“I have 8 years of experience in marketing. I’m a digital wizard. Why isn’t anyone hiring me?” If that sounds like something you or someone on your team has uttered recently, you may be looking at a classic case of neglecting marketing skill gap analysis. In fact, 94% of business leaders say their organization is facing a skills gap.

Whether you’re hiring, building a team, or dusting off your resume, it’s time to look beyond the buzzwords and see what’s missing. And how you can address that skill gaps.

Let’s crack this open.

What Is a Marketing Skill Gap Anyway?

A marketing skill gap is the difference between the skills your marketing team currently has and the ones they need to hit business goals, adapt to changing trends, and stay competitive. It’s the silent killer of productivity and performance – and the most overlooked piece of marketing planning.

WEF’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 states that 44% of workers’ core skills are expected to change within the next five years, making regular skills gap analysis a must-have, not a maybe.

Why should companies and professionals care? 75% of recruiting professionals say skills-based hiring will be a priority in the next 18 months.

If you’re not doing marketing skill gap analysis, you’re not just missing out – you’re actively setting your team up to fail.

How Can Hidden Skill Gaps Derail Teams?

Let’s say you’ve got a killer email marketer on your team. They know Mailchimp like the back of their hand. But guess what? Your audience is migrating to WhatsApp, and they have no clue how to build conversational sequences over IM.

Or your SEO lead is a technical beast – but can’t optimize content for featured snippets, potentially losing traffic to other competitors.

Or you’re a solo marketer trying to break into a leadership role—yet you’ve never touched a marketing budget in your life.

These are not fictional tales. These are what we call marketing competencies gap analysis examples – and they’re happening in teams every day.

Use this Marketing Skills Gap Assessment Checklist to Find Yours

Here’s the good news: this is easily fixable. But only if you know where to look and what to measure.

Here’s how you can find your focus areas:

Step 1: Define What “Good” Looks Like

Start by listing the skills your business actually needs. That means aligning marketing capabilities with business objectives.

Ask:

• Are you focusing on organic growth or paid acquisition?
• Do you need brand awareness or conversion optimization?
• Are you expanding to new markets or going deeper into current ones?

Based on your answers, list out key skills such as:

• Content strategy
• Data analytics
• Funnel optimization
• UX/UI knowledge
• CRM/email workflows
• Performance marketing
• Video marketing
• Influencer partnerships
• Marketing automation

Step 2: Map Your Current Team (Or Yourself)

Now ask: What skills do we already have?

You can use:

• Surveys and self-assessments
• Peer reviews or manager assessments
• Marketing skill gap assessment tools like 360 evaluations, quiz-based apps, or even good old Google Sheets.

Make this part fun by gamifying it. No one likes being told they’re bad at stuff, but everyone loves leveling up.

Step 3: Identify the Gaps

Here comes the “aha!” moment. Compare your current state to your ideal state and spot the gaps. For example:

And just like that, you’ve got yourself a marketing capability gap assessment. This is also where you start seeing future trends. Figure out if there are emerging tools or platforms your team hasn’t touched yet.

Step 4: Prioritize Your Learning

Not all skill gaps are created equal. Use this rule of thumb to figure out which skills need your attention right now:

• Urgent & Strategic? Fix now. (e.g., analytics skills when launching a new product)
• Emerging & Useful? Train for later. (e.g., AI prompt engineering)
• Cool but Non-Essential? Bookmark for the future. (e.g., VR marketing for your B2B SaaS startup)

This step prevents burnout and keeps your team focused on impact.

Step 5: Make a Development Plan

Time to bridge those gaps with actual action.

You’ve got options:

• Internal workshops
• Online certifications
• Job shadowing or cross-training
• Mentorship programs
• Hackathons or side projects
• Subscriptions to niche tools/blogs

Mix high-touch learning (coaching) with low-cost learning (webinars, templates, AI tools). And whatever you do, don’t treat training like a checkbox. Make it part of your marketing culture.

Step 6: Measure Progress (And Revisit Often)

A skill gap assessment isn’t a one-and-done thing. The industry changes, your team evolves, and TikTok invents five new ad formats while you’re still reading this sentence.

Use this simple plan to measure progress:

Set check-ins every 6-12 months. Re-run surveys. Re-prioritize. Relearn.

This ensures your team stays nimble, relevant, and dangerous, in a good way.

What If You’re Just One Person?

If you’re a solo marketer or freelancer, this applies to you even more.

You are the strategist, executor, analyst, and IT support rolled into one. How do you identify your own skill gaps?

• Look at recent job postings in your target roles. What tools or terms keep showing up?
• Audit your portfolio. What haven’t you done in a while? Where do you struggle the most?
• Talk to a mentor or peer. Ask them where they’d place you on the marketing maturity model.

Once you spot the gaps, build your roadmap. Upskill every quarter. Don’t aim to do it all—just stay 10% better than last quarter.

Here’s the Truth about Skill Gaps

Skill gaps aren’t weaknesses. They’re roadmaps. They show you exactly where to grow, evolve, and outperform.

Most marketers today are overwhelmed with choice – platforms, tools, tactics, channels. Without a system for how to identify marketing skill gaps, we end up playing tactical whack-a-mole, chasing trends that burn out faster than they deliver.

But if you slow down and get strategic—if you build a real marketing skill gap analysis process—you don’t just survive. You thrive.

Conclusion: Use AI to Aid You with Skills Gap Analysis

Skill gaps used to be scary. But now? AI tools, smart assessments, and automated learning paths are changing the game.

Platforms like Relve are making it easy to scan resumes, benchmark talent, and automatically detect hidden skill gaps - before they cost you the job or the campaign.

Whether you’re a CMO building a team, a hiring manager screening candidate, or a lone marketer trying to stay sane, start with a marketing skill gap analysis. Better yet, let an AI-powered coaching platform handle the research and planning for you.

TL;DR (in case you skimmed through)

• Marketing skill gaps = silent killers. They hide in resumes and wreck performance.
• Do a gap analysis. Start with what your business needs, then audit what you’ve got.
• Use tools. Use checklists. Use AI. Don’t wing it.
• Upskill intentionally. Not all gaps need to be filled right now.