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Early 2020 was rough for marketers. Remember the doom and gloom marketing-job forecasts? The real-life stories of layoffs? Well, here is some good news 20 months later, marketing jobs are bouncing back, big-time.
According to a report from LinkedIn, marketing jobs have seen a 63% growth in the first six months of 2021. Companies posted about 381,000 marketing jobs in the approximate year-long time span from June 2020 to June 2021. That includes 17,000 remote jobs.
This is a far cry from the dark forecasts from early 2020: Forrester in one estimate said 469,000 marketing jobs will be lost by the end of 2020. Chief marketing officers (CMOs) told Gartner they reduced in 2020 permanent, temporary or contract headcount by about 37%. Marketing teams at big companies downsized.
We’re going to explore some of those marketing roles companies have been hiring mostly during the pandemic. Before that, however, it’s important to also uncover the marketing skills in high demand.
LinkedIn data found being skilled in digital strategy, Adobe Analytics, link-building, and off-page SEO “can make you a coveted asset.” Skills in web analytics, creative problem solving and “soft skills” are among the fastest-growing skills, which dovetails “durable skills” such as critical thinking and communication, according to LinkedIn officials.
Writing a press release? That's a fundamental skill marketers should possess, too. And gaining expertise in content marketing and social media is also helpful, according to LinkedIn officials.
“I think the headline is that, finally, strategy skill sets are more in demand than plain old execution skills like advertising and channel expertise,” said Shar VanBoskirk, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester who focuses on chief marketing officer customer strategies. “During the pandemic, channels, and channel skills, proved less useful as many channels were shut down. Winning marketers were ones that could strategize outside of just executional capabilities. How might we change our pricing model? How should we change our delivery approach? How can we reinvent our products? All in a way that is more relevant for what customers need and value now.”
Here are some marketing jobs most in demand in 2021 according to LinkedIn.
According to Indeed, a digital marketing specialist, or digital marketer, helps maintain a brand by working on marketing campaigns.
Their duties include:
We didn’t see “pulling your hair out” trying to make sense of data silos and integrating marketing tools, but we’re thinking that may belong here, too.
This role seems to cross the sales and marketing threshold in many cases. According to Glassdoor, digital account executives work in a sales role, helping to maintain or extend existing accounts (customers) and develop new accounts. However, according to a job post from an agency on LinkedIn, digital account executives support digital campaign delivery and are expected to have a good understanding of digital advertising.
Responsibilities include:
Indeed, we all need our social media managers. A social media manager’s responsibilities within a smaller company may have to act as a one-person content creation team, including doing graphic design, copywriting and photo and video editing, according to Hootsuite.
“Within larger organizations, social media managers may work with agencies and/or the teams and specialists with those skills,” Hootsuite officials wrote. “No matter how big their team and resources, social media managers have many duties to juggle.”
According to Hootsuite, typical social media job description includes:
According to Indeed, a digital marketing manager is responsible for developing, implementing and overseeing long-term digital marketing campaigns as well as short-term advertising techniques. Candidates should be adept at enhancing brand awareness, driving traffic to the company’s website and generating sales leads.
Some duties include:
A digital strategist works with a strategy team to create long-term goals and plans for their products, according to Payscale. You must be creative and understand technology and people who use these tools. You must be able to determine your company’s best direction of digital product and services. The digital strategist analyzes large quantities of data and identifies the most important pieces of data related to its digital offerings.
Some duties will include:
“This person also must have excellent interpersonal communication skills,” Payscale officials wrote, “as the digital strategist may run meetings and lead a team dealing with digital strategy.”
