Since the past few years, technology has brought a lot of changes in the field of marketing. Such changes has exposed marketers to a new set of digital skills. According to Hubspot, half of all the new marketing hires will require technical skills.
According to Formstack, technical skills like video production and coding will become a necessity for all new marketers.
In this article, I am going to tell you the 7 most important skills required by digital marketers.
Important skills required for all digital marketers
Analytics
In marketing it is very important to understand your target market so that you are able to reach them on time. Today, this can be achieved through gathering and analyzing data. According to Jess Vadino, Senior strategist at Monetate, “No marketer needs to be a data scientist but marketers should know the ins and outs of analytics platforms they use and those their clients use. Someone who works with e-commerce clients will be more valuable when they can point to the impact their work has had on the client’s business KPIs, not just SEO ranking”.
Social media
In this digital world, relationships are a key to survival. It is very important to stay connected with professionals who produce a similar kind of content like yours. This inspires and motivates you to write more of such content. You also get a chance to learn a lot of things from people who have similar stories like your own. You can join LinkedIn and Blog Tribs to connect with like minded people.
Videos
Everyone likes to watch videos. Videos provide a lot of information in a limited period of time. Instead of writing an article of 1000 words it’s better to make a video for it and give your brand a voice. 64% people are motivated buy products only after watching there videos. In United States around 9% of small companies create videos for there products. You can also create live videos for your products/services. According to Amber Van Moessner, Director of content at Livestream, “Audiences spend more time with live video and are willing to show up, participate and join the conversation on social media more so than with videos on demand blog content”.
Communication skills
Being a good marketer is not enough. You have to be a good communicator as well. Communication skills matters a lot in your professional relationships. Flexibility and soft skills helps you to be a good coworker. According to a study by Danschawbel, 9 out of 10 times individuals reported job failure due to poor behavior or attitude.
HTML
Every role of marketing requires writing either it is blog posts or sales pages. Marketers need to have proper knowledge of HTML so that they are properly able to post content on the site. According to Jess Vadino, Senior strategist at Monetate, “While i have never had to write code as a marketer, understanding the basics makes conversations across teams so much easier”.
WordPress/CMS
Writing and publishing content are the backbone of marketing. Therefore it is important for a marketer to have basic knowledge about Content Management System (CMS). WordPress has a wide reach- Around 16 million sites use WordPress.
Design skills
You might be wondering why marketers need to learn design skills? You have a reasonable doubt but to be clear, it is just a suggestion. Every company has it’s own design team but you as a marketer can learn some basic design skills (be it for Photoshop or something else). There is no harm in learning extra skills. It will help you in future. According to Jess Vadino, Senior strategist at Monetate. “To be clear, I don’t think a marketer needs to know Axure vs Visio vs UXPin but they should be able to sketch out a standard digital customer experience. Whether done with a paper and pen, whiteboard and marker or software, this can only help marketers further their influence and understanding for their org and/or their clients”.
So, if you planning to become a part of the 2017 marketing team, you need to have the above mentioned skills in you.