These 15 marketing skills can improve your resume

Anyone in the marketing business knows how important presentation and making a good impression are for getting your product or service sold. For a resume, you are the product that your resume is selling. Having a resume that presents you well and includes the right marketing skills is critical to landing your first or next great marketing role.

We’re going to discuss key marketing skills that can accentuate your qualifications and help you make a great impression on hiring managers. This article will cover the following topics about marketing skills for your resume.

• What are marketing skills?

• The best 7 soft skills for marketing

• The best 8 hard skills for marketing

• Takeaways

What are marketing skills?

Marketing skills include abilities and expertise that are directly applicable to the marketing profession. These skills include specific knowledge, capabilities, and experience that allow marketers to successfully perform activities related to planning and executing marketing strategies. They include everything from creativity and effective communication to analysis and project management.

Managers hiring marketing professionals want an applicant capable of performing tasks to a level that meets or exceeds expectations. Having the right skills on your resume can show a potential employer you are the best choice for the job.

Seven soft skills that are the best to include in a marketing resume

Marketing involves a lot of different skills and they are all equally crucial to being a high-performing marketer. Here are some of the most valued skills for a marketing career:

1. Communication - All of your verbal, written, and online communications must be on point. Effective marketing requires that you get your point across with your target audience, colleagues, and managers. Marketers often have to explain their vision for a product to others and be able to give clear feedback and direction to keep their team moving in the right direction.

2. Interpersonal skills - Interacting well with people is important for just about any job, but a marketer needs to have outstanding interpersonal skills. For example, when creative disagreements occur, interpersonal skills are required to resolve the dispute and keep the client happy. Strong interpersonal skills also aid marketing professionals in convincing others to follow their direction on campaigns and projects. They also help secure client engagement, so they are less likely to change marketing firms.

3. Creativity - Being able to come up with new and innovative ideas is a big challenge for any business. The marketing industry is all about coming up with things that will sell products or services. This is an especially big challenge due to audience data overload and constant distractions. Creative thinking is one of the best skills for a marketing professional to have for developing marketing ideas that deliver unique and engaging campaigns.

4. Adaptability - Consumer and customer preferences and interests can change at a rapid pace. The ability to quickly handle unexpected problems, dump outdated practices, and adopt new technologies is key for the modern marketing professional. Showing that you’re adaptable and up to speed with modern technology will have hiring managers clamoring to interview you.

5. Prioritization - Whether you call it excellent time management or multitasking, being able to appropriately prioritize your tasks is one of the most valued skills for marketing, especially if you’re a manager or want to be one. You’ll be tasked with juggling multiple advertising campaigns, client meetings, writing ad copy, assessing analytics, conducting research, and much more. Prioritizing your work is a must to get the important things done and meet deadlines. 

6. Organization - Organizing  tasks and information is essential for completing many tasks. Employers want candidates who are organized and can calmly deal with a constant flow of work without losing their cool. 

7. Storytelling - The ability to tell stories that connect with people builds trust and influences potential customers, which increases brand loyalty. Reaching a target audience requires that you grab their attention in an environment that is likely to be full of distractions. Having a compelling story can achieve this. Marketing stories can be included in social media posts, e-books, white papers, and traditional ad copy, as well as videos and website content.

Eight great hard skills to have as a marketing professional

A great marketing professional not only has outstanding soft skills, but also possesses many technical and hard skills. Let’s look at some of the top hard skills to highlight when writing your marketing resume:

1. Analytics - Being able to analyze data and reports is a key skill that allows marketers to find the right direction for their marketing campaigns. This skill is becoming more important in today’s marketing world, where the large amounts of data available can become overwhelming. Tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel provide highly detailed information on potential customers across a huge number of classifications and demographics. Having the skill to effectively analyze data and use data analysis tools will make you an extremely valuable asset.

2. Project management - Almost everything in business is done with projects. This is especially true with marketing. To be a great marketing professional, you have to be able to effectively manage your team’s time and resources. This is where project management skills come in because they help you perform key tasks like building plans, setting goals, scheduling meetings, creating marketing campaigns, managing budgets, and tracking progress. 

3. Email marketing - Email has become ubiquitous and is cheaper and more widespread than snail mail. The ability to effectively create and manage email marketing campaigns and tools is a crucial skill for marketers. This includes being able to write good emails, work with email marketing tools, and even collaborate with web developers.

4. Social media - The world is dominated by social media. Managing your brand and having a digital presence is mandatory for any modern business. Social media platforms give a company the opportunity to gain attention and build brand loyalty with consumers for a minimal expenditure. Having strong social media skills included in your resume is a big selling point. 

5. Mobile advertising - Another technology that is worldwide and crosses all demographics is cell phones or mobile devices. The percentage of online activity on mobile phones continues to increase at a high rate and shows no signs of decreasing. Being able to develop and execute mobile marketing campaigns is now one of the most important forms of advertising. 

6. Graphic design - The ability to design for advertising is another great skill for a marketer to have. This can include design and layouts for photos and video advertising campaigns. It could even involve providing sketches or outlines to the creative team. Marketing professionals who are familiar with layout and art direction and can execute their own marketing proposals are in high demand.

7. Software proficiency - The more software you know, the better. Marketing can require familiarity with a wide range of software to stay current and to keep up with business and customer needs. There are many types, but some of the main types of software used for marketing are online paid marketing tools (Google Adwords, Display Campaigns), email marketing tools (Mailchimp, Constant Contact), SEO (SEMrush, Ahrefs), graphics (Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Creative Suite), web development (WordPress), and general tools (Microsoft Office/Word/Excel/PowerPoint, Google Docs). 

8. Technology skills - Having any expertise with technology is a benefit. Many marketing jobs require certain technical skills and expertise like coding (HTML, CSS), CRM tools, Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and more. Include anything you know about tech on your resume, but look at  job descriptions to see what they require and match your resume to them, wherever possible.

The 4 C’s of marketing

The 4 C’s of marketing (marketing mix) are a consumer-based perspective on marketing strategy. They focus not only on marketing and selling a product, but also communication with the consumers of your product from the start of the process to the end.

1. Customer wants and needs - This marketing strategy seeks to understand the customers. Knowing your customers allows you to create products that will benefit them. Making the customer want what you are selling is the goal in any marketing strategy.

2. Cost - The customer cost of the product is not the same as the price. Cost not only includes the price of the item, but is the overall cost to the customer. It includes things such as the time and money it takes for the customer to get your product (in person or shipping) and the product’s benefit (or lack of) to the customer.

3. Convenience - This is a customer-oriented view that examines how to deliver your product. You have to analyze your customers’ habits and determine the best way to provide your product (online vs. in stores vs. other methods). This includes taking into account the overall cost of the product to your target audience. You must make the product cost-effective and easy for the customer to get.

4. Communication - Communication is always critical to marketing. None of the other C’s will work without it. You must determine what to communicate, how to communicate it, and when. Getting this right will make your marketing most effective.

The 4 C’s of marketing are beneficial to any marketing campaign. This strategy depends on understanding the audience before developing a product. It requires communication throughout the entire process and begins with understanding what the customer wants and needs out of a product.

Including all the best marketing skills on your resume for a marketing job is paramount to getting the attention of recruiters and hiring managers. Leverage the skills we have shown you in this article, and you will maximize your chances of getting a great marketing job.

Key takeaways 

1. Specific knowledge and capabilities are more valuable for marketing.

2. You need both the right soft skills and hard skills for marketing.

3. Focus on the skills you need to land the job you are targeting.

4. Having in-demand marketing skills on your resume will get you the best marketing role.