Top marketing skills in 2024 (August)
Summer 2024 is the Summer of Creativity: Social & Content and Creative & Production skills dominate
We’re labeling this summer the ‘Summer of Creativity’, thanks to data revealed in our most recent Marketer’s Most Wanted report. We’re an agency/client matchmaking platform, monitoring real-time briefs we receive from chief marketing officers (CMOs) and brand owners. This information gives us a unique perspective on what’s hot and what’s not each month – data which is then distilled into our monthly Marketers Most Wanted report.
An exciting top-of-the-table duo consisting of Social & Content and Creative & Production skills retains its position for the second month running. Though both categories saw a slight volume decrease in August, with Social & Content dropping from 17.9% of our total briefs in July to 17.2% this month, and Creative & Production from 10.7% to 10.3%, they still remain our two most popular briefing categories.
Heavy investment in these creative agency skills seems sure to continue as brands look to cut through in a noisy market,” noted our CEO Pete Sayburn. “We’ve had projects ranging from big, flagship creative campaigns to small monthly social support retainers.
Software Development skills retain popularity this month
After its first ever dip out of our top three categories in June, Software Development has re-established its place and in August positioned third on the table, making up 8.6% of briefs. Despite a 0.3% decrease in volume from last month, this category shows a continued strong performance.
Recent briefs in this area include the development of a new interactive tool for a finance website, a healthcare platform migration, and some website hosting services.
“Software Development was way down the table in our 2023 averages, so it’s been interesting to see it as a constant top-table contender this year,” said Sayburn. “Although we’ve noticed fluctuation over the last two months, I expect this strong investment to continue for the remainder of 2024.”
Research & Insight and Brand Strategy continue strong performances
Despite a 1.1% drop in share - from 8% last month to 6.9% this month - Research & Insight has managed to retain its fourth place position. In this category, our briefs have varied widely. We’ve seen projects including quantitative research to assess the desirability of different features to inform a product roadmap, qualitative testing of creative concepts, and exploration of go-to market options for a new brand.
Brand Strategy is a winner this month, having shot up from 8th place in July to a current 4th place, and matching R&I with 6.9% of our total briefs. In this group, we’re primarily seeing demand from established brands looking for a refresh, rather than completely new products or categories.
UX/UI Design and Digital Marketing hold onto 6th and 7th place positions
After a staggering fall last month, from its usual top three position to 6th place, UX/UI design has seen little movement. This month it represents 6% of our total briefing volume, a 0.3% decrease from last month, and a 10% decrease from our 2023 average.
“It will be exciting to see whether demand for skills in this category return back to previous levels this Autumn, to match its popularity at the same time last year,” Pete said. “Last month we began to see the end of some larger-scale digital transformation programmes, and our figures show clearly that this has reduced demand for external support in this area.”
Digital Marketing is maintaining its position and stays strong in 7th place, also representing 6%. This category is constantly hovering in the middle of the table as brands continue to invest in paid media campaigns. Example briefs include helping an established UK brand to test channel mix and messaging in the US market, creating and delivering programmatic digital advertising campaigns and creating and executing other focused digital marketing campaigns for brand growth!
SEO and Copywriting drop positions
Our SEO & PPC category has seen a big dip over the last month from 5th to 8th place, due to a 2% share decrease. “In terms of volume figure, this category has proven itself to be the least predictable of all,” noted Pete. “In the last 6 months it has ranged from 10.2% to 5.2% (this month being its lowest of all), possibly due to the high value and longer-term nature of these contracts”
Copywriting also saw a position drop this month, currently claiming 10th place, and making up 4.3% of total briefs. This is the lowest share in this category since February, but this area tends to fluctuate due to the relatively low ticket price of these projects.
Proposition Design increases in volume again
Proposition Design has seen an 0.7% increase this month, and moves up from 10th to 9th place. We’re seeing demand from brands for support to create new propositions adjacent to core business as well as piloting new products or services.
Conclusions
“As our Summer of Creativity comes to an end, we’re excited to see what sorts of changes we see in our table over the coming months. Will UX/UI Design reclaim its top-table spot by the end of the year? Will we have any fresh entries making their way into the charts? There’s definitely lots to look forward to!”
Other StudioSpace highlights this month included;
- A behaviour change project for a not-for-profit client in the health industry.
- Video production for a specialist financial services group focusing on the retirement income market.
- Photography to promote membership of an iconic Australian cultural tradition.
- A social media campaign on ‘Demystifying Banking’ for a global bank.
- Social media strategy for a global grocery icon.
- SEO site migration and performance campaign for global alternative asset manager in private credit, real estate and hospitality.
We’ll see you next month for September’s report! In the meantime, if you’ve got any questions, please do reach out to hello@studiospace.com and we’d be happy to help.
