7 Skills You Need to Become an Inbound Marketing Rockstar
Posted by Bill Faeth on Fri, Jul 13, 2012 @ 01:17 PM
The Skills Great Inbound Marketers Need
Inbound Marketing is more than just blogging and using social media regularly to promote your brand. Due to the highly integrative approach to cutting-edge marketing practices, the best inbound marketers have an enormous professional skill set that ranges from CSS design to social skills.We've compiled a list of the top skills that turn social media users and blog writers into true inbound marketing rockstars.
1) Content Creation
Almost anyone can write 600-1000 words on a specific topic, but creating content of actual value on a regular basis requires writers who actively adopt best practices. Content creators need to understand the proper role of keywords, the importance of a content calendar and SEO principles. Content creation balances creativity, efficient time management practices, solid research skills and responding to trends. Inbound marketing rockstars need to have the content creation chops to develop jazzy titles and intriguing link bait, and the organizational ability to focus efforts on eBooks and white papers.
2) Analytical Skills
Inbound Marketing is driven by data, and true inbound marketing rockstars go crazy over Excel spreadsheets and graphs. The web is a sea of analytics, and the best inbound marketing rockstars know which facts and figures matter to their bottom line. To be an effective inbound marketer, you need to know which tools can help you discover the keywords that are driving traffic and the results of A/B testing call-to-action buttons.
3) Graphic Design
Your landing pages won't be very effective without top-notch call to actions buttons or visually-appealing eBooks and white papers. Graphic design is particularly powerful when combined with inbound marketing expertise, because graphic design essentially relays ideas. You could outsource to a great graphic designer, but if they don't understand the principals behind the practices, the images might not look right. Inbound marketing rockstars not only understand the big picture, they can develop engaging images and infographics to relay their messages.
4) Web Development
You can't promote blog content or perfect landing pages without an optimized website. Rockstars at inbound marketing should have the CSS skills to develop and launch the website central to an inbound marketing campaign. Web design is particularly valuable to inbound marketing rockstars because they can launch or adjust landing pages at a moment's notice.
5) Research
Inbound Marketing, social media trends and the needs of consumers can change from moment to moment. The recent adoption of the Facebook timeline is a great example of the dynamic nature of inbound marketing, because it fundamentally changed the value of visual content overnight. Every inbound marketing rockstar has a unquenchable desire for knowledge and the best industry blogs saved to their RSS feeds. Fast, effective research skills are closely tied to effective content creation.
6) Soft Skills
Engagement is the most important metric for social media success. Inbound marketing rockstars don't just have the technical knowledge necessary to operate and optimize profiles on major social media networks, they know how to ask questions that will engage fans and followers. Soft skills are also crucial to dealing with customer complaints and feedback in public forums. Social Media is driven by interactions, and soft skills are the vehicle for drumming up dialogue in networks.
7) Videography
Videos can go viral, so the ability to design, shoot and implement videos is closely tied with providing great, varied content. Inbound marketing rockstars know that Youtube is actually the #2 search engine worldwide, and they have the chops to produce video content. Videos don't have to rival the production value of major-release motion pictures, but they should appear sufficiently professional to relay your message without distracting.
Did we miss anything? What skills do you think make true inbound marketing rockstars?
Popular Articles: