What Marketing Skills Should You Consider When Building Your Team?

As a CMO or Interim CMO, these are the marketing skills to consider when building your team.

The biggest change in marketing in the past 10 years has been the proliferation of channels and touchpoints, and an ability to read data and drive ROI. Today’s marketer must have the ability to guide their team across a variety of dimensions including creative, brand, digital, data analytics, content strategy, technology infrastructure and more.

When building a team, here are some strategic skill sets you might want to consider. At the leadership level, you should look for a CMO or hire an interim CMO with a good grasp of all of these skills. The leader can then use this list to assess strengths and gaps across the team, and to understand whether they might need to supplement their skills.

Marketing Skill Sets

Look for a broad set of these skills with a CMO or when you hire an Interim CMO

Core Capability	Responsibilities	Personal Characteristics
1. Brand Strategy	Establish what the brand stands for, and articulate key selling points and value proposition. Identify growth drivers. Develop and communicate your brand’s growth goals, target audience, competitors, look/feel to the team. Apply consumer insights to drive growth Align creative and content to drive brand strategy and growth Deliver clear, motivating creative briefs	Strategic with excellent writing skills Positive motivator
2. Acquisition	Develop and optimize data-driven campaigns across multiple channels (SEM, SEO, Native, Lead Generation, Display, Social, Direct Mail) Align messaging, imagery testing goals Adjust budget spend	Quantitative, analytic. Comfortable with Excel and data Excellent writer
3. Data & Analytics	Establish an analytics and reporting capability Establish your KPIs and OKRs Develop an actionable framework for tracking and optimizing results. Establish and review YoY and MoM metrics for campaigns, channels, and audiences. Report on results so you can drive action	Quantitative, analytic, strategic
4. Testing & Optimization	Conversion rate optimization: Establish testing goals and run A/B tests across the website, landing pages, and messaging Advanced optimization: Establish analytics and insights to understand your best customers and channels and to develop purchase intent and purchase path learnings	Quantitative, analytic, innovative
5. Website / Landing Pages	Develop and use website as lead generation and registration tool, for transactions, and for cross-sell and upsell Establish and optimize landing pages Ensure that leads and web interactions are being captured accurately and optimized Bring design and UX/UI judgment Create viral loops	Excellent creative judgment and writing skills Innovative Excellent writer Product-focused Analytic Motivating communicator (manage art directors, copywriters, web development team)
6. Content Strategy & Production	Lead the SEO strategy; build SEO-focused pages Apply consumer insight Drive blogger outreach; establish newsletter and email opportunities Develop engaging content for social and email channels Develop video or podcast content Establish PR strategy and press releases	Excellent writer Motivating leader (manage agency, copywriters, video production, etc)
7. Customer Engagement & CRM	Establish customer engagement strategy across email, events / experiential, and online. Set up the appropriate systems to establish customer segments and value proposition/ insight for each segment. Track results and optimize messaging	Technical Strategic Analytic Excellent writer
8. Technology Infrastructure & Marketing Platforms	Establish best practices across your marketing and analytics platforms and technologies. This includes the Google Marketing Platform (Google Analytics), Adobe Marketing Platform (Adobe Analytics), Salesforce, Social Platforms, Email Marketing Platform, and Webinar Platform. Some knowledge of DMPs and DSPs is also helpful.	Technical Strategic
9. Strategy / Partnerships / Innovation	Establish partnerships to scale your marketing plan Innovate and test new opportunities	Strategic Creative
10. Agency and Creative Collaboration and Management	Ability to motivate your agencies and Creatives to do their best work Ability to apply consumer insights and creative judgment (UX/UI, design)	Motivating Good, objective communicator Good multitasker Excellent creative judgment
11. Brand Experience	Ability to develop programs, experiences, and grassroots campaigns that excite and engage the consumer	Creative and focused on consumer insight Highly executional
12. Negotiation	Ability to negotiate the best agency, media, and partnership deals	Quantitative, Strategic

Another consideration is that at different stages of your company’s development, you may see the need for different skill sets. For example, at the early stages of establishing your marketing plan, a knowledge of marketing platforms together with data and analytics skills will be very important. When establishing your brand identity, you need a marketing expert who is well-versed in consumer insight and has led an agency team. This is why it is sometimes useful to hire an interim CMO or consulting firm. The interim role allows you to assess the skills and expertise that you need, before you invest in a permanent CMO.

What do you think? Are there other skillsets you think are important that you would add to your team? What skills will you look for when you hire a CMO or hire an interim CMO?

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What Marketing Skills Should You Consider When Building Your Team?

CMOs or interim marketing leaders need a broad range of skills.

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