The Most Important B2B Marketing Skills

More than half of my 30 years in business has been doing B2B marketing. There have been a lot of skills that have traditionally helped a B2B marketer perform better at their role. Skills like channel management, lead generation, brand strategy, relationship management, forecasting, etc.

However, to become a top performer in the coming years, LinkedIn recently did a survey and identified these top skills as the most important for B2B marketers in the near future. The skills that I agree as new and urgently needed skills (based on my experience) are the top 7. These B2B marketer skills are innovative thinking, agility/adaptability, problem solving, AI proficiency, creative strategy & execution, marketing technology, and growth mindset.

The top skill needed is innovative thinking. The ability to solve marketing problems with “out of the box” solutions. This ability comes from who we are as a person, our mindset, education, experience, and ability to solve problems. Marketing is the ability to find ways to get your product in front of large pools of ideal customers that love it.

Agility or Adaptability. If you working for a startup or even your first job at a Fortune 500 company, you’ll need to be able to adapt to solving marketing problems you’ve never done before. Having the agility to learn on the fly, and provide successful solutions is key as a junior marketer or even someone new to a different industry.

Problem solving. Problem solving and critical decision making are really part of almost all skills, but being able to solve problems quickly with positive outcomes is much needed. Especially when you might be operating with a small budget and need to move the needle on growth, return on ad spend (ROAS), and return on investment (ROI).

AI Proficiency. This is in the top list, however, I think its a bit over-rated. As a marketer (even today), I’ve used AI sparingly. However, I’ve found it helpful when your stuck on a title of an email and maybe need an AI generator to give you some new ideas. I’ll also use AI sometimes if I feel like a sentence I’m working on in content marketing could be written better. I will then use AI to try and generate some quick fresh ideas. AI can definitely be helpful with speeding up video production, video editing, or text to voice presentations.

Creative Strategy & Execution. Generating highly-successful go-to-market strategies will come with experience over time. I’ve found that keeping strategy and execution processes simple and repeatable are the most effective. A focus on creative solutions is important, especially for building new and unique brand and thought leadership campaigns.

Marketing Technology. What’s your marketing tech stack? That’s a common question these days. Being well versed in different marketing tools that can act as a “force multiplier” (as they say) will help you succeed as a marketer. Tools for customer relationship management, social media, digital contests, webinar campaigns, booking appointments, creating funnels, and analytics for example.

Finally, having a growth mindset is super important. I’ve learned over the years, once you have built successful GTM strategies and executed them, keep thinking about “how can I grow this faster?” Removing mental roadblocks and having a how can I do this now mindset will help you grow quickly as a professional B2B marketer.

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