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Marketing has become one of the most complicated industries in the modern world. With so many different methods, channels, and goals it’s important to become familiar with them all if you want to stay competitive. So when it comes to marketing skills which are the most important to acquire?

This really depends on which marketing channels will best fit your business. Social media marketing, for example, is much more valuable to a company like GoPro since they push out tons of picture and video content. That all said, it’s also still important to acquire as many skills as possible. This way you’ll be able to provide marketing value in more than one channel.

Here are eight marketing skills that can help you build a great career

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization is a strategy used to rank your business higher on search engines for certain keywords. This focuses on your organic rank which from a user perspective, appears as if the results were produced naturally.

2. Email Marketing

Email marketing is used by just about every company out there. If you’re proficient with platforms like Sendgrid or Mailchimp you can help your company build robust and effective email marketing campaigns.

3. Facebook Ads

Social media marketing is a broad category within itself. Facebook advertising is a tried a true marketing method. The platform allows you to set realistic marketing campaigns based on your budget. In addition they offer tons of metrics and reporting features to help you stay on track. Try to learn the ins and outs of the platform like building custom audiences, pixels, placements, etc.

4. Influencer Marketing

Barrett Wissman works with influencers to help position startups in the right way in-front of the right influencers. He suggests “People buy things from people they trust. Identifying key influencers in your industry is a great way to market your products and services. Influencer marketing really comes down to finding the right contact.”

Wissman continues “Always shoot for quality over quantity. If an Instagram account has millions of followers but only gets a couple thousand likes and comments per picture it means they have low engagement. In addition – shoutouts are usually priced off followings. That said you should always aim for engaging influencers over ones with solely high followings.”

5. Snapchat Advertising

Snapchat will continue to grow its advertising services for brands in 2018. A big advantage of this is that it’s relatively new. If you’re able to learn the ropes of Snapchat ads you’ll be ahead of the curve and highly coveted by big brands.

6. Video Content Advertising

A picture says a thousand words. So how much does a video say? The ability to create and publish video content is a highly effective marketing strategy. With so many mediums to consume video content i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, you can hit multiple channels with a single piece of content.

7. Building Case Studies

Identifying your most successful customers are going after similar companies in the industry is one of the most effective sales tactics. In order to quantify their success it’s a great strategy to build a case study. Case studies serve as powerful marketing materials for your sales team and company as a whole.

8. Google Analytics

The numbers don’t lie. Google analytics is a great way to measure the effectiveness of each marketing channel and strategy. Whether it’s customer engagement or conversions each of these goals can be tracked using Google Analytics.

If you become a master at measuring and reporting your key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ll be a great asset to any marketing team.

Final Thoughts

Like anything in life practice makes perfect. As a marketer you shouldn’t expect to be an expert in every channel. However the more marketing skills you have the more effective you will be managing a marketing team. That said you should get out and learn the eight marketing skills listed above.