How Do You Spend Your Marketing Time?
The OMCP (Online Marketing Certified Professional) Certification performed a Role Delineation Study at the beginning of the year. The study asked participants to rank how much time they spent in each discipline. In addition, participants were also asked to provide insight into the required education, experience and training for each of these roles.
Sneak Preview
I was able to get a sneak preview of the data, and there were some real surprises! I can’t let them all out right now, but if you are interested in getting the data for yourself once it has been crunched, let me know through my contact form!
Click on the image to see the full-size version.
Observations:
The largest area of time spent is on Advertising Strategy and Communication of Practice at 14%!
Testing and Reporting are second at 11%
What this means
This is significant, as I matches up with the trends I’ve been seeing throughout the marketing industry – regardless of company size. VP’s, Managers and Owners alike want their marketers to not only participate in overall business strategy, but also present their data and ideas.
This sets up into two primary areas: First, business acumen. Second, the soft skills. (left brain, right brain?)
Skill Sets in Demand
From Enterprise to SMB, marketers are increasing their value to the company when they can tie practice to business value. In other words, The ability to see beyond the tactics and understand the spectrum of business strategy and issues. This requires not only the marketing creative for a campaign, but the critical thinking of defining success factors.
Then, it is the “soft skills” of being able to present to others, in a competent and persuasive manner. I often remarked when I was looking to hire – “I want someone who can write well and speak well – I can teach them the rest.”
The basic skills of being able to engage people face to face and present persuasive information are the growing skills in demand – for digital marketing!
Marketers, Develop Your Right Brain and Left Brain Skills
Hiring people because they simply understand the tactic or technology is falling out of favor, as those working within disciplines or technology need to be able to see the larger picture. They need to be able to understand their role within the context of the larger business goals, think critically as they relate to the larger business enterprise, and also present a clear picture of their ideas and findings.
This dual threat is the most desired hire in the marketing industry. So much so, that the survey also shows that managers are moving to prefer experience over degrees!
How are you working to improve your skills? Not just your disciplinary or job skills, but developing your business acumen and presentation skills. These are the skills that will be in demand as marketing continues to evolve quickly.
Again, if you would like access to this study when it released, just drop me a note through my contact form!