Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Three Basic Skills of a Successful Marketer

Someone asked this interesting question in Quora! There were several equally interesting and enlightening answers. Replies rightly pointed out skills such as business acumen, creativity, result orientation etc.


IMO, they are all right skills to be a successful marketer, or a consultant or a banker or a saleperson! Which business profession does not demand "business acumen" or "creativity"? So, which are the basic skills specific to marketers? Here is my take.

I have just started my marketing career! But here is what I have seen common traits among the most successful marketers I have interacted with.

Appreciation of the brand: Even when buried in piles of data, copies, market research report and proposals, they can very quickly identify the stuffs that aligns with the brand and those that do not. As a result, they are quicker in taking action and frequently those actions that are relevant to brands.

An ear to the consumer side: What the consumers will need next? - Make that product. Where they will make the next purchasing decision?- be there!

Nice yet tough: Unlike successful bankers ( or successful persons from most of the well known business careers), successful marketers are usually very nice to talk to. I believe this is because of the nature of the job. As a brander, you are working with finance, trade, sales, market research, creatives, manufacturing plants and what not. But interesting part is that, you do not have formal control over the people in the other divisions ( although the ultimate responsibility of the P&L depends on you). As a result one is successful only when one is successful in getting all those various divisions work for her.

Also successful marketers are tough. They are not satisfied with any work that is even a bit short of perfect. Because I do not think in any other job, where you need to be so careful about every word, font, color etc. For example, a simple change in the curvature of a font can make your label less spot-able in supermarket shelf. Successful marketers have eye for these kind of details and they are ready to return work any number of time rather than making compromise

[Cartoon from Dilbert.com]

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