These are the essential skills you need to achieve success in a career in digital marketing.
Every marketing professional remembers their education from their College or University. They probably learned all the basics of marketing such as general information about social media, how to conduct marketing research, how to create compelling power point presentations, the importance of creating a good experience for customers as well as many other concepts that are learned in Marketing 101. Since more graduates are experiencing difficulty securing a job, one must ask: are these skills enough? The truth is that simply putting “knowledge of Microsoft Office” is no longer acceptable in this fast-paced, competitive industry because those basic skills have become standard amongst any job seeker. There are many skills needed in the digital marketing world, but these are the key to success.
Creativity & Innovation
The digital marketing industry has skyrocketed over the last decade; now more than ever there is much more competition. To differentiate yourself from other marketers, creativity will make you stand out. It is important for marketers to find and create unique ways to reach their targeted audiences that will make consumers choose your company over your competition.
Creativity and Innovation requires risk and venturing into the unknown; something that many marketers may find intimidating. However, exploring the unknown will allow you to create memorable marketing campaigns rather than recycling clichéd ones. Finally it is also a great skill for problem solving. Crisis occurs all the time and it is important for marketers to think on their feet and perhaps exploring different ways to approach and solve a problem.
Writing & Copywriting
It is absolutely essential to have strong writing skills such as being able to effectively write clearly and persuasively. If you are not a strong writer, then you will have difficulty communicating your ideas and completing tasks because clear communication is essential for explaining ideas and concepts to clients and even your other team members.
Writing skills are essential to not only writing blog posts and website content, but also creating monthly reports for your clients. Furthermore, copywriting is very important to double check for grammatical, spelling and factual errors. TIP: Always have your fellow team members check for errors as well; a second set of eyes will do you wonders.
Knowledge of Social Media Trends
The use of social media has become essential to both small businesses and large corporations. Simply knowing how to upload a photo or post a status update on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are not enough. New social media platforms are constantly emerging, so you must stay vigilant on these new trends as well as figuring out how you can utilize these platforms to reach your targeted audience.
While you can pay for paid advertising on platforms, it is still important to understand audiences who use each social media site, and develop content that aligns with your businesses goals as well as your audiences interests. By tailoring your content, you’ll be able to increase awareness and engagement with will help market your message and promote your brand.
Technical Skills
With any profession, it is important to learn the tips of the trade. There are many tools out there to help marketers. Here are a few technical skills that you should be familiar with.
WordPress
You may pride yourself in having “knowledge of Microsoft Word,” but it may actually be more important for marketers to have knowledge in WordPress. It is essential to not only know how to create a post, but also upload and schedule it into the program.
Photo Editing
Having basic of knowledge of photo editing programs such as Photoshop will do you wonders. Studies show that readers are more likely to read and engage in blog posts if visuals are uploaded with content. Having basic photo editing skills will allow you to upload create or design an image to supplement your blog post.
HTML
Knowing the basics of HTML will allow you to format a blog post correctly as well as fix formatting issues that may arise. Having this skill will also allow you to correct other problems such as resizing a photo or video to fit within the blog design.
Google AdWords
The more you know about AdWords, the better off you’ll be. AdWords allows you to easily reach customers and drive traffic as well as get leads, generate sales and manage campaigns. Due to the complexity of this tool, it will help you stand out if you become AdWords certified.
Search Engine Optimization
You may be required to be an expert, but basic SEO skills are still essential. SEO benefits your company so you will need to know how it exactly works by familiarizing yourself with title tags, meta descriptions, keywords density, anchor text and other factors that will affect your organic search rankings.
You must also be aware of other factors such as Algorithm changes and mobile searches. Mobilegeddon was a force to be reckoned with and Google recently reported that mobile searches surpassed desktop inquiries. Those who were not aware of these trends suffered greatly because they were unable to keep up.
Putting the Skills to the Test
Today’s digital marketers must be skilled in in these areas if they wish to achieve success. However, that does not mean that you must be an expert in all of these areas. Maybe you might excel in one area more than another, but that does not mean that you cannot continue learning and strengthening your skills. The digital marketing industry is always changing and will always be changing.
The best way to learn the necessary skills is to learn through experience and from your coworkers. To be successful, you need to also have passion and dedication to learn more and make yourself well rounded; to go above and beyond and set yourself apart from average. If you do not possess this dedication and interest in learning about new and emerging trends, then perhaps a career in digital marketing might not be the best fit for you.
Here at Kraus Marketing we have a dedicated digital marketing team that excels in many of these key areas as well as many others. If you are looking for a dedicated team that will produce results and take your marketing initiatives to the next level, then you do not need to look any further because we are more than happy to assist you. For more information, contact us at (973)-998-5742 or visit us online at www.KrausMarketing.com.