The digital industry is vast, and it can be tough to navigate for newcomers or marketers looking to find their niche. From knowing the best digital marketing KPIs to mastering SEO and content marketing, there can be a lot to grapple with if you don’t focus on the areas that matter to a business.
The great news is that there is a global demand for marketers with agile digital skills, but the bad news is that there’s a shortage worldwide. According to our research ‘The Marketing Evolution: Leadership, Transformation, Skills, Challenges & the Future’ senior and mid-level marketers reported significant shortages in digital skills with the top three being data analysts (47%), general digital marketing skills (37%), and UX designers (34%).
So, how do you fast-track your way up the corporate ladder or set yourself apart from the competition, particularly if you’re a digital nomad or looking to become a successful freelancer? Check out these 10 essential skills to keep you relevant in the ever-changing digital industry:
Video continues to take the internet by storm and this isn’t about to stop. Customers love videos, particularly on social media, and 8 out of 10 people have purchased after watching a brand’s video. For marketers, 93% who use video say it’s an important part of their strategy and 87% report it gives them a positive Return on Investment (ROI) according to The State of Video Marketing research.
Bear in mind that these are loose statistics that will vary depending on who you ask, but the point is that most statistics point to much higher conversion, engagement, and higher SEO rankings when it comes to video.
What makes it so engaging? Because it’s personal and relevant. When people can see your face (or the face of the person promoting the brand), they are more likely to trust your business. It’s also wonderfully versatile content to use across different platforms. Just think about the success of Instagram and the rapid rise of TikTok!
Digital marketing professionals don’t have to know everything about video production. But knowing how to make videos without hiring a professional is a good place to start. There are some great tools to help you do that such as Camtasia or an AI tool like CapCut. And if you have some training in this area and love it, your skills will never be wasted as video will always be in demand.
If you want to learn more on your own, you can try out video editing tools like Apple Final Cut Pro X or Adobe Premiere Pro.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is key to all levels of digital marketing and anyone going into the field must have a basic handle on it. You can leave the highly technical, back-end stuff to the more technical people on the team, but knowing how SEO really works and a solid understanding of best practices and content optimization are crucial for running a successful digital marketing campaign. This is even more true as AI technology, such as Google’s Search Generative Experience, change the landscape.
Content is at the core of digital marketing and content marketing will continue to be a crucial part of the game no matter what happens. But content marketing is a huge job in itself. You have to be able to create high quality, SEO-friendly content for many channels and understand how to create an effective content strategy to engage and convert audiences, including knowing the best ways to use ChatGPT and other AI technologies.
And to make things a little more challenging, it’s important to note that content can take many forms, from video to social, emails, web content, blogs, e-books, videos, whitepapers…the list goes on. You also have to have a firm grasp of social media marketing as content is crucial on social platforms.
No matter what facet of digital marketing you go into, analytics will be central to your strategy and help you make better data-driven decisions for campaigns. Monitoring and reporting via tools such as Google Analytics is pretty straightforward, but the tricky part is how to gather and use that information to learn more about consumer behavior and apply it to solutions that boost traffic and conversions.
Most businesses (even small ones) have huge amounts of data to track, and great digital marketers need to understand how to gather and use this to their advantage. Companies will always be on the lookout for people who not only know how to “read” data using their marketing technical skills but to extract value from customer data to improve future strategies. If you can show that you can do this in innovative ways that result in campaign success, you will be a valuable asset in the industry.
Bear in mind that you don’t have to stick to one platform for your analytics, check out some alternatives to Google Analytics to see if they would work better for you.
Design thinking is a term that refers to a way of approaching problems from a user-centred perspective. The approach essentially encourages us to think in a human-centred way when solving large-scale complex problems.
According to The Interaction Design Foundation, there are 5 key phases to this process: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The reason why this works well is that so much of it is (or should be) centered on the user experience, which is key to digital marketing success.
Another interesting thing about this approach is that it can be used in a non-linear way: so you may find yourself getting to the testing phase and then coming back to the middle phase to reconsider ideas.
Designers and developers are likely to use this type of approach, so it’s a good idea to at least have a solid understanding of it to pump up your marketing resume and apply it when feasible.
As a marketer, it’s essential to have some understanding of social media marketing. You need to understand that it’s not as simple as creating a post and putting it out there. The content you create needs to be relevant, targeted and stand out so people will stop scrolling and click. It’s also about understanding the strengths of each platform and if it will suit your audience.
For example, if you’re a fitness brand with a customer base of 20-30 year olds then TikTok may help drive brand awareness. You could post a video of customers at a fitness class or a promo video showing what you have to offer. Conversely, if you supply computers to the B2B sector then LinkedIn could help to make connections and engage in niche groups that drum up business.
It’s about knowing your audience base, creating content that will resonate, and using the right social platforms.
Email is an essential tool for any marketer, espeically as first-party data is more important than ever, since the demise of cookies. It helps you to communicate with, and influence, a captive audience and deliver personalized messaging through segmentation and workflows.
There are a lot of great tools out there that can help with email (e.g. MailChimp, Marketo) so it’s important to familiarize yourself with them. It’s also important to have lists to keep your contacts in order. For example, if you run a paid campaign on social media, collate your contacts into a list so you can target them with similar information or messaging. Triggered workflows are also important, as you can use automation to send relevant messages at regular intervals to re-engage prospects or customers.
According to Litmus, for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $36 so it’s worth putting time and energy into your email strategy to stay front of mind across your database.
As the digital marketing industry is technology-driven, you need a decent grip on Martech as well as be able to learn it quickly.
If you’re a digital native or Gen-Zer, this is probably going to be second nature, but older generations may want to take some time to learn not only specific technologies but also get familiar with commonly-used software and tactics such as audience listening tools or SEM.
It can also be beneficial to understand the technical skills needed for marketing such as the basics of web coding, using Content Management Systems (CMS), as well as AI tools and data privacy issues.
A great digital marketing leader will not only possess great people skills, they’ll also be able to combine analytical thinking with creative problem solving. This will help their teams come up with innovative marketing campaign ideas to drive businesses forward.
A big part of this is having great persuading and influencing skills. Can you convince someone to purchase a product? What about persuading other team leaders that your idea is the best?
This isn’t about arguing, it’s having the confidence that you know what you’re doing and demonstrating it.
As far as soft skills go, great digital marketers should be curious, enjoy versatility, forward-thinking, business-focused and strategy-centered. But there is plenty of room in this field for all kinds of personalities and skillsets. So, you should leverage your unique personality to stay competitive in the industry.
It may, for instance, be unusual to find someone talented in SEO strategy as well as management, or it may be unique to find someone with a computing science degree that also loves social media. Never be afraid to use your strengths to your advantage.
The digital space is exciting. It allows you to reach consumers at scale. It brings you closer to your customers on the channel of their choice. It allows you to personalize your message and your service. It gives you the ability to tell your stories in fun formats and in new ways.
And it’s becoming even more exciting as artificial intelligence comes into its own to offer new ways to automate activities and personalize content. This rapidly advancing technology can be leveraged by marketers across sectors to drive campaign performance and boost revenue (more on this later…)
Many executives are shifting their focus – and budgets – from traditional to digital marketing. For all these reasons (and many more), this space now draws the attention of professionals across many areas of interest: marketing, research, paid media, branding, customer care, sales, recruiting, etc.
Independent of your focus, if you are a professional looking to succeed in this space, there are a variety of skills you’ll need to accelerate your career and, with it, your salary. Let’s look at some of them:
Whatever role you perform, always remember to measure the impact. Measurement and optimization are a must when it comes to any digital role – especially when it comes to conversion rate optimization or CRO.
However, go beyond just vanity metrics. Really study the art of extracting insights from data. One of the roles that continues to be in high demand is that of the Data Scientist, someone who can turn big data into true business insights.
Strive to acquire analytical skills in your current role. Learn about any tools to help you automate some of the analytical tasks. Talk to people who know the field deeply. Or go one step further and take on a role that solely focuses on business intelligence.
No matter what you do after that, you will be in high demand because of your knowledge of turning data into insights.
If you think community management is something a random intern should do, think again. Best-in-class brands don’t hire interns to manage their communities and for a good reason.
To successfully build and nurture your community you need to have someone at the helm who understands your industry, your business, your brand; and at the same time someone who loves your customers and is willing to serve the tough role of being a bridge between a brand and a customer.
Great community managers have a tough job of balancing the needs of the company and the needs of the community.
Possessing this skill requires actual experience. You need to be intimately familiar with the social networks and the tools that allow you to manage high volumes of inquiries. These are hard skills that will take you halfway to your goal.
However, it’s the soft skills that come with actually performing this role that are priceless. Find a community manager role and do it for a year or two. Alternatively, you can start a community in a role you are in. If you are going for the latter, be careful not to interfere and overlap with the current brand communities.
Content is king. Everything you do online revolves around content. But creating great content isn’t enough. To stand out in an already saturated space, you need to become a great storyteller. You need to find ways to tell stories that are relevant to your audience in the right format, on the right channel, and at the right time.
Great storytellers are not born, they are made. To become one, do the following: read on the subject, learn from the best storytellers in your industry and beyond, pay attention to what stories resonate with you, and take note.
Look at how the coolest brands tell their stories, and carry a notebook with you to jot down powerful stories other people tell and ideas about the ones you want to craft and share.
A master of storytelling, McDonald’s launched its #RaiseYourArches campaign with no food in sight! The hook was the music accompanied by people raising their eyebrows or arms to signify the famous Arches logo with the tagline ‘Fancy a McDonalds?’ The campaign was featured on TV, social media through Snapchat and Instagram lenses, and high-tech venue takeovers.
Here is the harsh truth that most people don’t want to hear – if you are not using social platforms personally, you have no clue what they can do for your business. I’ve seen it time and time again.
Firsthand knowledge is absolutely necessary to not only figure out how those platforms will serve your immediate goals around customer engagement but also to create successful marketing strategies across the whole customer journey. Any knowledge – strategic or tactical – will play a huge role in defining your career trajectory.
To learn about various social platforms, just jump in and try them out. Then do a lot of reading about the functions and features (there isn’t any shortage of content out there on the web). Subscribe to niche publications (such as ‘Social Media Examiner’) that keep you updated on the latest feature releases and platform changes. Talk to your peers about how they use the platforms to their advantage.
A lot of social media is about organic and owned content. But if you want to be successful in the digital space, you have to possess skills that span POEM (paid, owned, earned media).
Some might argue that there isn’t such a thing as organic reach anymore. I disagree, but that’s a topic for another blog post.
Here, I’ll say that you need to be very familiar not only with how to create owned content and spark earned media, but how to amplify that content in alignment with your brand goals. Learning the paid media side of the house is important.
To learn it, either partner with the paid media counterpart and dig deeper into how the whole POEM works together, or step into the role for one or two years and actually execute paid media campaigns.
Artificial intelligence seems to be everything right now, from ChatGPT to Jasper to Google’s Search Generative Experience. While this technology may seem daunting, it has huge potential for marketing activities.
AI can be used to speed up processes or automate tasks. It can also be used to personalize communications with customers as it reacts to what a customer wants and continues to learn by getting insights from data.
As the technology continues to emerge it’s crucial to have a fundamental understanding of the relevant tools. It would also help to try out any of these tools such as using ChatGPT to generate copy for your social media posts or adverts. That said, “any tool is only as useful as the person using it”, in the words of Clark Boyd, speaking on the DMI podcast.
Digital spans business units and functional teams. It also has many layers, which means large teams are involved in the strategic execution across those functional teams.
You need two distinct skill sets here (which actually align nicely): the ability to collaborate with people across your own team and organization as a whole, and strong project management skills to ensure the campaigns are run smoothly.
Both are learned with age and experience. When I was starting out, I read a lot of books on communication and listened to my mentors’ advice on how to engage with people. I also understood early on that project management skills – no matter the role – are critical for success, because you need to know how to manage complex programs (from budget to stakeholder/partner alignment to execution).
I did get a Project Management Professional (PMP) certificate. I don’t advocate that you do (unless you are passionate about it), but I do suggest you read a lot on agile project management techniques and tactics and implement them in your work environment. ‘Digital’ now means ‘real-time’ and the agile project management approach will help you succeed.
Understanding digital trends is important if you want to stay ahead of the curve in your career. Mine is successful because I look ahead and I try to predict what will be business critical or “hot” in the future and position myself to align with that trend.
If you do that, you will always be the invaluable “expert” who management comes to when they have questions about “that new thing everyone is talking about”.
I suggest spending one or two hours a day reading. Subscribe to a list of publications in your industry and in digital that are of most interest to you and set aside time to educate yourself on what’s happening, what other experts are saying, and what your peers across industries are doing.
Here’s the key – don’t limit yourself to just your industry. Make sure you look at the best-in-class across the globe and learn from the best. Draw inspiration from wherever you can get it. And don’t be afraid to steal ideas, approaches, frameworks and blueprints.
Try them out on a small scale, discard the ones that don’t work, and perfect the ones that do.
There is no secret sauce. There is no magic bullet. There are no hacks. The way you become successful is through hard work, building your internal and external network, and looking for a strategic path to pile up as many professional experiences as you can.
Never stay in a role for longer than two years unless the role continues to evolve and you continue to grow. Otherwise, outline the list of skillsets you need to possess and find the roles that will ensure you get them.
Looking to make the shift into a more senior role in the digital space? Consider enrolling in Digital Vidyalaya’s Digital Marketing & Strategy Leadership course to learn how to manage a digital team, understand analytics, data and ethics, manage a budget, develop a digital strategy, and much more.
In the realm of websites, the notion that “If they build it, they will come” is decidedly inaccurate. Gone are the days, if they ever truly existed, when creating a website alone could attract a flood of visitors.
After the development of your website, there’s much more to be done to garner substantial and meaningful traffic. This is where the importance of SEO methods and the services of an SEO provider in Dehradun become evident, aiding in the discoverability of your website.
SEO companies comprehend the intricacies of search engine operations and employ techniques to help businesses secure top rankings in search results. In essence, they possess the capability to significantly enhance your website’s traffic.
If you’re still uncertain whether your company requires the assistance of the premier SEO company in Dehradun, consider this: while organic marketing efforts are often overlooked, there’s a case to be made that SEO can facilitate more sustainable and cost-effective business expansion compared to sponsored search options like Google Ads.
Although we may be a bit biased in crafting this blog post, we believe that most businesses stand to gain significantly from the expertise of the top SEO company in Dehradun. Before delving into the reasons behind this belief, let’s first comprehend the workings of SEO.
Search engines, such as Google, employ intricate algorithms to present results when you search for a topic. Despite being free to use, search engines derive revenue from advertising. Hence, it’s crucial for them to attract as many eyeballs to their advertisers’ ads as possible, ensuring a steady stream of income. To achieve this, they aim to deliver the best possible results to users, encouraging them to return for future queries.
To enhance the user experience through relevant and high-quality results, search engines utilize crawlers (sometimes referred to as spiders or robots) to evaluate websites and gather information. The role of these crawlers is to discover new web pages and regularly check their indexed pages to maintain an updated database.
Once a website is crawled and deemed valuable, it gets indexed, saving the page or content in a database for future access. Information like page speed, title tags, backlinks, and more is typically retained.
The subsequent step involves ranking all indexed pages. This is where an SEO service provider in Dehradun becomes crucial, as it can optimize your website to increase its value to search engines, enabling it to secure higher rankings. This optimization involves:
These enhancements not only contribute to higher rankings but also enhance your website’s value to visitors, encouraging prolonged engagement and future utilization.
Now that we’ve grasped the workings of SEO, let’s delve into how an SEO company can elevate a website’s ranking.
While we’ve touched on some aspects, let’s explore the key SEO services that companies typically provide and understand why they are pivotal for your search engine ranking. SEO companies deliver a combination of on-page and off-page services to ensure a robust and healthy SEO profile in both realms. Some of the tasks undertaken by an SEO company include:
Keyword Analysis
Sophisticated tools like SEMrush, MOZ, and Ahrefs aid SEO agencies in identifying worthwhile keywords. These tools consider various factors, including search traffic and competitiveness for a term, as well as existing articles on the topic. They help pinpoint knowledge gaps, guiding your blogging efforts toward keywords and subjects that yield results.
Creating Backlinks
Backlinks, links on other websites pointing to yours, indicate trust and reliability to search engines. An SEO service provider in Dehradun can assist in enhancing your backlink profile through guest blogging and identifying opportunities for your organization to contribute its expertise. Outreach for link building, where an agency contacts a related company to promote your content as a valuable resource, is also a common practice.
Content Strategy
Beyond keyword research, content strategy involves reviewing existing material for relevance and currency. Outdated content diminishes your credibility with Google. Collaborating with the best SEO company in Dehradun on your content strategy includes determining when, where, and how to update existing material, as well as deciding on future blog post topics.
Website Optimization
Regularly upgrading your website to enhance user experience is crucial for potential clients. Skilled SEO companies can address various aspects of website optimization, ensuring your site is user-friendly and doesn’t incur penalties from search engines for a subpar user experience.
As reiterated, SEO should be the cornerstone of your digital marketing strategy. Achieving high rankings in search engines can streamline various aspects of your business.
To explore how the leading SEO company in Dehradun can contribute to your business growth, reach out to Orbosys Cooperation for an SEO strategy call.