To better understand and serve marketing professionals, the AMA – in partnership with Desklight Learning – recently developed a skills framework to guide professional development for the modern marketer. Having conducted a survey with over 1,700 responses, interviews with professionals, and focus groups with subject matter experts, the result of this research is a set of domains that organize the knowledge and skills needed for those in the many different areas of the marketing profession.
The skills framework consists of four primary domains which, together, represent a full life-cycle of marketing activities. They are not completely independent of each other, as some skills will overlap between domains.
The framework defines skill-based activities and behaviors for each domain, organized by career level. Future iterations of the framework will also aim to identify related soft skills, which AMA calls Essential Capabilities, tools and technologies related to each domain, and relevant application of DEI principles for each domain. To this end, AMA is leveraging its partnership with The Diversity Movement to publish a series of articles throughout the next year related to aligning marketing practices with DEI principles, focusing on each of the four primary domains of the Skills Framework.
With the skills framework in place, the AMA is taking a close look at the educational opportunities currently being offered to ensure these align with the skill needs of marketers and employers. This will also play a prominent role while curating future training, conference, and credentialing offerings. As the framework continues to be implemented and shared with all stakeholders, the AMA will also leverage this research to help chapters in need of guidance on effective learning events and professional development programming.
The marketing profession will continue to evolve, and the skills framework will play an important role in preparing the modern marketer. The framework will also continue to evolve along with marketers to ensure AMA is offering the right training and education to best move the profession forward.
A more in-depth video walkthrough of the Skills Framework will be included in a future newsletter, but chapter leaders looking to start aligning programming with the skills framework are welcome to reach out to the AMA Learning team at cwilson@ama.org for more information.