An overwhelming majority of United States marketers polled in a recent survey expressed that they do not believe that their jobs will look the same three decades from now. Nevertheless, they might be able to forecast the future marketing scene by paying attention to the direction of innovations such as the Internet, big data technology and smartphones.
For instance, roughly 30-percent of U.S. and UK marketing professionals believe that robots will do the heavy lifting in the digital marketing universe sometime within the next 30 years. Staying aware of the tech trends, and how it’s impacting jobs and business can help marketers understand what to be aware of.
Over the last three decades, the widespread adoption of Internet use has been the biggest influence in marketing. For practitioners, this development was a gold mine. They could now use email as an innovative outbound marketing tool to complement their arsenal of traditional television, radio, print and telephone initiatives. Meanwhile, search engine technology emerged and started indexing websites, allowing users to easily find out information about products and services from the convenience of their homes.
Skills Marketers Need Now
There is a big need for strong marketing skills and people who can be creative and innovative in the online field. 95-percent of marketing enterprise leaders report that a lack of talented professionals negatively impacts operations. It’s true, not many people have innate innovation skills and are able to be geniuses in marketing.
The professional marketer’s role involves several key skills that often need to be developed. People who are willing to develop their skills, lead, study new ideas, and stay up to date with tech, will thrive. If you’re unwilling to adapt and think about the future, you’ll stay where you are, or fall behind.
The majority of today’s marketing and media professionals use content marketing as part of their standard strategy. However, only 36 percent count themselves as expert content marketers. To be skilled in marketing, and really know what you’re doing, requires diverse knowledge beyond what you learn in school.
Some key marketing skills needed now are: writing, content management, web analytics, website optimization, and digital project management expertise. Other skills good to have include marketing automation, search engine optimization, and experience in data research.
Of course, creative direction and content strategy across social media is essential in today’s market too. Knowing how to blend technology with art to create media strategies that engage audiences is key, and requires talent. Marketers can no longer get by simply having a degree.
Don’t Underestimate People and Talent
The key to marketing is creativity and innovation. Marketers see new ideas, innovate, and develop new ways of promoting brands. A good marketer is able to do hear what others do, adopt their own ideas, and find a better way of doing things. This is innovation. Marketers who consistently exhibit excellence understand critical communications concepts as well as how to use them to solve problems and create business solutions.
Generally, people who are innately innovative and creative make great entrepreneurs, and thrive in business. People want to start their own businesses because they have the entrepreneurial skill and personality to do so. Don’t underestimate and judge people who take the time to grow, educate themselves and pursue knowledge. The ones who think out of the box, often become the genius of new generations!
Never overlook the expertise of women either. Unfortunately for enterprises, business leaders who overlook female professionals miss out on marketing talent, creative skills and the great leadership skills women can add to a team. Women are the professionals who are intuitive enough to question long-standing practices and develop innovative strategies, but that many business leaders fail to recognize. Because they listen well, and are often curious, women can innovate marketing ideas very well, and be courageous in adopting and implementing new ideas.
Digital Marketing and Technology Will Continue to Change
Digital marketing will continue to change and evolve. Just a decade ago, business analysts forecast that paper books would vanish from the face of the earth. Fast forward to 2009 and e-book sales have plateaued, while paper book sales have risen, and independent bookstore openings have increased 40-percent across the United States. While e-books are popular, they’ve not come near replacing bound books. This highlights the fact that it’s impossible to predict the future, but by understanding what’s working today, marketers might be able to stay ahead of future competition.
To excel in this field, professionals must educate themselves and help to transform the industry, making it essential for them to keep up with the rapid pace of digital and marketing changes. While the Internet has transformed the business world from uncountable rows of filing cabinets to an astounding and massive amount of data, some old school marketing methods are still valid.
Despite the growth of digital marketing, television still dominates the third of the United States advertising spending, although growth in the field is waning. Innovative marketers are smart enough to know that embracing the new doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning the old in a diverse and constantly evolving marketplace.
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