4 brilliant marketing skills to achieve success in 2021

Looking to achieve success in 2021 as a marketer? Check these 4 brilliant marketing skills!

1. Automation skills

Automation is the elimination of all manual labour through the use of automatic controls that ensure accuracy and quality and was first coined in the 1940s at the Ford Motor Company. Automation ushered in the industrial revolution by producing goods at scale faster and better than the traditional man-powered system.

Business-wise, automation supports the organization’s efforts of streamlining its operations and processes thus freeing the employees from doing time-consuming tasks and allowing them to tackle creative tasks where they can add real value.

Learn more about business automation in 4 technologies every business should use to achieve its goals effectively in 2021.

In October 2020, leading Robotic Process Automation software (or RPA) UiPath’s survey on automation skills found that 70% of senior executives want non-technical employees to have automation and AI skills.

They also believe that employees with automation and AI skills will benefit from increased career advancement opportunities.

We are living in a digital world so it stands to reason that marketers should make the most of any digital tools that could help them achieve their goals.

What marketers are looking for is the next big idea that will increase market share, brand awareness and generate sales. Time is of the essence in any business, but in marketing, this is abundantly true. So automating time-consuming tasks whenever possible helps marketers become more efficiently and accurately.

Here are some of the tasks you can assign to a software robot aka automate:

• Data integration with Excel automation for financial analysis;
• Data manipulation;
• Screen scraping;
• Create automation for single activities, desktop applications, multiple actions, web apps, and virtualized environments;
• PDF data extraction;
• Email automation.

Do you need any programming skills to automate tasks?

No.

RPA doesn’t require any programming skills to get started.

That’s great news but how come, you might ask?

The RPA software records tasks as they are being worked on by you and then replay these recorded tasks and voila!

Your mini-digital-you is doing them faster and better so you can focus on more important tasks.

To learn more about automation or begin upskilling, check out UiPath Academy’s free RPA training.

2. Trendwatching skills

BRAND MINDS 2020 speaker Gary Vaynerchuk started the Wine Library TV four months after YouTube launched in 2005. He was the first entrepreneur to build video content for a brick-and-mortar business.

Fifteen years later, Gary is now a digital expert and media icon with a combined 16-million followership. Having foreseen the video content trend taking off definitely helped him.

Watching the trends is a skill every marketer should start developing today. Not every brand can be a trendsetter, but every brand should watch the trends taking off or slowing down.

When marketers pair this kind of insight with creativity and a marketing goal, it’s a boost to the brand’s competitive advantage. And that could potentially be what separates one brand from its competition.

Here are 3 trend watching tools that you should explore:

Trendwatching is one of the world’s leading consumer trend firms since 2002. It is purpose-built to guide, inspire and empower business professionals. The company relies on its proprietary Purpose-Driven Innovation (PDI) methodology, a core analytical framework that turns trends into meaningful business opportunities.

Glimpse identifies growing trends by analyzing hundreds of millions of consumer behaviour signals from across the web, including products, companies and industries. Did you know that Chessable, a platform teaching players about different chess openings, endgames, and tactics has seen an increase in online popularity? It’s partly due to Netflix’s release of The Queen’s Gambit, which prompted the searches and online discussion of chess to double.

Trend Hunter boasts a monthly viewership of 20 million and identifies as a trend community. The company leverages big data, human researchers and AI to identify consumer insights and deep dive opportunities for the world’s most innovative companies. Among standard trends categories such as products, brands, topics or people, Trend Hunter also includes ideas as part of its offer.

3. Growth marketing skills

What is growth marketing?

Let’s look at three definitions of growth marketing I curated from different sources. Observe the bolded words.

The first definition says growth marketing is defined as the strategies, tactics and techniques used to focus on growing a business, product or service. Unlike regular marketing activities, the emphasis and activities focus on accelerating growth. (source)

The second definition says growth marketing is a process of rapid experimentation across marketing channels and product development to identify the most efficient ways to grow a business. (source)

The third definition of growth marketing goes as follows: Growth marketing is an approach to attracting, engaging, and retaining customers that’s focused on relentless experimentation and an intense focus on the unique, changing motives and preferences of your customers (source).

As you can see, there is no single accepted definition of growth marketing but some parts do overlap. The bolded words in each definition are my way of helping you see where that definition directs its focus.

So what’s growth marketing?

The first says it’s about strategies, techniques and tactics, which is an outward overview. The second talks about a process of rapid experimentation (speed) and includes product development which is an interesting approach. The third looks inward and makes the customers its focal point. It also includes experimentation, but this time it’s not about speed, but endurance over a long period. Think Sir Mo Farah, the marathon runner instead of Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world.

Seeing that growth marketing has so many definitions, what is the role of a growth marketer?

Also, don’t confuse growth marketer with growth hacker. According to Sean Ellis, the original growth hacker, a growth hacker is “the unique hybrid between a coder and a marketer”, thinking of growth first, budget second. He takes advantage of systems based on loops and goes deeper into the customer funnel.

Today’s fast-moving digital business environment requires marketers to turn into T-shaped marketers.

Fundamental growth marketing skills:

• Data-tracking & analytics
• Behaviour psychology
• Learnability (the desire and ability to grow quickly and adjust one’s skillset)
• Growth-hacking mindset
• Technical skills

Generalist skills:

• Customer development
• UX & UI development
• Copywriting
• Visual design
• Customer retention

Specialist skills:

• Conversion rate optimization
• Marketing automation
• Acquisition marketing
• Referral programs & virality
• Activation & onboarding

4. Stay informed

Successful marketers know what’s going on in the industry.

They follow the trends and the numbers, but, more importantly, they follow the people.

And I’m not talking about big celebrities, although every marketer should be aware of their power to influence communities and consequently their customers (there’s always a lesson to learn here).

What I’m talking about is connecting with industry experts in various verticals on LinkedIn or other social media platforms.

From experienced sales professionals to UX designers, video content creators to business analysts, consumer behaviour specialists to performance marketers – they are valuable resources for any marketer looking to succeed today.

Follow them and you will always stay updated with the latest trends in marketing in particular and business in general.

Also, you will know what other brands do well or not so well. Why Quibi, the USD 2 billion-startup founded by one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, led by an experienced CEO and slated for success, crashed and burned in just six months after its launch? There are definitely two lessons to be learned here: one is related to leadership, the second is related to marketing.

Use LinkedIn to achieve your professional goals. Connect with or follow industry experts or peers that share valuable insights. If you don’t know where to begin, check out LinkedIn’s Top Voices 2020 list.

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10 Growth Marketing Tactics To Grow Your Business

Are you looking to grow your business?

Read on to discover 10 growth marketing tactics!

10 Growth Marketing Tactics To Grow Your Business

Growth Marketing Tactic #1 – Sniply

Would you like to increase your conversion rates? Sniply is a great tool to achieve this goal.

Sniply is a simple tool that allows you to overlay your own custom message onto any piece of content, creating an opportunity for you to include a call-to-action with every link you share.

People use Sniply to drive conversions from every piece of content they share. You can drive traffic to your website, downloads of your app, registrations for your event, customers for your service, and more.

I created my first snip in 2 minutes and I chose to place it on one of Seth Godin’s blogs as you can see below:

Key takeaways:

• Make sure the page which hosts your snip and the page your snip sends visitors to match ie your content is relevant to the visitors of the host page;
• Create a clever CTA.

Growth Marketing Tactic #2 – LinkedIn Engagement Pods

Engagement pods started on Instagram and in recent years migrated to LinkedIn.

What are LinkedIn Engagement Pods?

LinkedIn Engagement Pods are private groups of Linkedin users who are all focused on engaging in and sharing other people’s LinkedIn content.

It’s a way to boost your post’s visibility on LinkedIn. This engagement gives your post a little nudge in the right direction but only if it’s high-quality content.

LinkedIn Engagement Pods can amplify your brand’s reach and provide you with opportunities for improved networking and/or collaboration.

If your company employs a large number of people, creating a Company LinkedIn Engagement Pod could empower your employee to become advocates on social.

Key takeaway:

• Choose your LinkedIn Engagement Pod carefully;
• Write content relevant to the pod’s members.

Growth Marketing Tactic #3 – Thank-you tags or coat-tailing

You post your piece of content and it starts receiving likes from the people in your network. What do you do when someone gives you something? You say ‘Thank you!’.

The same courtesy should apply online too. Growth Marketer Jeff Deutsch encourages marketers to say ‘Thank you’ in the comments of their posts and tag the people who liked them.

Why is it a growth tactic?

Because LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter will show the posts where these people are tagged to other people in that person’s network which leads to increase visibility.

Growth Marketing Tactic #4 – Place the link to your article in the first comment

Every social network wants to keep you connected on its platform. That’s why all social platforms encourage and value engagement (likes, comments, shares) and frown upon posts with links that allow users to leave their digital space.

Posts with links receive less visibility than posts with no links. You have spent three to four hours carefully crafting your blog and you would like people to read it and rightfully so. But if you cannot place the link in your post what can you do?

You have two options:

• Publish the post with no link then edit it to include the link;
• Publish the post with no link but place the link in your first comment.

It’s been a week since I implemented this tactic and my posts with links in the first comment received increased visibility jumping from 50 views to over 400 views overall. That’s a 6x increase in visibility!

Growth Marketing Tactic #5 – Post native video on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter

Video is the best way to engage authentically with your customers. Although not everyone feels comfortable talking in front of the camera it’s a great way to get your customers to know you and build a connection.

All social media networks now allow users to post native videos. They encourage users to upload videos directly or go live on their platforms. As a result, video posts receive increased visibility.

Here are 10 smart ideas for video content you can use on LinkedIn and 10 Ideas to use Facebook Live in your Communication Strategy 

Growth Marketing Tactic #6 – Pixel your visitor

Growth marketer Jeff Deutsch has this tip for marketers running Facebook ads: pixel your visitor, not your landing page.

Instead of placing your Facebook pixel on your landing page, place it on a blank HTML page. This page will pixel your visitors and redirect them to your landing page.

What does this tactic solve?

It tags people who leave before your landing page has loaded because they either lack patience or your landing page has a number of scripts that extend the loading time.

Jeff states this tactic is a way to stop losing 30% of your ad traffic.

Growth Marketing Tactic #7 – Facebook Messenger hack – the Auto-responder

Over 1 billion people use Messenger to connect with businesses every month.

Messages delivered through Messenger receive better open and click-through rates than the messages delivered by email.

MobileMonkey CEO Larry Kim found a way to take this opportunity to the next level: auto-responders.

In his article, Larry shows how to grow your Messenger subscription base with an auto-responder chatbot called Comment Guard.

Growth Marketing Tactic #8 – Gamification

Famous marketer Neil Patel lists gamification as a growth marketing tactic.

He recommends marketers to use gamification to their advantage by pulling their audience in with quizzes and polls to spark engagement and brand awareness.

To leverage gamification, marketers have to make content entertaining while also providing value.

According to Neil, gamified systems must tick three boxes:

• Give users motivation to do something (emotional investment, the promise of reward, etc.);
• The ability to complete the action;
• Provide a trigger or cue to complete the action.

Growth Marketing Tactic #9 – Piggyback on a thriving network

In 2016, Spotify integrated with Facebook Messenger allowing people to share their Spotify songs or playlists directly within a chatbox. This integration accelerated Spotify’s growth through referral traffic. Ultimately, millions of Facebook users also became advocates of the music platform because it filled the users’ desire to share their music socially.

Airbnb’s integration with the Craiglist platform is now the company’s most famous growth hack. In 2010, looking to access Craiglist’s huge user base, Airbnb built a bot to piggyback the platform. Check out the Airbnb growth case study.

What is the secret of successful integration with another platform?

Start with the perfect experience and work backwards.

Growth Marketing Tactic #10 – H.A.R.O

H.A.R.O. stands for Help A Reporter Out.

Help A Reporter Out is a media services company with over 35,000 journalists and 800,000 source members which started out as a Facebook group.

HARO allows sources to find topics related to their expertise, industry or experience while allowing journalists and bloggers to spend more time writing and less time sourcing. Subscribe as a source and you could be featured in mainstream media.

It’s a long-term effort but the potential benefits are worth it: increased brand awareness, augmented SEO, building business opportunities, establishing leadership credibility and garnering high levels of engagement on social.

What growth marketing tactics do you employ to grow your business?

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