Marketing Manager Checklist: What Skills You Need to Have

November 28, 2021

What skills should a marketing manager have? People skills and managerial abilities come at the top. If you’re still wondering how to upgrade your marketing career, this blog is for you. Read to find out why.

A quick search for “types of marketing” on the Internet returns over 7 billion results. Marketing as an area of expertise is so diverse. You can have knowledge in marketing sub-units, but you should develop strong skills to stay competent.

So what can you do to become a better leader? Check out these top 7 skills for marketing managers you can apply directly.

Leadership and coaching skills

You’re a leader by default, but have you known of the core competencies for a successful marketing manager?

Leadership Management defines these in five crucial bullet points:

- Communication skills

- Planning and organising

- Problem solving and decision-making

- Developing and coaching others

- Building relationships (internal and external)

It is important to brush up these skills to become a marketing expert.

Networking

We can’t stress enough how life-changing professional relationships can be. Surrounding yourself with a network of key people, you open doors for many opportunities that otherwise you wouldn’t have.

This applies not only to fresh graduates, who are new to the job market and have fewer connections, to higher-level leaders like marketing managers. Knowing a group of professionals, you can identify any skill gaps you may have, utilize the resources at hand, and advance your career.

When things get rough, you also have a network of support from those who know how challenging it could be in your situation. And yes, networking isn’t just about giving-and-taking: It’s about forming meaningful and long-lasting connections in the context of work.

Excellent multi-tasking skills

Multitasking is still a heated debate: Some think it’s bad to carry on with many tasks at the same time, while others think it’s a matter of priority.

Whatever the reason, it’s clear that marketing managers are expected to manage a team to deliver the best results. Pressure to become more efficient at work is unavoidable. These leaders can only sharpen their multi-tasking skills to succeed at work.

The more important reason for a marketing manager to improve multitasking abilities is job demands. The higher you climb the career ladder, the more cross-functional work you sometimes have to take on to ensure quality outcomes. In other words, a marketing manager should know about sales, HR & recruitment, or finance & accounting to effectively cooperate with other departments and guarantee the quality of work results.

But don’t worry. We’ve got your back with these two tips to multitask more effectively:

Prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance

Let’s face it: You cannot do everything at the same time and expect excellent results. As a marketing manager, use the best resources you have at hand: Talents.

For high priority tasks, you can do them yourself or assign them to someone and follow up closely. For lower priority tasks, you can also delegate to your team members and check in at fewer frequencies.

Plan your days and weeks beforehand

If you read further, you’ll learn why a few minutes of planning will save you hours every day.

The benefits of planning are here, to name but a few:

- Better organize your days/weeks

- Be more productive at what you do

- Save your energy for high-priority tasks

You can also refer to the best planning tools for marketing managers.

Can-do and result-driven attitude

Why does a can-do attitude matter?

We’re living in a world of changes and innovations by seconds. As a leader, you should be at the forefront of changes, understand them, and quickly improve ways of doing things. This adaptability is not a clean-cut, well-taught lesson that you can learn at any business school. Being out and dirty in the real situation, you’ll learn the hard way.

A can-do attitude is powerful because it enables us with the mind power to make things happen. Facing work challenges, there are definitely some moments when we feel like “This is too much.” These obstacles come from both professional difficulties and a lack of tools to deal with them. But when you have a can-do mindset, you only care about the results and how you will get there. So being result-oriented is key to empowering yourself, enough that you can find and try ways to achieve your goals.

Time-management skills

Prioritize what matters. This is a must-have skill to let marketing managers successfully complete their tasks by planning ahead of time. For remote working teams, it can also mean better managing your team from a distance.

Plus, facing the competitive job market and demanding culture of work, it is important to divide your time reasonably. Achieving this will allow potential marketing managers to focus on what matters and maximize their outcome. In fact, only 10-12 minutes spent on planning your day will save you at least 2 hours of time and effort.

When you’re considering the path of a marketing manager, keep in mind these facts.

Strategic-planning skills

To become a holistic marketing manager, you’ll need the ability to turn insights into actionable items. That involves knowing your sources of data and craft marketing plans, generating sales for your business. To succeed, a marketing manager should be experienced in four key areas: research, product development/innovation, pricing, and distribution.

After having everything on the table, you’ll come to the executing period. In other words, you’ll turn your marketing plan to life. A marketing manager implements activities, assigns the right people to do their part, monitors the process, and measures the results of a marketing campaign.

To successfully meet these demands, you’ll also need to master budgeting skills for your process.

Budgeting skills

Having finished a marketing plan, you then think of the costs and budget to turn actions into results.

We recommend that you analyze key sections in your plan and allocate a reasonable amount to each.

Based on each company’s budget, a marketing manager has several options to execute their plans:

- In-house execution: The company’s team is in charge of the whole process. This is the most cost-effective method to carry out marketing activities.

- Hybrid planning: When the team lacks specific skills or key talents, they can seek external help from agencies/freelancers. Although the costs are higher than a totally in-house execution, hybrid planning ensures the team meets their target while optimizing resources.

- 100% outsourcing: If a team lacks many resources, it’s best they outsource to get work done. The cost is usually higher, but this can utilize professional help and support your marketing strategies better.

Become a better marketing manager with Waw Asia

At Waw Asia, we offer you not only authentic remote positions, but we also have multiple resources to grow your career.

Featured Posts: