The job of a marketing and communication expert is to reach the intended audience with persuasive information that results in the desired action. The skills and technology used to do this are constantly changing. Social media continues to impact the type of marketing required, and new technologies such as artificial intelligence are gaining popularity.

So, how does that impact the labour market, and what will employers of communication and marketing experts be looking for in 2019?

1) Employees need to understand the new trends in digital marketing

Video will account for 80 per cent of internet consumption by 2019.

It’s not about having a separate department or team who understand digital marketing anymore – every hire needs to understand how it works within the wider marketing strategy and be ready to run with it. Digital marketing trends for 2019 include video marketing, artificial intelligence and automation. In fact, video will account for 80 per cent of internet consumption by 2019, according to Tubular Insights, so it’s crucial that a new communication hire understands how it can help them talk to their target audience and how to incorporate video into their social media campaign.

Marketing automation and artificial intelligence are revolutionising the way companies interact with consumers, providing immediate answers to questions and shaping future interactions. Organisations not yet making use of these developments will be looking to do so in 2019. Companies looking even further ahead will be investigating the impact of voice-based search and how they can ensure their content and products continue to rank and drive traffic online.

2) It’s about more than marketing and communication

With marketing now being about so much more than placing adverts, marketers need to be able to analyse and present data to ensure their strategies are relevant. Understanding SEO and analytics packages is crucial for any new hire. As more marketing takes place online or across multiple platforms, tracking interaction to inform future campaigns is an essential skill that recruiters should be looking for.

Being successful in modern marketing requires the ability to think critically, communicate with colleagues and solve problems. For data-driven campaigns to mean something, number and research skills ensure strategies are planned around evidence and can be adapted when necessary.

3) The employer brand is important for attracting the best

Recruiters are now focusing on crafting employer brands to position their organisation as an attractive company to work for – basing it around the types of people they’re trying to attract. Every touchpoint in the recruitment process should reflect your company values. Human resources needs to ensure that initial reach out and ongoing communication presents the organisation as effective and efficient.

Candidates conduct plenty of research about what a company offers, their values, and what their goals are. Part of your public relations strategy should be making this easy for them, and ensuring applicants find the right answer.

Remember, a savvy marketing candidate will not only be looking at your website but at your social media accounts, how you respond to users and what review-based websites like Glassdoor have to say about you. Candidates are now interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them and you need to manage reputational risk to attract the best.

4) Marketing and communication is a growing industry

With millenials now well ensconced in the business world, their desire to change jobs more regularly means that employee turnover can be high. Communication vacancies have grown by 2 per cent year-on-year, according to a SEEK employment trends report, putting job seekers in a position to choose which roles they apply for.

In order to attract the best, employers need to be on top of their recruitment game. Make sure your team nurtures candidate relationships so that they have the best people at the end of their fingertips when the right opportunity becomes available. Your ability to keep up with new trends could be severely impacted if you’re forced to hire someone without the skills you really want.

Take a look at your retention strategies too, to ensure that when you get the best, you keep them.

5) Content marketing is a necessary skill

Marketers need to understand how to execute a content marketing strategy.

The content marketing industry is on track to be worth $313 billion by 2019, according to the report by SEEK. Consumers trust information from people they know, editorial sites and reviews much more than traditional adverts. As many as 30 per cent of users will be blocking adverts by the end of 2018, according to Business Insider, so communication is set to be about talking to the consumer via a medium they trust.

Marketers need to understand how to execute a content marketing strategy to reposition their organisation in the eyes of the consumer and make them worth listening to and investing in.