8 Essential Digital Marketing Skills for Today’s Business Landscape
Mastering digital marketing is an important part of running a business in age of the internet. Here are the essential digital marketing skills you need.
The world is changing.
More and more of our time is spent on-screen.
Indeed, the average adult in the United States spends 11 hours a day looking at a screen of some description. We can all agree that’s a staggering statistic.
This growing trend has all manner of implications. Marketers, in particular, must take note. Simply, traditional skills and techniques are becoming less relevant. They must adapt in order to remain successful in a modern business landscape.
But how can they do it? What are the key skills needed to be successful in 2019?
Keep reading to discover 8 essential digital marketing skills for success in the modern digital landscape.
8 Vital Digital Marketing Skills to Master in 2019
Marketing is changing with the times. Old approaches simply don’t cut the mustard these days. Below you’ll find the modern skills required to be successful.
Need help? Think about working with a digital marketing skills specialist.
1. Content Creation
Content marketing is a central component of effective digital marketing.
If you don’t know what it is, then you’re off to a bad start. Simply, it’s the process of creating content of extreme value. This will show up in search engines, attract leads and give you the chance to convert them in-line with your business goals.
But to be successful at it you must first understand how to create great content. Blogs have been the go-to form of content throughout the digital revolution. And they’re still important. However, new forms of content are becoming increasingly relevant too, such as videos and podcasts.
2. Search Engine Optimization
SEO is fundamental to effective content marketing.
There’s no point spending time and resources creating something that no-one is going to find online. It literally serves no purpose. The only way to be successful with it is to rank highly on search engine results pages (aka SERPs). The higher you rank, the more traffic your website gets.
SEO is the process of optimizing your content to make it happen. This is a giant topic though- too large to go into in detail here. Begin with this useful list of SEO fundamentals to get you started.
3. Branding
As Jeff Bezos put it, “your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room”.
Creating a well-respected, well-known brand identity is full of advantages. After all, your reputation precedes you. The way you’re perceived in the marketplace has a direct impact on your ability to do business. It all begins with the brand.
A marketer must understand what goes into creating a great brand identity. All products, content, PR, social media posts and so on must fall in-line with brand. It can be the difference between success and failure.
4. Social Media Marketing
Social media is another vital component in digital marketing.
People spend hours of their day scrolling through feeds on their favorite platforms. Individuals of all ages, across the globe, peruse Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and so on throughout the day. Social media represent a marketplace that simply must be tapped into.
It’s as much an art as a science. You can’t simply post the same thing across them all and expect results. To be effective requires a solid understanding of each platform and the content, visuals, and style that works best.
5. Email Marketing
Many people say that email marketing is dead.
They’re downright wrong.
Sure, old-school email marketing may no longer work to the same extent. But that’s easy to understand. No-one wants to be bombarded with generic, spam-like emails full of offers. Those emails won’t be read and your time will be wasted.
However, do it the right way and you can gain direct access to a highly targeted customer base that wants to hear from you. That’s ideal for sharing content and generating revenue.
Personalization is key (another modern digital marketing technique to come to terms with). People want to be talked to directly, with offers and information that pertain to them directly.
6. PPC Advertisements
Online ads are another key skill to master.
Again, there’s a lot to learn and understand in order to be successful.
But, essentially, you’re paying your way to the top of SERPs rather than doing it organically through SEO. Companies pay search engines (usually Google) to display an ad for their product or service, based on particular keywords. They get charged a certain amount of money when a user clicks upon their ad.
However, those clicks convert to revenue generation. It’s also a straightforward way of developing brand awareness.
You must understand the science behind successful ads, as well as how to analyze and optimize results.
7. Analytics
Analytics is a buzz word to modern marketers.
Or it should be.
Essentially, good marketing is based on testing and measurement. You try something out, analyze the results and alter course accordingly. The beauty of online marketing is the ability to analyze absolutely everything with relative ease.
Most platforms offer built-in analytics to track exactly how your campaigns are performing. But you must understand the data in order to test and optimize appropriately.
8. Automation
You might be wondering how one person can do all of the above.
Well, they probably can’t. After all, marketing is a team effort where everyone has their own particular area of expertise.
Nonetheless, it’s undoubtedly true that modern marketers face a never-ending to-do list. That’s where it becomes important to master automation. There are tools that effectively automate everything we addressed here: emails, social media posts, content marketing…you can get them running automatically if you know how.
This will save you essential time and money that’ll be a major boon for your clients.
Time to Get Marketing
There you have it: the key digital marketing skills to master in order to be a success in the modern world.
People around the world are spending more and more of their time online. Marketers must adapt their skill sets accordingly. No longer is it enough to design billboards, leaflets, and handouts. A modern world demands a modern marketing approach.
Hopefully, this piece has highlighted the vital skills required to be successful at it.
Did you like this piece? Looking for more marketing-related advice? Click here to discover the best B2B lead generation companies to work with now.
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