of the most learned, wholesome individuals. So, if you are thinking of doing marketing management, you are on the right track. But first, make sure to have all the following skills if you want to do well in the marketing course and career. The following skill requirement will paint a picture of what to expect in marketing. 

Key Marketing Manager Skills and Competencies

Marketing is an interesting and amazing subject, but it cannot be done by anyone. You need to truly have a liking for it and a few skills that will help you succeed. The following 13 skills will help you do well in your marketing course and as a marketing manager. 

Marketing managers are high in demand. This is a field that rarely sees lean times. Marketing is the driving force for any company; hence, recruiters are on the lookout for good, and pay them well. So, check out these 13 top management skills to know if marketing is the career for you. 

Leadership Skills

All leaders are not managers, but all managers need to be leaders. The foremost thing marketing managers need to do is to manage the marketing team. Marketing teams usually tend to have many employees, each different from the next. As a leader, you need to bring them on the same page and help them become good marketers. 

Just setting targets and yelling and screaming at them to complete the targets is not the way to lead the team. As a marketing manager, you have to empathise with them, understand their problems, solve their problems, and even show them how to do it. You have to be their teacher, friend, guide, and parent. But most importantly, you have to lead your team to success. 

Technical Skills

Those days of marketing in person or over the phone are drawing to a close. Of course, these forms of marketing will still be there, but they will be a part of a larger type of marketing - digital marketing. Digital marketing is taking over, and you as a marketing manager, need to have a few technical skills to be able to stay with the times. More and more companies are adopting this as their primary form of marketing. 

Marketing managers sometimes also have to promote the technical products and services of their company. For this, they need to have technical skills to be able to market their products well. Plus, in the modern corporate infrastructure, technology is a huge part. So, to be a marketing manager, you should be able to use technology to aid your work as a marketing manager. 

Organizational Skills

Marketing managers are always working on multiple things at a time. There are so many things to do, work to assign, and decisions to make that you cannot survive if you don’t have good organisational skills. You have to juggle so many things, and yet be good at everything. Your organisational skills are what will help you excel in such situations. 

Using their organisational skills, marketing managers have to manage their teams of marketers, assign them to work, and coordinate with them. Creating multiple plans and strategies, marking out deadlines, organising meetings and events, etc, are just some of the many tasks where a marketing manager’s organisational skills are put to the test. 

Communication Skills

Marketing is all about communication, and you cannot be a good manager without excellent communication skills. As a manager, you have to manage teams and coordinate with other departmental heads, and most importantly, to talk with potential customers, you need to have good communication skills. You need to advertise your products and sell them well. 

With communication skills, you can teach your juniors to market products well, and win their confidence, and be a good mentor to them. Marketing managers are directly answerable to the senior management. For them, you have to make budgets, presentations, reports, product launch plans, etc. Therefore, you need to have good communication skills to excel as a marketing manager. 

Creative Skills

Now one may wonder why would a marketing manager need to be creative. But the truth is, creativity is an integral part of this profession. Marketing managers have a huge say in a product’s marketing. This includes the design, packaging, and advertising communication of the product. Therefore, they need to have a few creative skills to creatively market the product and ensure sales are good. 

Creative skills also cover the daily functioning of the marketing manager. Writing marketing emails, communication, blogs & articles for the SEO team, posts for social media, text and banner ads for search engines, guiding and brainstorming with creative teams, and more, the marketing managers have to display utmost creativity in their jobs. 

Analytical Skills

Marketing managers have access to a lot of data. To be able to make sense of this data, you need to have analytical skills. These skills will help you understand the data, and spot things others cannot. Your analytical skills will help you do a lot more and in a better manner. 

Analytical skills don’t just apply to data, your analytical skills are also helpful in live situations. You can analyse situations and know what is about to happen, and use it to your advantage. Analytical skills will help you become a good marketing manager in various ways, and even be a support to your other skills. 

Innovative & Curious Thinking

More than engineers, it’s the marketing department that drives innovation. They are the ones that get feedback from the customers. They know the pulse of the market and the needs of the customers. So, they are the best people to provide input and drive the innovation of the products. Therefore, marketing managers need to have innovative and curious thinking. 

Curious thinking is needed for you to take the next step. Many managers tend to get comfortable and stagnant in a set zone. Curiosity helps marketing managers keep pushing ahead and venture into new unexplored territories. Curiosity also drives innovation in products, services, and marketing. So, if you have a knack for curious and innovative thinking, you can be a good marketing manager. 

People Skills

This is one of the most important skills to have. In marketing, you have to meet people in person. If you don’t have great people skills, you are not going to do well in this industry. You have to be polite and well-mannered to all. Many times, you also come across people who might be rude, yet you are expected to be at your best. Marketing managers, not just market products, they are representatives of the company. 

Marketing managers also work closely with senior management and other departmental heads. They have teams of people working for them. So, your day is packed with people, all different from each other. Your people skills are what will help interact and work with different people. 

Adaptability

Those who adapt, survive. Those who are rigid, get forgotten. Adaptability is a skill that will help you in real life as well. Marketing managers have to face many different situations, and they need to quickly adapt to be able to face these varied situations. Even when doing your usual marketing activities, they may start normally and change midway. You need to adapt to this change and solve whatever problems you face. 

As a team leader, you need to be adaptive and easy going. This skill of yours gets passed on to your juniors and they too learn to be adaptive and easy going. Thanks to you, the whole marketing department becomes adaptive and improve their problem-solving abilities. 

Predictive Skills 

Some of the most successful managers in the world are successful because they can quickly see a situation, and make the right predictions. They can also look at data, market conditions, and other important factors and make predictions. Therefore, as a marketing manager, you need to work on your predictive skills. They come with a lot of practice and experience. 

Predictive skills will help you spot problems before anyone else. You can eliminate these problems before they become a bother. Predictive skills also let you spot opportunities where there are seemingly none. Predictive skills can truly drive your career and make you an excellent marketing manager. 

Be Detail-oriented

If you do something, do it well. Detail-oriented marketing managers do extremely well in their career, Marketing is a discipline that involves so many things. Advertising, sales, use of technology, etc, the involvement of so many aspects can overwhelm someone, but not a detail-oriented person. This skill will ensure all the work they do, they do well and the results are even better. 

By being detail-oriented, you are not leaving any room for errors. You are not allowing anyone to needlessly criticise you. You are also setting a good precedent for your employees to learn and follow. But first, you be thorough and detail-oriented before expecting this from someone else. This skill is an excellent skill to have. 

Sales Skills

Marketing and sales go hand-in-hand. They are two sides of the same coin. Sales is the end result of good marketing. Therefore, if you want to be a good marketing manager, you need to have sales skills. They are basically the same as your marketing skills. You need to convince potential customers regarding your company’s products and services. But before you make a sale, you need to sell yourself as a trustworthy human being. Only then can you market convincingly and make a sale. 

Your sales skills also come in handy at the workplace. You have to sell your bosses new ideas for marketing. You have to convince them regarding marketing budgets and expenses. You need to sell your employees on the marketing and sales targets. You need to sell other departmental heads regarding your marketing strategies. So, yes, you need to have good sales skills, as you will always be working in the sales mode. 

Handle External Noise

What do you mean by external noise? It’s the voices of the people who are trying to interfere in your work. Marketing managers should know how to handle this ‘external noise’, and even teach the marketing team how to handle it. External noise can actually derail and demoralise people who are not thick-skinned, but if you can handle, and can teach others, you are being an excellent marketing manager. 

Some people are just natural at handling external noise. They can tune it out and concentrate on the tasks at hand. You as a manager, need to have this skill or even develop it over time. It will be a huge contributing factor to your success as a marketing manager. 

Some of the skills mentioned above might be within you naturally, while you may have to put in some effort to work on skills you don’t have. But this hard work will pay off. You will be a great marketing manager, and these skills will also take you further than that in your career. Of course, you also need to choose which skills to give more importance based on your job and the prevailing scenarios in your workplace. But take the effort. It will be worth it.