3 yrs ago

Digital marketing is proven effective for reaching out and engaging with the right audience and delivering the right message around a brand, product or service. Due to that, it is no surprise that every business is looking to jump right into it. Of course, as demand for digital marketing grows, so is the need for professionals to plan, execute, measure, and evaluate campaigns. This is the best time to pursue a digital marketing career.

If you contemplate taking the digital marketing career path, know that the sector is vast and rapidly evolving. That is why you must have the right skills to set yourself apart from the competition and encourage potential employers to hire you for their digital marketing campaigns. Here are the top digital marketing skills to learn to help you succeed in this career path.

Digital Marketing Skills Worth Learning

SEO and SEM 

Search engines remain the top tools people use to know brands better and search for products and services they can purchase. As such, having a good handle of search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) is necessary to get traffic to a website and landing pages via organic and paid search. 

Both SEO and SEM frame your digital strategy around bringing a brand, product or service to appear on relevant searches. That makes it vital to learn how to optimise all types of content by using high-value keywords, updating metadata, defining audience intent, and testing user experience.

PPC

While SEO and SEM effectively establish visibility, it often takes them a while to deliver desired outcomes. Using pay-per-click advertising in conjunction with them is one of the best ways to gain visibility immediately. 

As its name suggests, PPC entails paying for every click that your advertisement gets, as shown on search engines. Take note, however, that paying more does not necessarily mean your ad will instantly show up on top spots and stay there as long as you are paying. Other factors are also at play, including the interest of your target audience, the quality of your ad, and the maximum bid you are willing to pay per click. These factors and more make PPC one of those digital marketing skills to learn to take your campaigns to the next level. 

You need to know how to earmark your budget to excel at PPC properly. Equally crucial is figuring out the right keyword and phrases relevant to your target market and using the best channels and display ads to ensure maximum visibility for the brand, product, or service you are promoting.

Content Marketing

No digital marketing campaign would work without content. After all, content bridges a business to its customers, providing them with the information they need to answer their questions and make an informed purchasing decision.

Content can take on many forms, including blogs, e-books, emails, podcasts, website content, and white papers, just to name a few. As a digital marketer, you need to have a basic grasp of choosing the appropriate content type for the audience you intend to target and the online platform you will use. At the same time, you need to know how to develop relevant, compelling, and engaging content that conveys your message while optimising it for search engines. 

Social Media

Social media are where the people are. As a digital marketer, part of your job is to ensure the business you are helping is reaching out and engaging with its target audience. That entails comprehensive knowledge of different platforms, including their features, tools, and quirks. 

At the most basic, you want to know how each platform works. You need to understand what and when to post and how to use available tools to learn about your audience, manage online reputation, and differentiate a business from its competition. Equally important is to learn different social media marketing techniques (e.g. targeting, using hashtags, gamification, influencer campaign, etc.) and know how to use and prioritise them effectively. 

Basic Design

Unless you join a company with an in-house design team, you will likely find yourself doing design work on the side to update the company’s social media pages. That is where having basic design skills can come in handy. 

If you have limited knowledge of the fundamentals of graphic design and how to use some of the most common design platforms, consider working on them now to use those skills to deliver content that meets objectives and planned activities.

As organisations’ marketing is now mostly done online and with the tools for doing it perpetually evolving, knowing which digital marketing skills to learn and actually learning them will help you stay on top of your game while assisting organisations in achieving their desired results. 

Finding a Digital Marketing Mentor

If you find it challenging to develop digital marketing skills on your own, consider working with a mentor instead. Learning from someone who has a broad knowledge of the concepts, practices, tools, and challenges will get you up to speed on the discipline faster while also shortening the learning curve. 

That is because a mentor already knows how to organise the information you need based on your existing knowledge of digital marketing and bring to focus the most important topics. Likewise, a mentor can see gaps or faults in your learning that you may not recognise yourself. They can offer you constructive criticism, allowing you to pinpoint where you are lacking and improve on those areas. Additionally, a mentor can direct you to more resources to build your skillset further and stay competitive.

When you need to find a digital marketing mentor, LinkedIn is one of the best platforms to start your search. It will provide you access to thousands of experienced digital marketers worldwide, and they are just a message away. Ensure that when you send a connection request to prospective mentors, include a brief outreach message. 

Find common ground between you and the expert and introduce yourself. Also, be as specific as you can about your intent so the expert will understand your struggles. Although there is no guarantee that a cold outreach message will make someone agree to mentor you, it is a good start to show your sincerity to learn from them. 

If LinkedIn does not work for you, consider using Speedy Mentors. The platform makes it convenient for you to find a digital marketing mentor. You can explore the profiles of hundreds of mentors from top companies and choose the expert you think can best support you in your professional development. You can then engage with your mentor 1-on-1 through the platform’s built-in messaging system or hop on a call with them via phone or Zoom. The beauty of using Speedy Mentors is that you have complete control over who you want to work with and how long you want the mentorship to last. You can also be assured that the mentors know their stuff because that is what they do for a living.