If we are honest with ourselves, no one has the perfect playbook for the current marketing landscape. The technology is moving faster than the textbooks, which has led to a massive rise in private organisations stepping in to teach marketers how to actually leverage AI and become data-driven, simply because traditional education systems are struggling to keep up.

For us in the B2B space, this uncertainty presents both a challenge and an opportunity. We are moving away from the era of the purely creative marketer to a hybrid role where analytical and technical skills are just as heavy on the CV as copywriting or design.

This shift brings reporting and measurement to the fore. We need to interrogate the components of marketing within our B2B organisations and ask what success actually looks like. Is it purely lead-generation? Is it brand-building? Or is it a complex mix of both? If we cannot define the destination, we cannot map the journey. We need to understand the specific business outcomes we are driving towards before we can identify the skills required to get us there.

Assessing the skills gap

The first step isn’t to blindly throw budget at training, but to get a clear view of current capabilities. We need to ask difficult questions. Can our teams interpret data? Do they understand the mechanics of a customer journey from a marketing automation perspective? Can they drive a CRM tool or use predictive analytics?

As Momentum ABM notes in its insights on the marketing upskilling reset, this is a mandate that every CMO must embrace. It is no longer enough to just have great ideas; we need the technical competence to execute them within complex digital ecosystems.

For creatives, this doesn’t mean the ‘art’ is dead. It means the art has changed. It is about the ability to use data to tell stories and using AI as a base to create content for personalisation at scale.

The data reality-check

However, there is a caveat to this drive for technical skills. You cannot upskill a team to be data-driven if the organisation’s data strategy is flawed.

At BCX, we have learned this through experience. We previously brought in data scientists, thinking that was the silver bullet. It didn’t work as well as we hoped, not because of the people, but because the foundational building blocks – the completeness and accuracy of our data – weren’t fully in place. Without clean first-party data and proper governance, even the best data scientist will struggle to make an impact.

Organisations often don’t realise they need a data strategy until they try to execute on data-driven marketing and hit a wall. Before we rush to upskill people on advanced analytics, we need to ensure they understand data usage, governance, and the importance of accurate reporting.

Bursts of specialisation vs. the generalist

Once the foundation is there, how do we structure the learning? There is often internal pushback against expensive external educators, leading organisations to develop their own learning platforms. While cost-effective, these internal solutions often lack the depth required.

We need to be smart about how we mix ‘learning by doing’ – using tools and running projects – with formal certification. A TTC Marketing workforce development blog put it succinctly: continuous upskilling is essential.

I believe in the concept of “bursts” of skillsets. A marketer needs to be a generalist to a degree, but we need the agility to zoom into specialised areas when necessary. For example, we might need deep insights on keyword optimisation or Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO). Once that project is done and the framework is set, it becomes a maintenance task. We don’t necessarily need that deep specialist level permanently, but we need the flexibility to acquire that skill for a season before moving to the next challenge.

A culture of shared knowledge

Finally, this transformation cannot happen in a silo. Upskilling isn’t just for digital teams; sales, customer experience, and product teams must also be part of this journey to ensure we are all speaking the same language.

We also need to look outward. There is a pressing conversation that needs to happen between the corporate world and educational institutions. We need graduates who can do the work, not just understand the theory. Until curricula catch up, the responsibility falls on us to build a culture of knowledge-sharing and cross-peer learning.

When we teach each other, and when we blend formal accreditation with practical application, we ensure that skills transformation is sustainable, relevant and, ultimately, drives the business forward.