In the ever-evolving world of marketing, staying ahead of the curve isn’t just an advantage — it’s a necessity. Not investing in the right skills development support can be your Achilles’ heel!
With changing trends, shifting customer behaviour, and marketing technology emerging seemingly every quarter, marketing professionals must constantly grow and adapt. Your team needs to be both skilled and agile.
As a marketing team leader, you’re tasked with more than just delivering campaigns — you’re building capability. And in today’s unpredictable, tech-driven marketing landscape, that’s no small ask.
You have a range of needs you are trying to meet as a leader – reducing attrition, improving team performance, retaining talent, and developing award-winning teams. In addition, your team as learners present different styles of learning, practical constraints to availability, and personal requirements.
Which tools do I need to develop my team?
That’s why progressive leaders are embracing a combined approach to development, including Personal & Team Skills Analytics, Knowledge & Action Training with team and personal Coaching support to drive performance, adaptability, and continuous learning. You also need the ability to monitor learning and development engagement and progress.
Finally, it helps to know your team’s learning styles, attitude to learning, and ambitions… It’s essential for motivation to provide an attractive range of self-determined learning options and flexibility to meet modern executive work, lifestyle, and learning style needs. The truth is one learner may like one marquee/ style of course, but even though the content is similar, it may not suit another.
So…what are the components of your ideal team skills development toolbox?
Training: The Foundation of Marketing Knowledge
Training is about building skills and knowledge. It typically involves structured learning— microlearning, courses, bootcamps, masterclasses, in best practice delivered flexibly to suit learner needs. For marketers, this could mean learning SEO best practices, how to launch a Meta Ads campaign, or undertaking a qualification to demonstrate T-shaped skills for management.
Benefits of training:
- Delivers up-to-date knowledge on tools, trends, and technologies.
- Helps standardize skills across teams or departments.
- Boosts confidence by equipping marketers with the “how” of doing something.
But training alone has limitations. It can be generic, time-bound, and sometimes disconnected from day-to-day execution. That’s where action-oriented training and coaching come in.
Practical, Action-Oriented Training Is the Bridge
The sweet spot? Training that’s hands-on, real-world, and action-based.
The most effective learning happens when your team engages with live briefs, tackles simulated challenges, or works through platform walkthroughs — not just passively consuming slides.
Think of this as the bridge between learning and doing. It gives your team a safe, structured environment to practice new thinking, and sets the stage for applying those ideas on live projects with your support as a coach.
Training Builds Skills. Coaching Builds Momentum.
Structured training gives your team the knowledge they need — the platforms, the strategy, the data. It’s about upskilling in key areas like content, SEO, paid media, measurement, and automation.
But training alone is a first step. Reinforced learning happens when your team can take what they’ve learned and apply it confidently, quickly, and with impact. That’s where coaching comes in — guiding individuals as they experiment, reflect, and refine. It’s about building a culture where feedback, learning, and iteration are the norm.
Coaching Makes Learning Stick — and Keeps It Current
While often touted as alternatives, training and coaching serve distinct but complementary purposes.
If training teaches you what to do, coaching helps you understand how to do it well — and keep doing it better. Marketing coaching is more personalised and ongoing. It’s focused on individual performance, helping marketers reflect, problem-solve, and grow through tailored feedback and support.
Why coaching matters:
- Supports application of knowledge in real scenarios.
- Encourages critical thinking and decision-making.
- Boosts confidence, creativity, and professional growth.
- Offers accountability, which leads to consistency and mastery.
Neither training nor coaching should stand alone. Training without coaching can lead to knowledge that’s quickly forgotten or improperly applied. Coaching without training can limit growth to existing capabilities.
Professional coaching offers short, focused conversations that provide thinking to reframe ‘a better problem’, unlock ideas, sharpen thinking, and support confident decision-making.
When combined with other forms of learning, these create a powerful framework for team development, helping marketers not only learn new skills but also apply them strategically and confidently in real-world scenarios.
The Team Leader’s Role: From Instructor to Enabler
As a manager, your role is evolving. You’re not just the person who gives answers — you’re the person who enables your team to find them.
That means:
- Understanding your team’s skills gaps and development needs.
- Curating great training opportunities (not just relying on generic e-learning)
- Creating space for practical application (not just sending people on courses)
- Providing access to Coaching — through 1:1s, project reviews, retros, and informal check-ins, but also through a community of expertise
As a leader, you don’t need to be a font of all knowledge, or a universal technical skills coach, or even a certified coach. You just need to listen well, ask smart questions, provide access to the right resources and people….and trust your team to think for themselves.
Over time, this builds capability, confidence, and a sense of ownership.
Choosing your Skills Partners, and what to avoid!
You already know this … but there are many over-promoted and hard-sold single solution courses, wonder pills of expertise touting access to genius individuals with God like knowledge that promises to transform your team.
Another is subscription-based knowledge services. While they are a great business model (for the vendor), they don’t make sense for professionals, as your team’s needs are diverse and change continuously.
We know it’s important to pay for what you need. This is likely a combination of learning solutions from qualifications to technical short courses, coaching, team training, and more. When you invest in a subscription, you already know you’re going to have to go outside of the deal to get access to broader learning opportunities.
SkillsPartner™ from nesma is a critical leadership tool!
nesma is a unique marketing skills specialist offering a diverse range of carefully selected learning opportunities, with over 300 live face-to-face, live online, and on-demand, learning programmes from marketing skills specialists and Institutes. Whether your team is looking for Apprenticeships, Bootcamps, Qualifications, or lunchtime learning…we have what you need.
Recognised throughout the industry as a pair of safe hands for team skills, our extensive team of qualified learning development specialists, academic tutors, and expert practitioners have curated a unique range of knowledge and action learning opportunities.
Marketing teams are very diverse in goals and structure. Our team works with you as a team leader to understand the skills mix and priorities, develop tailored pathways, and deliver cost-effective, flexible, and self-directed solutions.
Through our unique SkillsPartner™ programme, we also offer free and discounted seats on courses, on-demand coaching, and even leadership mentoring! We support you in understanding needs, planning your approach, optimising budgets and grants, tracking your team’s skills development as well as evidencing outcomes with SkillsView™.
Final Thought: Don’t Build a Team That Knows — Build One That Grows
In today’s marketing world, static knowledge has a short shelf life. The most valuable teams aren’t the ones who know the most — they’re the ones who learn the fastest and apply that learning every day.
- Learn (Training) – Gain new knowledge and skills.
- Apply (Action Training & Coaching) – Experiment, reflect, and adapt with support.
- Grow (Learn Together) – Share learning experiences, build learning culture, embrace diverse learning styles, develop team resilience and innovation.
For marketing leaders, investing in different learning techniques ensures teams don’t just know more — they do more, better.
If you want to make learning part of your marketing team’s rhythm of work. And watch your team not just keep up — but lead the way, please contact Jen Lorimer (Small teams) or Veronica Swindale (Large teams) for a no obligation conversation.
