Marketing Happy Hour - 3 Skills Every Marketer Must Develop

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

In this solo episode, I dive into the three critical skills every marketer needs to develop continuously: Copywriting, Relationship-Building, and Adaptability. Inspired by a listener's question, we explore how these skills not only form the foundation for successful marketing careers but also remain vital throughout a marketer's journey. Whether you're just starting or are well into your career, this episode offers actionable insights to enhance your marketing prowess and stay ahead in a fast-evolving industry. Key Takeaways: // Mastering Copywriting: Consistent, well-crafted copy is essential for effective communication and brand alignment. // Building Genuine Relationships: Strong professional connections can open doors and drive long-term success. // Humanizing Brand Interactions: Personal engagement on social media builds trust and community. // Embracing Adaptability: Flexibility and openness to change are crucial in a rapidly evolving marketing landscape. // Proactive Problem-Solving: Anticipating changes and preparing in advance helps navigate industry shifts smoothly. Read more on this topic via the MHH blog: HERE ____ Say hi! DM me on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - I can't wait to hear from you! Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. ⁠ Join our FREE Open Jobs group on LinkedIn: ⁠Join now⁠ Get the latest from MHH, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow MHH on Social: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. I'm Cassie, consultant, podcaster, and your host. Every Thursday, you'll hear episodes packed with insights from brand leaders on an array of topics from crafting effective marketing strategies and hitting career goals to building leadership skills and launching your own business. Inspired by those unfiltered happy hour combos with peers, this show is all about practical, empowering chats to support your professional journey. So grab your favorite drink and let's get to the episode. Hey, and welcome back to Marketing Happy Hour today. I'm going to dive into a little solo episode. I'm covering three skills you need to be constantly developing as a

marketer. And I think this episode is going to be incredibly relevant, whether you're specifically a marketing professional, or you do marketing as a function as an entrepreneur, or it's a part of your role at a different company. I think these skills are incredibly useful to make sure you're developing. And I hope that this episode is insightful. As I'm recording, it is January of 2025. This is the first episode that I'm recording of this year. I'm excited to get back into it. It has been a wonderful holiday season, just resting and relaxing and spending time with family. I wish you could see how I am sitting right now. It's actually pretty hilarious. I live in Florida and we have this thing that we like to call Florida cold and we're

definitely experiencing it right now. It is in my mind freezing outside. So I'm bundled up in my office. I have a blanket around me. I am sipping on a beer as I record this episode, the Edge Hill Hazy IPA, which is one of my favorites, non-alcoholic beer, great brand, highly recommend, but I'm all bundled up. It's chilly, but I'm super excited, super thrilled to kick off the 2025 season of Marketing Happy Hour. I think overall, this episode is going to be incredibly relevant no matter what time of year you are listening in at but I think this is also a great topic if you are listening in January of 2025 just to kick off to be thinking about how can I start to focus in on how I'm developing my skills this year what are some things and areas of improvement that I can work towards and it's a

really good reminder to be honest for myself too Like just things that I need to be focusing on moving into this new year. And I'm just super stoked and motivated to do that. The other thing that's really cool about this episode is this episode is in celebration of 200 Marketing Happy Hour episodes. 200 episodes is a lot. Erica and I launched this podcast back in 2021. And so, gosh, is this now four years? Yeah, four years going on with the podcast here. April will be four years, which is absolutely insane. Launching this really initially with Erica is, was such an honor. And

unfortunately Erica has moved on to focus fully on work, but I'm just so grateful to continue to build this, um, and just build this community and learn from our guests and learn from you, uh, listening and just hearing what is on your mind and how you're developing in your personal skills. And so just want to thank you so much for being here, whether you have listened to one episode or all 200. If you've listened to all 200, email me. I have to know.

I do not expect anyone to have listened to all 200 episodes, but whether you've listened to one or all the way up to 200, just super grateful that you are here. A quick housekeeping on that before we dive into the actual content of this week's episode, but if you have not done so already, would love to invite you to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform, just ensuring that you'll get every episode that we release directly to you when you need it and when they are launched every Thursday. And also on that too, if you have not already left a review on your favorite podcast platform, I would also invite you to do that as well. It takes about

60 seconds. We'd love to hear kind of what you want to hear in 2025 or any insights you've taken away from the show or feedback or anything. This podcast is incredibly rewarding to produce and develop, but it's also a great deal of work. And I tell you, hearing your feedback and hearing your reviews and thoughts on the show is the number one thing that keeps me going. It's so kind, all the things that you all have shared. And so would love to invite you again to leave a review on Apple, Spotify, whatever, if you have not done so already, and it absolutely means the world. So let's get to the episode. Again, today, we're going to talk about three skill sets you need to be developing as a marketer. And of course, there's a lot more than three skill sets. I think there's a number of different areas that we as marketers or in a marketing function should

be thinking about, should be working on on a consistent basis. But in my opinion, when I was thinking about this topic, these are the three areas that are top of mind for me personally, things that I have found just looking back in my past career and past experience that have been insanely critical in order for me to land opportunities and to stand out to hiring managers, my clients, recruiters, leaders, etc. And this question was inspired by a listener question on Instagram. So it's Jacqueline asked, what's a major skill set that's nice to know when starting out in the marketing industry? And so again, I am going to answer this in kind of a different way. Yes, these skills are important to be developing early on,

but also again, in my opinion, I think just consistently throughout your career, whether you're three months in, 10 years in, these are areas that you should be focusing on no matter what. And just a little teaser before we get into the actual content. So these three skill sets that we're going to focus on today are number one, copywriting, number two, relationship building, and number three, adaptability. Okay, so number one skill set, copywriting. I put this up top because it is incredibly important. This order of skills that we're going to talk about today, there's not really a hierarchy of importance, but I tell you copywriting is something that you will do every single day as a marketer, whether it is writing emails to partners, to clients, to teams, whether you're

writing emails for email marketing, for public consumption, whether you're writing social media content, blog posts, you will write so much copy as a marketer. So again, it's incredibly important that you are always developing the skill set and approving upon it. And within the subset of copy, of course, there's this element of grammar and spelling and having that skill and being able to read, copy and recognize where edits need to be made and sure it makes sense and it's clear and it's concise and it's straight to the point. One of the pitfalls that I fell into early on in my career is I had a to-do list. I had things on my list to do and I was so eager to get everything done and I would kind of rush through my work. My work still had a level of quality to it,

but I was so excited to check something off of my list that I would write a bit of social copy or write an email really quickly and not read over it before publishing it. And I tell you the amount of times that I published work out into the world with spelling errors, grammar mistakes, et. It was bad. And that is not something, trust me, that you want to receive an email on or be pulled into your leader's office and told you published something with mistake in. So my biggest recommendation to you as you're developing your skill set in copywriting is to slow down, read your work, make sure everything looks correct, it reads correct, it's clear and concise before publishing out there. Don't be afraid to get an

extra set of eyes depending on what that content is and make sure someone else reads over it and make sure it looks good. Because I tell you again, if you are responsible for publishing any sort of misspellings or errors, it's not fun to deal with that. And it's just not a good look. So make sure you do that. The other thing within copywriting is you got to make sure you spend time learning the tone of voice or studying the brand personality of whatever brand you are writing for.

And this takes time, right? If you work at an agency, a lot of times you're are writing for. And this takes time, right? If you work at an agency, a lot of times you're managing multiple brands. If you work internally for a brand, there's this extra level of deepening your knowledge with that brand specifically. But no matter what, just make sure you study past copy, you study brand guides, you study the tone of voice of that brand just over time and make sure that no matter what you're putting out, there's this level of consistency across the board about how you are writing. The other thing that I'll say too is I know AI is very much a thing nowadays.

And in my opinion, I think AI is a very wonderful benefit to us as marketers. I think there's a lot of good that AI can do. I think it can save us a lot of time and brainstorming, et cetera. However, as copywriters, and when we are doing the copywriting function for a specific task or work for a brand, we do not want to use AI to fully rely on for finished copy work. And so I recommend to you to learn how to use AI to your benefit, use it for idea generation, brainstorming, exploring details about your audience and a tone of voice and analyzing past copy in order to give you some ideas for future work or ideas and content that you can put out there. But I highly recommend not using it as a

crutch in the way of just relying on it to spit out finished copy. People will notice if there is AI generated work out there. And so I just, again, recommend to be careful there. So the question I always get asked to is, I want to work on my copywriting, how do I improve my work there? So the number one thing is repetition, right? Same with any skill set you're developing, doing it over and over again, being consistent with that work is going to help you to improve, number one. And so I highly recommend that you write often for the brands that you work with. Volunteer for projects that involve copywriting. If you do not necessarily do copy as a function on a regular basis, ask if you can be involved in a project. Can you write a blog post for the brand? Can you write a few

social copy assets? What can you do to kind of step into that function and improve your skill set? Another thing that you can do is take it upon yourself to improve on your own. So maybe you decide to start your own blog on Substack or LinkedIn. I did that back in 2018 when I was getting agency experience for the first time. I was living in New York. I didn't write a ton of copy just based off of the role that I have, but I started a LinkedIn blog and that really helped me just get consistent with copy, learning different styles of copy that resonate with people, etc. It was huge for my experience. And the other thing too is practice writing copy for various platforms. So yes, starting a blog on your own is very helpful, but also try your hand at writing

social copy and getting used to that. And how does social copy vary from blog copy and vice versa? And the last tip that I have for you to improve the skill set is read. That's bottom line. I think just when we read a number of different styles of books, we open up our minds to the way that things can be written and shared and storytelling is incredibly important. That's something I could talk about all day of just learning how to share compelling, interesting, engaging stories. And a lot of our copy that we write today is based on storytelling.

And so that's a huge, huge skill set to develop. So don't forget to read and read often. Okay, skill set number two that I highly recommend to focus on this year and beyond is relationship building. And kind of along the lines of what this to you is just communication, overall communication, and just proper communication skills is something that will definitely come in handy in your skills as a professional and a marketer specifically. And I talk about relationships all the time on this podcast. If you've listened to at least two or three episodes, you've probably heard me mention this. But just overall, like learning to treat others with intention and focus time and energy on

building genuine relationships will get you far, not only professionally, but in life in general. And so within the skill set, here's a couple of recommendations I have to you. So number one, if you can try to aim to build a new network connection each month, I say one connection just because I think focusing on starting with one, you never know where that one can lead you in the future, but also it ensures that you are really taking the time and intention to build that one specific relationship. And LinkedIn is an amazing resource for this. You can brainstorm people in your specific industry that work for a company you'd maybe dream and desire to work for in the future and just using that as a way to spark that connection with others. And with that, I highly recommend that you take some time

to build out your profile, get some awesome work samples on there, make sure you have all of the information needed filled out there, just so when you go to make that first initial connection, people understand who you are. And when you reach out to a connection for the first time, I highly recommend to just write a connection request that is as human sounding as possible. I know that's self-explanatory. However, on LinkedIn, we have fallen into this trap. I think in general, just users of the platform of being so robotic sounding and so salesy and just so surface level.

And so just even taking the step of letting someone know why you want to connect with them specifically, what stood out about their profile, or the industry that they work in, or the company that they work for, their experience, maybe you saw a couple posts that they had shared. Just being a little bit more personalized without that outreach request. It takes a little more time when sending that connection request, but I promise you it's going to set the precedent for your new connection that you're building. And after you spark that initial connection, whether you set up a discovery call with someone for the first time, or you're just simply digitally reaching out and just again creating a

connection on LinkedIn for example or via email making sure that you are then following up often after that initial connection and I don't mean following up once a week or even once a month really that's just being consistent maybe it it's quarterly, you're reaching out or you see them post something that resonated with you and you send them a message telling them your thoughts on that post, etc. Just making sure that you are consistent and you are at least engaging with them on a regular basis. That's going to really help deepen that relationship. I think relationship building also comes into play just in general with your industry work. So outside of career, like specifically in a current role that you have, for example,

relationships are so key with building community on social with your audience, building connections with partners and influencers and internal connections with other marketing team members or someone in a different department, just practicing the way that you communicate with other people and build relationships is going to enhance all of those functions that you do in a specific role. And again, I think this comes back to just intentionality, like literally being the kind of person that you would want to be friends with or be peers with. And so thinking about it in that way. And I think too, with social media on the community building front, people want to connect with other people. People don't connect with things, with brands,

with products, they connect with humans. And so thinking about how can you humanize your brand's account and come across as intentional as possible in your DMs and comments and just the way that you talk to other people online. And that comes to with just responding, like simply responding when someone reaches out to you. I know depending on how many messages your brand gets, this can be harder to respond to every single message that comes through, but trying your best to just take the time to simply respond to someone, call people out by their name, personalize those messages, et cetera. That really stands out just within your marketing function specifically and just building your brand overall. And again, as I mentioned, as you think about relationship building,

approaching those partner and community and network relationships as almost like friendships. You know, how would you want to be treated? Again, talking to people consistently, being interested in their lives and what they're working on and who they are and not just seeing it as your own personal benefit from that relationship. Because people it really stands out when you take the time to actually get to know people and show your intentional about that relationship. And skill

set number three that I want to focus in on today is adaptability. If you've worked in marketing for even five minutes, you know how quickly the industry changes. And so being adaptable is critical. Indeed.com defines adaptability as adaptability skills are qualities that allow you to adjust to changes in your environment. Being adaptable at work means you can respond quickly to changing ideas, responsibilities, expectations, trends, strategies, and other processes. I think adaptability is a skill that definitely takes time to develop. It's not just something that you can often say to yourself, oh, I'm going to be adaptable. And it happens like it takes time. Same with all of these other skill sets that we've talked about today, But overall in marketing, in my opinion, I think we have to avoid ever saying the phrase, this is the way that we've always done things. Because I promise you

having that mindset is not going to work long-term. We see all these changes happening on social media with the algorithms changing and new platform features and the way that consumers are consuming content and are looking for new products and things like that. And so a brand overall just cannot succeed in any space if they move forward with this mindset of we're going to just keep doing things the way that we've always done them and not change anything and not optimize and shift because I promise you your brand will get outdated very quickly and it will be overshadowed by brands who are meeting consumers and meeting these platforms where they are. And I know a lot of this comes from leadership.

I know it's difficult, especially as a corporate marketer to say, hey, these are things I want to try and test and I want to develop in this way and having a leader that kind of shuts that down and is not open to that. So definitely keep that in mind as you go to present new opportunities, but also don't be afraid to present new opportunities too. Even if you're not asked, taking the initiative to kind of step up and share like, hey, Instagram just released this new platform update. I think we should test XYZ here. And that really stands out to showing that you are staying on top of trends in your space and you're able to kind of articulate the way a brand should jump on those. And I think the other thing too is a lot of times

when a change does happen, whether it's in our career, on a platform like I was talking about, we sometimes, and I'm definitely guilty of this, but we sometimes are so eager to jump in and make a change immediately. But I think the other thing too is, yes, it's important to stay on top of those trends and changes. However, at the same time, it's important to slow down, gather all the facts and assess what it means for ourselves or our brands before reacting too quickly. Because as we've seen with trends in the past, for example, it doesn't always make sense for a brand to jump on a trend. And so making sure that you handle that decision in the right way before acting too quickly is also really important. So it's kind of

this balance. For example, you know, we also have this impending TikTok shutdown coming up. Who knows what's going to happen there, right? Thankfully, we have advance notice to anticipate this potential shift happening. But I think too, with just being adaptable, it's this level of how can I anticipate changes that will happen within marketing, that will happen within my career. And being able to think of preparing yourself or your brand in advance for that impending change, I know we don't always have the luxury to prepare in advance in that way. However, I think with adaptability comes this layer of being knowledgeable and keeping tabs on every layer of

your career and every layer of your brand and saying, hey, this could potentially happen. What can I start doing days in advance, weeks in advance or months in advance to prepare for that? So for example, with the TikTok shutdown, if you are working for a brand that has a large, large following on TikTok and you haven't really been focusing on Instagram as much or email marketing as much in the past several months or years, now is maybe the time to start shifting your strategy and not taking the foot off the pedal with TikTok, but making sure you are also focusing on building these other channels and own channels for that matter, like email, where you can serve your consumers there. And so when the day comes, for example, if TikTok shuts down,

you have a community built on these other platforms that you can fall back on and you don't feel so stripped of everything that you have because TikTok decides to close their doors. And so that proactivity, I think, is super important and just covering all of your bases in advance. And I think we as marketers, no matter how far you are in your career, I think showing that you are staying on top of these changes, staying on top of these updates and presenting these updates to your team and to your leaders and saying, hey, I think we should test X, Y, Z. Here's all the facts that I have presenting why we should do that. I think

that really stands out for you in your career and just in your role in general. And I think too, just overall with this level of adaptability, just remembering that things change so quickly in career and marketing and life in general. And a lot of this stuff can throw us for a loop, but I think it's just overall up to us to control and handle the way that we react. Is it professional? Is it educated? Is it knowledgeable?

And I know that's hard sometimes depending on what is happening in life and in career, but this is a skill set that I think is going to take you far of just having this layer of, you know, something could happen next week, but like, I'm going to figure it out no matter what. It's okay. I think there's a lot of times these weaknesses and challenges that happen. We have great opportunity that can come out of that if we have the right mindset. So again, as I mentioned, those are just three skill sets that I wanted to focus in on today. There are many other out there that I think are incredibly important to focus on.

Maybe I'll share some more on Instagram just in the coming weeks at Marketing Happy HR and just share other things that community members have shared as skill sets to be focusing on. But these are three that are very much top of mind for me today. I'm really curious what you think of these. Again, feel free to share your thoughts to shoot me a DM, comment on a social post for this episode here. But I just think these are so huge. And these are things that I know specifically I'm going to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. And I think this is just a great way to set a precedent for the year.

And so again, I just want to thank you so much for listening today. Again, curious to hear your thoughts in a review or in a comment or DM on social. Let me know. Let me know what you thought about this episode specifically. Let me know what you want to hear in 2025 and just want to thank you again for being here for one episode, two episodes, three episodes, 20 episodes, however many you've listened to. Just grateful that you have taken your time to tune in and stay tuned to next week for the first guest episode of 2025. I'm so excited for

you to listen in and to listen in all year. Thanks again. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love your feedback. And if you're ready to take things to the next level, sign up for my weekly newsletter in the show notes. You'll get weekly career and marketing insights straight to your inbox. And if you have an idea for a future marketing happy hour episode, shoot me an email. Hello at marketinghappyhr.com. Thank you again, and I'll see you next Thursday.