Marketing consists of presenting a product or service to potential customers and convincing them to buy that service or product. Marketing messages appear on all business tools, including the brand, logo, stationary font, website, advertisements, sales materials and email messages. Effective communication skills in the form of personal interaction, team communications, written and visual messages are essential traits of the successful marketer.

Personal Communications

Skilled marketers require exceptional personal communication skills. They must be extroverts who thrive on making everyone they work with feel comfortable, accepted and valued. They must generate trust and confidence in themselves and the product they represent. They are good at finding common ground and making emotional connections to whomever they are dealing with. They use these interpersonal skills to solve the customer’s and company’s problems to the benefit of all.

Team Communications

Marketers interact daily with a large variety of personality types, such as business managers, artists, computer scientists, magazine and newspaper journalists, clients and company executives. All communicate differently and speak the language specific to their roles. Successful marketers are experts at listening and understanding the needs and communications of each type of personality and job position. They treat all they interact with as equals and negotiate effectively with each stakeholder to ensure marketing goals are met. Marketers are open to innovative approaches and try to implement professional suggestions when possible.

Visual Messages

Visual images must be in line with a company’s mission statement. Using visual marketing tools a marketer must ensure that the goals and objectives of a company are apparent. Marketers must be able to identify images that reflect the strengths of a company and those that will most quickly emotionally reach a target audience. Marketers should know their company’s primary competitors and choose media that will enhance the reputation of their company over that of their competition.

Written Messages

Marketers must be proficient at writing messages that conform to the primary marketing format of AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. Marketing material produced by markets must send a clear message to audiences to convince them to purchase a product or service. They must gain the attention of the audience with pertinent headlines and procure their interest through appropriate story lines or case studies. Marketers must identify and appeal to the desires of their target audiences and request that they take action to have those desires met by the product or service. Successful marketers sell by using their exceptional communications skills in all work-related interactions.