A Guide to the 10 Next Hot Jobs in Digital Marketing, and for Several Years to Come

The Internet of Things, or IoT, is a fast-growing and seemingly all-encompassing field. At least 8.4 billion connected devices will be in use worldwide by the end of this year--and that number is expected to reach 20.4 billion by 2020, according to Gartner, which predicts total spending on IoT endpoints and services to reach $2 trillion this year. IoT is an umbrella term for various unrelated devices such as wearables and connected appliances. IoT marketing strategists can help their organizations cut through the noise with specialized skills in retail sensors, radio frequency technology, digital signage, smartphones, wearables, automobiles and virtually anything that transmits data. Those who want to enter the field ought to have a predilection for embracing a world where humans and machines seamlessly interact. For instance, says IBM vp of marketing analytics Ari Sheinkin, TVs and couch potatoes will soon be regularly chatting it up. "We really want to make the insights ubiquitous," he adds, "so it's not contained in a laptop or database."