What makes a person successful in present day world? Is it talent, hard work or brilliance? Or is it something else? The answer is simple: all the above mentioned three attributes: talent, diligence, brilliance but there is one more attribute missing in the list and that’s marketing knowledge. If a person lacks marketing skills, he/she is probably missing the bigger picture of success.
Knowing the art of marketing in today’s digital world is one of the deciding factors and also the quintessential requirement to be successful in life. The due diligence and humongous effort you put in building your brand doesn’t always ensure the success you’ve always desired. Let’s say you just started any of the following:
- A new business you’ve always dreamt of.
- You just finished a music album. You learnt the instruments, took vocal lessons. Composed and produced an entire music album all by your own effort.
- You completed a thriller/fantasy novel you’ve been writing for years and wanted to make your book a bestseller.
But what’s the use of so much hard work if it doesn’t help you reach mass audience. You can find a lot of talented people walking around you. Nevertheless, they might be more talented, educated and hardworking than most of the successful people you know but are these hard working people able to achieve their goals? What’s preventing them from getting that brand recognition? How many of them are really famous and successful? Perhaps a very few of them.
Some might say, successful people get recognition by an unprecedented luck factor along with their exceptional talent. I’ll differ with this opinion as that’s not always true in every case. Of course luck, fortune matters, but the point is that you’re demeaning the efforts of those hard working individuals who have channeled their marketing skills to build their brand, their online presence and recognition.
Those hard working individuals have already envisaged they are going to build their brand, promote to mass audience, have a big following so that they can make sales and generate revenues and thus their efforts have been rewarded by having that luck factor on their side. There’s a saying ‘fortune favors the brave’ and rightfully they earned their luck by putting effort in marketing.
Marketing skills are required in every sphere of professional life. It may sound weird that only marketers need to have marketing skills to promote their products. Marketing is required when you are trying to run your business and you don’t have any online presence of your product or brand besides having a physical store. Thus in order to sustain in this competitive market, you need to come out of your comfort zone and build your brand and promote online to attract visitors and that’s not an easy task.
The same goes for an artist. If you are as aspiring musician- make your online presence first, build your website and display some of your sample creation and gain loyal fanbase. Once you’ll build audience, you may be approached by a record label and who knows that can change your life. Whereas if you directly visit a music studio and ask them to give a break, you may be shown the door. The online world has given people a lot of opportunities. There are art lovers around the globe. So why are you waiting? Build your online presence.
Talent and hard work are complete wastes if those attributes don’t give you any recognition. Thus knowing marketing skills is a must for all new business start ups. You don’t have to shed money to get experts. There are many marketing experts who can guide you in achieving your goals free of cost through their free online tutorials, blogs. Marketing knowledge is as important as your hard work and talent. Thus learn the following basic marketing skills if you want to stand out.
You don’t need to be a marketing wizard to be an expert. The following simple ways can give you a good start in the marketing field.
1) Writing skills
Writing will always serve as the base of your marketing needs. You need to have your content, sales pitch ready to deliver by which your potential customer may visit your site, place further enquiries and it may result in conversion. Writing skill takes time to develop even if you are a non native English speaker. It all depends how you write a captivating content or a sales pitch to get the most from your customer.
2) Tech oriented
Now the world is moving towards digital revolution. Every person is learning computer skills, social marketing skills. Now you see every second person is chatting on WhatsApp, Facebook, twitter. Minimum knowledge of computer is mandatory in today’s world. You must have some knowledge on the latest gadgets, technology, skills that can drive the marketing skills. It doesn’t mean you need to have a degree in computers and have to be tech savvy. You simply need to know basic computer skills which are very important – typing, editing, formatting, proofreading, graphics designing.
3) Creativity – Must need for marketing skills
If you are here to earn, a little bit of creative skills is absolutely necessary to propel your marketing banner. How can you be creative? Creativity is art which is learned mostly by studying other people’s work, observing the surroundings. Just like the King of Pop Michael Jackson said “the greatest form of learning is watching the masters at work”, you must also look for experts around you.
The online world consists of so many creative entrepreneurs, marketers, motivational speakers who are always available in their inbox. Follow them and email them and get insights related to your field of marketing. I’m pretty sure you’ll learn a lot as some of them will definitely respond even when they have a very hectic schedule.
4) Digital marketing – Important marketing skills
The name itself says everything. In this digital world, learning the marketing techniques through digital marketing gives you everything you need to succeed in marketing. This is a big subject and takes time to learn. But basic knowledge on web designing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and promotional methods are necessary to move ahead in the marketing world.
5) Learn from your mistakes
Results of marketing takes time. You should not lose hope and always learn from mistakes. Making mistakes is common but always learn from your mistakes so you don’t repeat. Never feel disheartened when you don’t get proper results. There is always room from improvement and learning new stuffs from mistakes which will eventually make a successful marketer.
Conclusion
It is a tedious task and people take multiple lessons, degrees on marketing to become a successful marketer. However on the other hand, a person without the marketing degree/education can still excel and promote his brand online. He/she can be successful if he sticks to his/her discipline and goals. In short, learn the marketing skills and be that successful person (entrepreneur/artist/author) you always aspire.
I value the -advises and think will make a huge difference in my career.
Great article! I believe that marketing skills are important in any profession, and I really stress that with my students. I will be sharing some of your content in today’s class. Keep it up!
This so true. I believe in the 80/20 rule, 20 % of the work is you doing your skill in my case writing while the 80% is everything else which is basically marketing.
I am a firm believer in promoting oneself. There is no greater champion for you than yourself. Consider this shared on FB!
Very true! Great post. There is no point in doing something if you cannot show or sell it. Thanks for sharing 💕
You definitely make a lot of good points here. I particularly like #5 Learn from your mistakes. You don’t always know what will work until you try it. So you cannot be afraid to fail and then try something new. Good read!
This is a great article. Marketing is something that is overlooked. I use to overlook this as well. I had to look around and pay attention to see who was getting views and sales and who wasn’t. I can honestly say marketing was the common denominator. Once I noticed that I’ve been taking my time to get people engaged and I have seen a difference.
Thank you for stopping by. Yet marketing is overlooked many times.