Careers in Digital Marketing: Six essential skills that every digital marketer should have.
There’s no doubt that training or re-training to become a digital marketer is an attractive proposition for your future.
The profession is exciting, it’s constantly evolving, PLUS it’s diverse enough that you can pick and choose the areas you want to get involved with depending on where your interest lies. Right?
Well, sort of.
Yes, digital marketing is an exciting career choice. Yes, it’s an area that’s always evolving in line with current technological advancements, and while you can certainly choose to specialise in a field that interests you the most, there are some key areas that you MUST be ‘highly-proficient’ in if you want to achieve success as a digital marketer.
Whether you’re looking to re-train as a digital marketer, or whether this is your first career choice; here are the six key areas you must be skilled in before your digital marketing career can really take off!
- Social media marketing
Social media marketing is one of the most popular services requested from any digital strategy agency these days.
While you might know your way around your personal Facebook and Instagram accounts, and you might even know your tweets from your twerks; being active in a private social media setting is entirely different to meeting the demanding social media needs of a business.
According to Social Media News, in 2016 there were at least 23 social media platforms actively visited by Australians every day.
And each one of your clients, if you’re to become a successful digital marketer, will expect you to understand each of them to provide professional advice, recommendations, and have the ability to execute a successful social media strategy.
At a minimum, a thorough understanding of all social media platforms including how to effectively engage across each platform and how to measure the success of your campaign is required.
- Email marketing
Email marketing provides marketers with one of the highest ROI’s of any other medium. It is relatively cheap to set up, it costs barely anything to maintain, and the analytics available relating to the client’s audience are marketing gold as far as understanding the customer is concerned.
You can analyse open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe data and bounce rates to see exactly how well your market responds to every single word that you give them, and any digital marketer will have difficulty finding a client who doesn’t want you to be proficient in email marketing as a result of the value that it brings to the business.
When done well, email marketing allows businesses to talk directly to their clients in the way they want to be spoken to. Analysis can be almost instant, so there is no need for any client to liaise with a digital marketer who doesn’t excel at email marketing.
A good digital marketer will have a thorough understanding of the concepts surrounding segmentation, SPAM, data protection, and knowledge of test campaigns and how to analyse them. It’ll be evident to your clients and potential employees very quickly if this fundamental knowledge is absent from your skillset.
- Analytics
One of the most beneficial elements of engaging with a digital marketer is the simplicity of which results can be analysed.
Online reporting, applying analytics across all your digital marketing fields, and understanding how to read results to make appropriate modifications to your digital marketing strategy is an area that your client will insist you’re capable in.
Google is core to most, if not all, digital marketing strategy. A thorough understanding of Google Analytics, the ability to measure web traffic, and being able to use this data to review and refine your approach is an essential factor in your success.
- Strategy and planning
Digital marketing can’t rely on trial and error, and it requires structured methodology and sound planning. While testing is an important element, it’s vital that you use research to understand who you’re promoting to, how, and when.
Digital marketing is an instant form of communication, so it’s as easy to saturate an audience as it is to have no visibility at all and one step too far in either direction could easily lead to your downfall. What works for one niche will differ to another, so getting a handle on how to plan a digital marketing strategy for a client is essential including identifying their objectives, target audience, and budgets.
While most digital marketing strategies incorporate social media, email marketing and digital marketing blogs at a minimum, it’s important that you are strategic in your approach and these elements all work together to complement each other, or you risk having the opposite effect.
- Search Engine Optimisation.
SEO is a specialised profession of its own, and whether you choose to focus in this area or not, it’s imperative that you have at least an intermediate level of understanding of key SEO strategy and can put this into use and offer guidance if required.
Your client will need to have an awareness of the whole process of SEO, how on and off-site optimisation works, the effectiveness of link building, and the importance of using Meta tags and SEO Webmaster tools.
And you’re the one that needs to deliver this to them.
SEO forms the basis of most, if not all, of your other digital marketing strategies so unless you’re competent in both the practice and the theory of SEO, you will achieve very little as a digital marketer.
- Mobile marketing
According to IAB Australia, in 2015, 12.5 million Australians accessed the internet on a Smartphone, and that number is continuing to rise with even the most dedicated old-school mobile users now switching over to their more advanced Smartphone counterparts.
Essentially, this means that mobile marketing is now more relevant and more valuable than ever, and it’s vital that you’re proficient in recent digital marketing techniques and strategy in this area.
The rise in mobile use has happened very quickly so apps, mobile-friendly sites, and SMS strategy are still relatively unchartered territory. A thorough understanding of all these areas of mobile marketing will help you get ahead in your career and produce some outstanding results for your clients.
Without this knowledge, your lack of understanding in this area will become evident very quickly simply by the lack of results you produce.
If you’re considering a career in digital marketing, it’s a move you won’t regret! To make your career in digital marketing as successful as you deserve it to be, a Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing will guarantee you have access to the tools required to become competent in all the essential areas so you can take your industry by storm!
Jo Biggins Bio in brief.
Jo is a Content Writer for Media Shark digital agency – with four years’ professional writing experience under her belt. Jo has worked on writing projects that range from SEO strategies to beauty and fashion. Bilingual and a world traveller, she has been to 6 of the 7 continents. Currently Studying Digital Marketing in South East Qld looking to further her career in the digital arena.
Contact Jo directly – business@mediashark.com.au
