If you are an aspiring digital marketing professional, here are 10 key skills students need to possess, as revealed by an insider.
The demand for digital marketing is increasing exponentially, making it one of the most rewarding careers of the day. Here are a few tips and skill sets that could help college-goers land a promising position in the field:
1. UNDERSTANDING THE DIGITAL LANDSCAPE
Marketers today must have a robust grounding in online platforms, such as social media, reviews, and knowledge-sharing platforms like Quora or the company website.
Understanding the reach, the demographics, and the know-how of the platforms is essential for marketers.
Further, to attract the target group, professionals need a good grip on details such as the age group, the lingo preferred, or the gender of the demographic in question to effectively set the tone of the campaign.
2. CONTENT CREATION, MARKETING, USER EXPERIENCE (UX), AND DESIGN
Content remains the most critical aspect of marketing. The catchier the content, the more the audience is intrigued to engage with the branding efforts.
Well-written content successfully carries the brand persona, organically appealing to the stakeholder.
Given that content is consumed in various ways nowadays, be it on a website or via ad banners on social media, following UX Designing practices is a must. Incorporating UX Design best practices with content boosts the reading experience.
3. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Once content curation is mastered, leveraging social media marketing is the next step.
To make the best of social media marketing, one has to learn to ride the wave of platform trends.
4. PAID ADVERTISING (PPC) AND SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO)
With browsing becoming our second nature, marketers deem pay-per-click (PPC) advertising a crucial tool. In PPC, marketers pay a certain amount for the advertisement banners, links, etc., that lead to the client’s website being displayed on the Search Engine Result Page (SERP).
While PPC is a paid method of reaching the consumer, SEO is the organic route. Via SEO practices, which in essence, mimic natural word searches, marketers push the ad banners, links, and websites to the top search engine, swiftly grabbing the browser’s attention.
5. EMAIL MARKETING AND AUTOMATION
While people deem their social media as a way to engage with public domain content and fellow social media users, emailing remains a private space.
Email marketing offers the scope of curating personalised tips and content that appeal to the individual consumer.
Via email marketing, keep the consumer updated with the developments in the products and services you promote. With the advent of automated text generation, email marketing is easier than ever to execute.
6. CONVERSION RATE OPTIMISATION (CRO)
A CRO best practice denotes a particular optimisation action that will guarantee an increase in conversion rate.
Using testimonials, a strong colour for all CTA (call-to-action) buttons or creating urgency (e.g., time-limited offers) to drive sales are some of the most classic CRO efforts.
7. ANALYTICS AND DATA INTERPRETATION
From conducting market research to analysing market trends to gauge the performance of a campaign, analytics and data interpretation are pivotal for marketers.
8. DIGITAL ADVERTISING BUDGET MANAGEMENT
Budget management requires marketers to not just identify the marketing goals or target audience but also make robust market and competition analyses so the ad spending is on the most effective channels, grabbing optimum ROI.
9. A/B TESTING AND EXPERIMENTATION
A/B testing is an online experimentation process that helps determine which of two or more assets, like a web page, creative, placements, audiences, or a page element, performs best according to the desired measurable criteria.
10. SOFT SKILLS FOR DIGITAL MARKETERS
Given the multitude of platforms on which campaigns often need to be executed, skills such as strategy, analytical skills, and project management could be game-changing towards landing the dream role.
