HOW TO SUCCEED AS A

MARKETER
Tens of thousands of hours have been spent working with hundreds of different
marketers. When you spend this much time with people in a certain role, one of the more
interesting things you can do is try to determine the skills that make someone successful
in that role. This is particularly interesting for the field of marketing simply because 
marketing has changed so much in the last decade. 
While successful marketers can exhibit a wide variety of traits, we’ve identified 11
marketing skills that really stand out today.
TODAY’S ESSENTIAL MARKETING SKILLS
In general, today’s highly successful marketers:
1. Are revenue-driven marketers

2. Know their customers and markets

3. Create remarkable customer experiences

4. Are great storytellers

5. Test everything and assume nothing

6. Never stop acquiring new marketing tricks

7. Use data to make decisions

8. Enjoy working with technology

9. Manage their work according to a schedule

10. Write very, very well

11. Deliver specific, identifiable results

REVENUE-DRIVEN MARKETING
Marketers who are capable of driving revenue tend to
thrive in their careers. That’s because most CEOs believe
that marketers are detached from corporate business
objectives. A recent survey by the Fournaise Marketing
Group highlights this problem – 78% of CEOs think
marketing isn’t focused on generating topline revenue
growth. And 80% of CEOs believe marketers are
disconnected from short and long-term financial
objectives. Marketers who can tie their efforts to improving
revenue thrive in an environment like this.
KNOW YOUR MARKET
The success of a marketing organization depends on its
ability to understand its target market. The marketer who
can understand and effectively articulate what customers
and competitors are doing has a foundational marketing
skill. Becoming the voice of the customer is particularly
valuable to a business. Marketers who can collect both
quantitative and qualitative data about customers and
present that data to executives in a strategic manner are
very valuable. One other point – this isn’t just about
gathering data via surveys. Direct conversations with
customers are critical to this effort and usually more
valuable than survey data.
CREATE REMARKABLE CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCES
Today’s most successful marketers create 
remarkable experiences for customers. Thanks to the
internet, there are now many more points of interaction
between a customer and brand today. These interactions
are growing richer and richer and it’s marketing’s job to
create and manage these experiences. Marketers who
can create experiences that truly resonate with customers
are rare, but those that can deliver business results that
far exceed the norm.
BECOME A STORYTELLER
A big part of creating a remarkable customer experience is
telling a good story. It’s harder than ever to get a
customer’s attention. That’s why marketers such as Seth
Godin believe that storytelling is critical to successful
marketing. Marketers must be good storytellers for the
simple reason that customers identify with compelling
stories more than anything else. Most successful
marketing campaigns tell a story that customers identify
with on an emotional level. Marketers who can tell great
stories to customers via a variety of marketing campaigns
are indispensable in a world where attracting a customer’s
attention can be challenging.
TEST EVERYTHING; ASSUME NOTHING
Many marketers make decisions based on their gut
instincts, but with the wealth of data available to them, this
doesn’t need to be the case. Good marketers are
continuously testing things like new marketing campaigns,
ad copy, and pricing to turn data into business results.
Fortunately, a number of tools, such as online advertising
platforms and SaaS tools, are now available, making
testing easier than ever. For example, simple A/B tests will
help you test the effectiveness of relative offers, copy, and
designs.
NEVER STOP LEARNING
Marketing is changing at a rapid pace thanks to dynamics
like the internet and the changing customer behavior. That
means that marketers have to learn faster than ever.
Something as simple as learning has become an essential
marketing skill. Fortunately, there’s a wealth of information
available online that can help marketers learn about new
marketing trends. Many of the world’s best marketers are
actively blogging and tweeting the latest data and
information. 
LinkedIn is another powerful tool for acquiring marketing k
nowledge
 . Examples of topics to learn about now include social
media, content marketing, big data, and mobile
marketing. My co-founder, Craig Rosenberg, puts the
importance of continuous learning this way, “Self-educate
as much as you can. The marketing you learn in school or
in books is much different than how marketing actually
works. You should read blogs, white papers, attend
webinars, go to online and offline training… Even CMO’s
spend a lot of time self-educating on marketing. You can
never know enough.”
USE CUSTOMER DATA TO MAKE
DECISIONS
Marketers now have access to a tremendous amount of
data. As a result, companies are able to understand their
customers much better than before. Marketers who learn
how to collect and analyze customer data in an effort to
make better decisions will be in extremely high demand
for decades to come. Whether this data is used to simply
understand the market or to create and optimize more
effective marketing campaigns, most employers are
looking for people who are adept at using data. A 
background in statistics, deep knowledge of excel, and an
understanding of analytics tools are useful skills in this
area. And don’t forget that some of the valuable customer
data comes in the form of one-on-one conversations with
customers.
BECOME A MARKETING TECHNOLOGIST
Gartner predicts that by 2017 marketing will spend more
on technology than the information technology group itself.
That means that marketers who are proficient with
common marketing applications and systems will thrive.
This doesn’t mean that you have to be an engineer to
succeed, but you do need to be able to use many of these
applications as a business user. Commonly used 
marketing technologies include CRM, marketing
automation, email marketing, marketing analytics, and a
plethora of emerging, online marketing technologies.
MANAGE TO A SCHEDULE
Successful marketers use schedules and project plans to
ensure that they complete their work in a timely fashion.
Most of the work in a marketing organization is deadline-
driven. For example, marketing campaigns have launch
dates that everyone working on the campaign focuses on.
Good marketers work backwards from the launch date
and develop a schedule that governs the work they do.
They also treat those launch dates like scripture, doing
everything they can to make sure they launch on time.
LEARN HOW TO WRITE
Many marketers underestimate the importance of writing,
but copywriting is one of the most important skills that a
marketer can have. It’s the foundation of almost every
marketing campaign. From ad copy, to emails, to landing
pages, copywriting is a relatively basic skill that can have
an outsized impact on conversion rates. It also happens to
be the foundation of the enormous amount of internal
communication that marketers must manage inside of
their company.
Finally, marketing has evolved into a field where marketers
must deliver results. Whether it’s a lift in brand awareness,
generating a certain number of qualified leads, or
delivering revenue, marketing is now on the hook to
perform. Successful marketers focus on delivering results
that share three characteristics. First, the results they
deliver can be easily identified and understood by the
business. Second, they deliver results that have an impact
on the business, usually on the revenue side of things.
Third, they deliver these results on a monthly basis.
Those are the 11 marketing skills that we’ve identified in
working hundreds of marketers over the last few years. By
the way, we also recently identified 18 sales skills that
sales reps should possess. And ff you want to learn more
about how these skills can help you have a long,
productive career in marketing, check out our recent post
on marketing careers. What skills do you think marketers
should possess today? Let us know in the comments
below.
About the author:  Scott Albro is the CEO and founder of 
TOPO. TOPO is a research, advisory, and consulting firm
that believes in a really simple, but powerful idea – that all
revenue can be distilled down to a series of conversions.
By connecting everything we do back to this core idea, we
help sales and marketing organizations exceed their
revenue targets. You can connect with Scott on Twitter.