Data analysis, search engine marketing, content marketing, and social media are the future of marketing and many companies will be looking to hire marketers who have experience in these areas.
It’s no longer enough to rely on soft skills like creativity or communication to get in the door. Employers now want to hire marketers with a diverse set of skills and who are able to be successful in the technical and data-driven aspects of digital marketing.
Find out what specific skills you need to have in order to be a desirable digital marketing candidate in today’s world
Data Analysis
Big data and analytics are fairly new terms to be added to the digital marketing standard and not many marketers possess (or want to possess) strong analytical skills. In fact, by the year 2018, the US is predicted to lack 1.5 million managers and analysts with the technical and digital know-how to make effective decisions. While marketing is traditionally a creative field, you also need to be able to think analytically in order to stay relevant. For example, it’s important to implement strong and creative inbound marketing campaigns, but you also need to analyze them regularly and use your insights to improve and increase ROI.
Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing involves two parts. The first part is optimizing a website and blog content for search engines and the other part involves more technical skills including server-side settings, sitemaps, and server response codes. These two strategies involve different methods but both can be extremely effective. Also, digital marketers should have experience with and be able to use tools like Moz, SEMRush, Ahrefs, and Google Adwords to make decisions based on customer search behaviors and through data analysis.
Content Marketing
Quality content is what helps your site rank well in search engines, attracts potential customers to your website, builds trust and authority, and keeps your audience engaged. Even though it is such an essential part of marketing, not every marketer has the skills to create the content and manage it too. Today, the definition of content includes more than just a blog or brochure. Digital marketers should be able to create infographics, images, eBooks, white papers, and more. It’s also important to have at least basic design skills and experience with HTML, CSS, or Photoshop in order to create these different pieces of content.
Social Media
Strong digital marketers not only need to be able to create content for various social networks, but they also need to know the right strategies and tactics to have success. One of the best ways to impress a potential employer is to demonstrate your ability to measure the ROI on social media campaigns. This can be a difficult task, but there are many tools that can help you leverage your efforts and measure your success. Also, social media channels like Facebook are changing the game when it comes to getting likes and traffic. You know need to use paid advertising to see real results and having experience and proven success with paid social media advertising can help you stand out from the crowd.
The world of marketing is changing so quickly that many colleges and universities can barely keep up. The best way to stay ahead is to take learning into your own hands and improve on these essential skills to stand out to employers.
