Finding candidates who understand marketing and have strong technical skills is relatively easy. It’s the soft skills and more intangible qualities that are tougher to find – and those are the skills that make the difference between an average marketing manager and a great one.
In this fast-moving environment, the cost of a bad hire can be substantial, and the opportunity cost that comes with NOT having the right marketer can mean the difference between a business hitting its growth goals or falling behind. With the right cultural fit and a strong on boarding program, CIOs can build that all-star marketing team that will hold their ground and grow with the business.
Here are few skills that CMOs need to look out for in candidates for the marketing team.
Empathy
Marketing is targeted at other people, so it’s very important not to view the world solemnly from one’s own perspective. The central concept of marketing is the concept of market orientation and being able to understand the customer. The process can show the market and perceived competitors in an entirely different context. It can also highlight a profound lack of understanding of what people outside the marketing industry bubble need or want. A marketer who can display empathy is a marketer who can make deals.
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Anti-perfectionism
Perfectionism is often praised, but if applied to marketing, perfectionism could cause a delay in tasks.. All consumers have different ways of perceiving what is being offered, and no one approach is right it’s the combination of different tasks that drives marketing and trying to achieve perfectionism ‘is not always the right thing to do.
Curiosity
A sense of curiosity is essential to marketers. New ideas appear regularly in the marketing universe, and firms have to look out for them, search for something suitable to the brand, test it, apply, or move on. Before tactics come strategy, and before process comes diagnosis. That is where curiosity comes in. Marketers should enjoy testing ideas and reverse-engineering competitors’ successful strategy.
Making Time
The most significant barrier to marketers is strategizing and getting on top of their jobs is getting their inability to address planning crucial that is key to good marketing. Highly motivated marketers make it their business to get to know every aspect of the company and prepare.
Rule-breaking
The golden rule of good marketing is the ability to transgress and break the rules. If brands aim to be different they should be able to disregard category norms and break the rules. This is one of the reasons why successful companies actively attempt to have a diverse team where people of different genders, races, nationalities, and backgrounds communicate. The more different brands are, the bigger differences exist in how they think, which brings more and more ideas out in the marketing universe.
Also Read: CMOs Need to Track These Metrics in 2022
Long-term vision
Most companies plan on a 12-month cycle. The red line of sales activation is so much more attractive in terms of ROI than the blue line of brand building that is often neglected. Marketers who lean too heavily on short-term ROI do well in year one, but lose out later.
The classic marketing balance between long-term growth driven by brand marketing, and short-term sales uplift from performance marketing, exercises many marketers. Together, the long and short-term activities produce optimum results.
With so many specializations, new technologies, and more on the horizon, the learning never stops, and those with the insatiable desire to grow, dominate, win, and repeat the cycle will stay ahead and earn their way to the top
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