The 5 New Must-Have B2B Marketing Skills

It always comes down to skills.

When marketers talk about what’s holding them back—it’s always skills. When the demand generation engine is stuck in neutral—again it’s because of skills. When the CMO is unimpressed—it’s because your team requires more skills.

B2B marketing is changing. And many modern marketing departments lack the fundamental skills required to keep and drive real demand. Many of these skills may might not even be top of mind.

Here are the five must-have skills that B2B marketing departments need to build a demand generation machine.

1. Content marketing

To generate leads and revenue, you need to offer something. That means content marketing. This could be in-house created content, licensed content, videos, demos, webinars—whatever the medium, conversion happens when you give something of value. Marketing needs to be a publisher and the marketers need to be authors.

2. Funnel mindedness

Even if your job isn’t demand generation, the entire marketing team must live and breathe the funnel. The only way every member of the team can impact leads, opportunities and revenue is if they are intimately with the dynamics of your funnel.

3. Social media

Not everyone on your team has to be administrator of your Facebook page or tweet from the corporate handle. But marketers should develop their personal brands with the help of social. By doing so they can serve as ambassadors to your customer community, and amplify your messaging.

4. Analytics

I don’t care if you work in PR, product marketing or demand generation—everything we do in marketing can and should be measured. Marketers should be held accountable for developing a reporting cadence and creating a set of measurements that make sense for your business. Digital analytics help everyone know what they are held accountable for and that will encourage collaboration.

5. Technology

Even if you’re not a marketing automation pro or a web analytics guru, chances are your job requires technological know-how. These systems can be huge enablers to help you do more with less and scale.

For more information about the tools needed to succeed in B2B marketing, please check out: