6 Marketing Skills Every Business Owner Should Master

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Business owners can’t afford to ignore marketing in 2015.

As competition for the attention of online consumers heats up, it’s essential that you take time to learn new strategies and skills that can help you continue to strengthen brand loyalty, engage with customers, and connect with new prospects. 

Here are six marketing skills you’ll want to take the time to master in order to take your business to the next level in 2015:

Skill 1: How To Make Videos That Actually Bring You More Business

If you’re not yet quite convinced of the value and potential ROI of making and sharing videos for your business, consider the following statistics: 

  • « 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text. »
  • « 188.2 million people in the US watched 52.4 billion online content videos in December 2013. The average American spent more than 19 hours watching online video. »
  • « Website visitors are 64% more likely to buy a product on an online retail site after watching a video. »

In 2015, video marketing is going to be bigger than ever. If you haven’t taken the time to start experimenting with video, now is the time. You can start by watching this Video Marketing Success Webinar from Kissmetrics, which will teach you how to set the right goals and follow the right processes in order to accelerate your video marketing success.

Skill 2: How To Acquire Customers Using Email 

Email marketing is another area that is sure to be big for businesses in 2015. Last year, more businesses than ever spent resources developing and implementing marketing strategies in an effort to connect with and retain more customers. For many businesses, the investment has been paying off. In a recent Capterra blog post about email marketing, author Caroline Malamut included the following statistic: 

  • « When marketed through email, consumers spend 138% more than people who don’t receive email offers. »

Email marketing can seem a bit intimidating if you’ve never used it as a tool to connect and communicate with customers in the past, but it doesn’t have to be. There are a lot of great resources being published every day that can help you learn how to get the most out of email marketing. Start by reading through this Acquiring Customers with Email Guide from Help Scout. It’s packed full of helpful examples and tips that can put you on the right track.

Skill 3: How To Automate Marketing

If you want to become a more efficient marketer, you have to be willing to invest in tools that can help automate your efforts. 

Last year, more businesses than ever adopted and implemented marketing automation tools in an effort to streamline processes, understand their customers better, and make more money. In fact, according to Salesforce, « a quarter of all B2B Fortune 500 companies are already using marketing automation, along with 76% of the world’s largest SaaS companies. » 

If you’re not sure what marketing automation is, how it can help your business, or where to start, spend some time listening to this four-part series on The Future of Marketing and Sales Automation from Sugar CRM. In it, you’ll hear from a few industry experts as they discuss a handful of examples, best practices, and upcoming trends in relation to marketing automation.

Skill 4: How To Become a Better Copywriter

In the last few years, content marketing has become one of the primary strategies that companies use to connect with more people online. If you want to make waves online as a business, you have to take the time to regularly write and publish blog posts on your website. But publishing regularly week after week won’t do you any good unless you also take time to ensure that the content you include in every post is thoughtful, original, and helpful. 

In 2015, your ability to write and share high-quality content with your prospects, customers, and followers is going to be more important than ever. If you don’t consider yourself much of a writer, start by reading through this Copywriting Guide from Quick Sprout. It’ll teach you everything you need to know about writing compelling copy for the web.

Skill 5: How To Use SEO The Right Way When Developing Content

Despite what some may tell you, SEO is still important when it comes to building online awareness for your brand, boosting traffic to your website, and landing new customers. That being said, SEO isn’t what it used to be. In recent years, Google has been seriously cracking down on and penalizing companies that implement what they feel are shady tactics in an effort to « work the system. » As a result, companies can’t use the SEO strategies they used five years ago. 

But that doesn’t mean SEO is dead. It has just evolved. Now it’s much more content-focused. To gain more understanding on how SEO is changing in 2015, spend a few minutes reading through this SEO Driven Approach To Content Marketing Guide from CoSchedule. It will give you insight on the steps, processes, and tools you need to use to get the most out of SEO this year.

Skill 6: How To Develop and Implement a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Along with content marketing, social media marketing is another major opportunity that you’ll want to take advantage of this year. Like SEO, content marketing is constantly evolving, so it’s important that you stay up-to-date on trends, strategies, and best practices. 

If you want to be more strategic and intentional when it comes to implementing social media marketing strategies in 2015, make use of this Social Media Marketing Resource Kit from Buffer. It will help with deciding which social media sites you should be participating in, when you should be sharing updates with your followers, how to track ROI, and more. 

Sujan Patel writes about business, marketing, and growth. He is the VP of Marketing at When I Work and previously founded Single Grain, a leading digital marketing agency. 

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