For many people, digital marketing is a dream job.
With the increasing number of benefits offered by tech companies and remote work, digital marketing professionals can earn six-figure salaries, receive unlimited vacations, and enjoy flexible schedules that allow them to work from home or even digitally around the world.
If you want to get a new job as a digital marketer or become a digital marketing expert this year, consider changing careers, leaving the office and traveling as a remote digital worker, or improving your current digital skills. Marketing tasks – we can help.
Here are 20 essential digital marketing skills that will help you advance your career and move your company forward.
1. Writing and editing
This is probably the most important skill a digital marketer should have. There is one job in digital that doesn’t require writing or editing. Given the importance of content marketing, knowing what makes a good blog post, how to find and write good content, and how to turn bad content into great content will be invaluable to your digital marketing career. You should also know how to use content writing tools like the AP Style Guide.
2. Communication
Marketers have many channels and tools to choose from to get their message across to their target market.
Before inbound marketing, marketing communications were often one-sided. But these days, people are inundated with content. Reaching out and advertising to customers with a one-off message is no longer enough. You also need to know how to listen to your customers and provide them with valuable content at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
As an inbound marketer, you need to consider changing customer needs and incorporate them into your communications strategy.
3. Content creation
Content is the key to good marketing. At every stage of the buyer’s journey, you need to nurture prospects with relevant content that meets their needs and solves their problems.
A good inbound marketer must be able to express his ideas and creativity when creating content. To become a professional content creator, research your target audience and their needs, and stay up to date with trends and lifestyle changes that affect your audience.
4. SEO
Organic search results are more likely to be clicked on than paid search results, so understanding and using search engine optimization (SEO) is essential to your digital marketing career. Current “white” SEO tactics include content marketing, guest blogging, social marketing, and link building through high-quality content. But you also need to know technical SEO tactics like updating title tags, H1 and H2 tags, and keyword stuffing.
Speaking of keywords, it’s important for digital marketers to know how to research keywords to include in your website text, blogs, and PPC to drive results for the brands you work with.
5. Data Analyst
Inbound marketers must create messages and content that resonate with the realities of their target audience, and this can only be achieved through excellent research and data collection skills.
A good inbound marketer must be able to accurately acquire and analyze relevant information and use the collected data to understand current potential customer needs while predicting future trends.
In addition to collecting and analyzing data, you should be able to identify experts in the field when needed. Involving your team’s internal experts in this process can increase the credibility, value, and reliability of the content you provide to your target audience.
6. Design
Most digital marketing today is based on visual images. Content on any social media platform performs best when accompanied by good images. As a digital marketer, you need to know how to create and edit your own visuals.
If you can use Photoshop to design your own banners, email banners, logos, or social media images, that’s one less person to deal with, one less step to launch a digital campaign, and one less person your client or employer needs to hire. That’s one less person. If Photoshop (or other Adobe programs) aren’t your strong suit, you can use a tool like Canva to help you out.
7. Paid advertising on social media
The days of “free” social media are over. Today, the best way to reach people on social media and ensure content distribution is through paid social media advertising.
Understanding how to write text (length and variety) and following best practices for images on each site will help your career tremendously. You’ll also understand how to monitor and adjust bids to improve your ads, and when to get help if you don’t have enough time to watch your ads every day.
8. Excellent personal branding
Digital marketers tend to be the face of their brand through social media, content marketing, conference attendance, and more. It’s important to have a digital presence online that shows that you’re active and professional. Additionally, leveraging premium content sites like Medium to build your personal brand will ultimately give you a better understanding of that brand and how you can leverage it for the brands you work for.
9. Communication
Inbound marketing primarily operates in the digital space, but networking can be digital or physical. Successful inbound marketers must be “social people” who know how to connect with the right people in their industry to increase brand awareness and visibility, both in person and online.
To become an inbound marketing expert, you need to be able to attend industry events, connect with industry experts and thought leaders on social media, and build valuable relationships.
10. WordPress
WordPress is probably the most popular content management system. It’s not just a tool that small businesses use to build their websites because they don’t have a developer.
The brands you work for may need to use WordPress or switch to WordPress. Understanding WordPress and all its features and plugins will be a great skill for your digital marketing career. It will also help you set up a website and blog for your business.
11. Superior
We’ve all seen Word applied to every resume for the past decade. But now, as data grows and data analysis becomes more important, mastering Excel and understanding how to quickly process data and create tables and graphs from the data you see is becoming more important.
Are you just listing Excel, or are you a true Excel expert? Make sure you are an Excel expert.
12. Social Media Marketing
Nearly a third of the population now uses some form of social media platform, and 97% of global businesses use social marketing. This makes social media marketing a valuable skill to have in your digital marketing toolkit.
There’s more to social media marketing than just posting on Facebook. You need to know how to generate user engagement, write content, create ads, create images, and analyze reach and engagement across all platforms. You also need to understand all the rapid changes on each platform and when to use different platforms to achieve different internal business goals.
13. Email marketing and newsletters
There are a lot of articles on the Internet asking the question, “Is email marketing dead?” I want to tell you that it is not. Everyone still reads email. It is still a very effective way to reach customers. Every brand you work with will have content they want to distribute. Email newsletters are a great way to reach your email user base and expand the reach of your content.
To get the most out of email marketing, you should use email marketing software like Benchmark Email. Benchmark Email has many features that help you automate your email marketing, grow your email list, and build effective brand campaigns that reach and engage your audience.
14. Google Ads and PPC
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising allows many businesses to significantly expand their reach and generate higher revenue and brand awareness. If you can do this for a business, you will have one of the highest paying jobs in digital marketing. To do PPC well, you must be able to think scientifically and strategically and be effective in creating, optimizing, and reporting campaigns using Google Ads and Google Analytics simultaneously.
15. Conversion rate optimization (cro)
The goal of digital marketing is to drive traffic to your website and convert that traffic into customers. CRO is the art of testing different web pages, text, and calls to action (CTAs) to see which ones convert best. It combines website design, copywriting, and user experience skills. As a digital marketer, you need to understand how to conduct A/B testing and be proficient in using tools like Optimizely to help you with your research.
16. Automation
Marketing automation is the art of creating automated tasks for website visitors to save time as a marketer. It is important to know how to set up forms, create landing pages, and run direct marketing campaigns that encourage website visitors to convert into customers. This is an essential support that helps your sales team find qualified sales leads through web traffic.
It’s important to have a marketing automation tool that fits your business goals. Try BenchmarkONE for free and see how our marketing automation and CRM software can help you attract leads and drive sales to your website through the power of effective email marketing.
When it comes to sales qualified leads, if you know how to evaluate website visitors to determine how important they are to your marketing or sales team, you’ll be ahead of many digital marketers.
17. Presentation design
Throughout your career, you will probably have to create more than one presentation. Whether it is a customer presentation, a webinar, or an internal presentation, it is important to know how to structure a presentation.
In digital marketing, it’s important to know how to create PowerPoint or Google Slides rather than text on slides. Whether you’re an entry-level employee or a leader, you need to piece together your story and articulate a clear strategy so you can spread your projects and results to multiple key players.
Luckily, there are tools that can help you achieve this easily. Tools like Canva and Simple help you create images and diagrams that bring your presentation to life in a clean, professional way.
18. Influencer marketing
Brands can achieve great success by connecting with online influencers to increase brand awareness and distribute or co-create content. Understanding how to connect with influencers and turn them into brand advocates is an essential digital marketing skill. If you know how to find and track online influencers using tools like Traackr, you can get ahead of the game and save time.
19.HTML and CSS
If you use WordPress, write scripts, update websites, use marketing automation, and need to understand conversion rate optimization, it helps to know the basics of HTML and CSS. Being able to insert your blog website code and update the title can save you a lot of time over having to contact a dedicated WordPress developer or brand product team.
20. Creative and analytical skills
Ultimately, digital marketing is both a creative (photography, writing, design) and analytical (Google Analytics, conversion rate optimization, marketing automation) process. To be truly successful in digital marketing, you must be able to combine art and science in your work and understand how to align these two essential skills.
By mastering all these skills and integrating them through a perfect blend of creative and analytical strategies, you can become the successful digital marketer you have always dreamed of.
