In investor speak, a Unicorn is a privately owned business that grows to be worth over a billion dollars. The reason it’s called a Unicorn, of course, is that there are very few of these businesses around. They’re almost as difficult to find as a mythical creature.
Unicorn marketers don’t have to be worth a billion dollars. What makes them special, and what makes them all-too rare in their own right, is the dramatic impact that they can have on the growth trajectory of their business. They are able to create pieces of marketing activity that set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) alight; that generate game-changing levels of awareness and engagement; that make their brands famous. That’s the essential foundation for the type of growth that aspiring unicorn businesses need – and it’s the type of foundation that only a special kind of marketer can build.
The concept of unicorn marketing has been popularised by Larry Kim, the founder of Wordstream and the chatbot and marketing automation platform Mobile Monkey. He first came up with the term in 2018, using it to refer to pieces of content that generated incredible levels of traction on both search engines and social media platforms. Since then he’s expanded the idea beyond content marketing tactics to explore all of the different contributions that a unicorn marketer can make to a business. And in this infographic, he highlights the unique combination of hard and soft skills required to become this type of marketer.
Larry has been a B2B and content marketing influencer for years – and so his view of the most important marketing skills is always worth paying attention to. However, we don’t just have to take his word for these being the most valuable skills for a marketer to possess. Our annual analysis of LinkedIn data shows that several of the skills in this infographic are among the most in-demand of all skills for businesses in 2020. Recruiters are actively seeking out unicorn marketers!
Creativity, Adaptability and Collaboration are all among the top five most sought-after skills for businesses worldwide this year. In fact, Creativity has been number one for the last three years. Analytics, meanwhile, is linked to two of the most in-demand technical skills for 2020: Analytical Reasoning (the ability to think strategically on the basis of data) and Business Analytics (the ability to use data-driven analysis to decode what your organisation’s goals should be).
Unicorn marketers don’t just have in-demand skills, though. They are also hybrid marketers, able to apply these skills to a range of different B2B marketing channels and tactics. They are able to build coherent strategies for how they use content marketing, social media and mobile to further their goals. They know the technical details of search engine optimisation (SEO), link-building and campaign analytics. However, they’re equally comfortable interrogating data to understand their audience, building a long-term strategy to grow the business, and inspiring fellow marketers to follow that strategy.
Marketers like this aren’t as rare as mythical, horned creatures – but their impact can be just as magical. Make 2020 the year you build more of the skills that you need to become one.
This infographic was originally published by MobileMonkey
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