Which image pops into your mind when you think about marketing experts? Don Draper from Mad Men? We knew it! That’s everyone’s first guess. Yet, being a marketing expert is way different today because, in the 21st century, we decided to move online.
With digital transformation, we needed to adjust our skills accordingly. Today, digital marketing is like an invisible force that requires both creative and analytical skills and constant learning and improvement.
Digital marketing is a challenging calling that requires some excellent skills. Your skills in marketing will need constant upgrades. Marketing is fluid, which means technology is constantly changing, evolving, reshaping, and digital marketers always need to follow and evolve in the same way.
A profile of digital marketers today
If you ever thought that digital marketing is just sitting in front of your laptop and playing with social media, having another coffee…Well, it might be accurate, but it is not just fun and games as you might think.
When the stakes are high, when your client has some high hopes for the campaign – you need to be there to make things happen. Selling your services is never easy, especially when it comes to something so abstract as digital marketing. Especially if the process is time-consuming and customers want to see the results right away.
So if you think that you can be a digital marketer material, you need to possess the following skills:
Communicational skills
As a digital marketing manager, you need to possess exceptional communicational skills. You will coordinate tasks with different teams and clients, so you need to know every bit of the process and make everything work perfectly.
You will write important emails, and you will give feedback to your colleagues. You will be writing and presenting various reports to your clients to convince them everything is going according to plan. It is also about learning to listen and understand your customers and their wishes.
Data analytics
Digital marketer needs to be well versed in data analytics. Data analytics is vital in digital marketing because it shows crucial insights into customer behaviors, various patterns of behaviors. For example, you will learn more about your website traffic and get a better look into social media campaign results. With all this new information available, you will be available to adjust your strategy to get even better results. Data analytics can help you improve your decision-making and increasing trust between you and your clients.
Negotiation skills in marketing
Negotiation skills will always be welcome in your skillset. Although undervalued, they are essential. For example, it would help if you negotiated with clients about rates, terms, different timelines, and setting expectations. In addition, negotiation skills come in handy when you need to talk about cutting costs, managing budgets, or evaluating your options.
SEO
SEO is more than a welcome skill for every digital marketer. However, you will need to find a balance between writing for the target audience and search engines. Plus, it would be best to make sure that all the elements are appropriately set and that it all matches your digital marketing strategy.
Writing and editing
We already mentioned the importance of communication, but writing, in general, will be in focus. Your grammar needs to be immaculate; you need to know your way around the words. You will write social media posts, articles, whitepapers, press releases. These are all different formats and voices, so you also need to adjust your writing to the audience.
You will also need to know the editing part. Content goes through different filters, and you want to avoid mistakes and typos. Also, you will be there to make sure all the keywords are in the right place and that the content is optimized enough.
Stress management
Unfortunately, the reality is that in digital marketing, things can go wrong at the last minute. Deadlines are strict, and customers are most often impatient. So you need to be ahead of the game at all times. Digital marketing requires excellent organizational skills, excellent time management. You will need to learn to handle the harsh criticism and keep professional at all times.
Technology is always in the spotlight
In this world, you need to keep pace with different technologies to make everything work. It is all about measuring success. So make sure to determine which metrics are playing an essential role in your campaign. There are plenty of intuitive software process solutions that can help you automate the process. You will also need to learn to work with various content management platforms and project management to have a transparent view of the entire process.
Design
Digital marketing is all about eye-catching visuals. People have a short attention span, and you will need to create banners, posts, and compelling ads. It would be best to have a good eye for design to know what appeals to your target audience. Photoshop skills are always welcome. There are specific design programs that can help you create unique posts. Colorcinch is one of the most popular solutions.
Social media
Social media is not just for browsing the feed and watching cat videos. Social media is an excellent tool for businesses to expand their reach and to connect with their customers.
It marked a previous decade, and we are still witnessing the true power of social media. As a digital marketing manager, you will be there to connect the dots between your client and their audience- soon-to-be customers.
Creativity and curiosity
As long as you look at the entire process as a creative challenge and are always curious about it – you will survive all the challenges. Clients come and go, and that is the fact. With every client, you will learn something new.
Sometimes, things will go as smoothly as possible, sometimes they don’t, and it is perfectly normal. So keep your creative energy high and try looking at your clients as essential lessons.
In conclusion
Still here? We hope we haven’t scared you with all these lists of requirements. All of the above does sound complicated, but it is a very dynamic and fun occupation. It is both about improving and improvising. It is all about finding the balance between your creative and analytical sides.
Author
Harold Ader is a digital marketing specialist and freelance blogger from Manchester. New trends in digital marketing and digital commerce are his main focus. In his spare time, he writes a lot for Digital Strategy One.
