Technology is constantly evolving, prompting marketers and entrepreneurs to go into digital marketing to increase brand awareness, reach their target market, and ultimately drive sales and profit.
With the way Digital Marketing has gained massive popularity in recent years, it’s no surprise that the need for skilled digital marketing professionals is increasing.
Digital marketing skills are of great value to a lot of business owners to produce content that’s personalized to their specific market and this is why people who possess these digital skills are considered ‘hot cake’ in this digital era.
Whatever the specific job you are interviewing for, recruiters will be looking out for a wider skill set and broader experience in their new hires.
So today we’ll look into ten of the top digital marketing skills that will increase your chance of getting hired in Nigeria. Keep reading
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is a component of marketing that helps to promote products and services by using the internet and online-based digital technologies like desktop computers, mobile phones.
The key objective of digital marketing is to interact with customers and permit them to interact with the brand through servicing and delivery of digital media.
Digital Marketing helps to introduce people to your company and convince them to buy.
As a Digital Marketer, you are responsible for using digital channels to generate leads and build brand awareness for a company or client while also creating and adhering to a digital marketing strategy.
Such digital channels include company websites, Search Engine Rankings, Email Marketing, Online Ads, and Blogs. Being a digital marketer, you will help such a company to communicate with its customers and to promote sales.
What Does a Digital Marketer Do?
Digital Marketers manages social media marketing (where they must figure out how to create enthralling content across all social media platforms and plan how best to use that content across social media channels including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn),
They also help with inbound marketing (which means capitalizing on a company’s website by posting compelling content, articles, blog posts, and videos) to help potential customers find your company.
It doesn’t stop there. Digital Marketers are also responsible for search engine optimization—which means using different SEO tactics to ensure a company’s website is consistently ranked among the top results on search engines
Finally, Digital Marketers must also be skillful at analytics and reporting. Not only will creating very detailed breakdowns of the nature of your traffic and the usefulness of your marketing campaigns help you get a better sense of how effective your marketing plan is, but it will also help you to make a compelling case to stakeholders about your value.
Digital Marketers may also be the first point of contact with customers across some of the digital channels we’ve mentioned. They might communicate directly with customers, and managing those relationships is a huge part of a Digital Marketer’s job and will have a big effect on a company’s online presence
Digital Marketers must master a diverse range of skills, techniques, and tools to stay on top of the ever-changing digital media and social media channels they use to create, expand, manage, and track marketing campaigns.
You’ll agree with me that with some of the functions of a digital marketer being listed, to be a top-tier digital marketer there are some skills you need to possess- this will make you desirable by recruiters and increase your chances of getting hired.
Top 10 Important Digital Marketing Skills
Digital Marketers need a large and diverse range of skills, both hard and soft. Some require deep and comprehensive knowledge, others may be less critical or easy to pick up—and, as always, the list of skills you’ll need as a Digital Marketer is somewhat dependent on where you’ll be working and what you’ll be doing.
- Web data analytics
- Content creation
- Email Marketing.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
- Website design
- Social Media Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Digital Marketing Automation.
- UI/UX Design Skills
- Brand Storytelling Skills
#1: Web data analytics
The most important skill in digital marketing is web data analytics. Digital marketers skilled in web data analytics are good at analyzing market data using digital technology and digital tools like Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, and Hotjar.
Companies and firms need digital marketers with skills to collect, analyze, measure, and provide accurate statistics and information for the sole purpose of understanding and optimizing web usage.
For instance, after launching a new advertising campaign for a company or business, the web analytic skill will be used to measure the results and estimate how traffic to their website changes.
This is important to businesses as they want to be able to track what is going on in the market, so they can properly and carefully plan their market strategies, as well as making moves that favor brand awareness, increases their growth, and development.
If you’re looking for a digital marketing skill to learn to increase your chances of getting hired, then web data analytics is definitely for you.
#2: Content Creation
Companies that have websites, blogs, and social media accounts are constantly on the lookout for content writers and creators who can write relevant content that will generate traffic for their online appearance by drawing in and engaging their target audience.
The customer today does not take any action unless they are impressed by the content a business has put out. Content marketers optimize the content the business puts out to be top quality and drive traffic to the various web pages of an organization. This is an unpaid form of promotion, unlike social media ads.
Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
The creative content creator is a great digital marketing skill that will increase your chances with recruiters.
#3: Email Marketing
Email marketing is arguably the most underestimated digital marketing skill in today’s world. However, many companies who know their values are constantly on the lookout for professionals who are skilled at writing catchy emails to their customers and prospective clients.
Email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to develop a good relationship between organizations and customers.
Email marketing requires you to be strategic, understand the right tools and metrics as you’ll be looking to build your employer’s brand through emails sent out to customers and clients on the company’s products and services.
As such, it is important that as an email marketer, you keep up with the latest trends and constantly improve your skills.
#4: Search Engine Optimization
A well-written blog post or newsletter is useless if the right people don’t find it.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a form of marketing focused on growing the visibility of an organization in organic (non-paid) search engine results.
Companies and brands love to be at the top of search engine pages. This is where SEO marketers come in and why they highly sort after.
SEO marketers use their skills to improve a company’s or brand’s visibility on a search engine page, and thus, improve traffic, brand awareness, and patronage.
Google’s algorithm is constantly upgrading, and the importance of using relevant and specific keywords has reached a new high.
Also, with the world wide web becoming more congested each day, it’s important to stay updated and be fully aware of the latest algorithm updates and factors that affect search ranking.
At the same time, marketers need to strategically consider those algorithms in their content creation and distribution strategies to attract and engage people.
This is, therefore, a very important digital marketing skill because if you’re skilled at SEO marketing, opportunities abound for you to earn in the digital marketing field, as companies require these skills to boost their brand.
#5: Web Design
Every business today wants to be online because that is where its users are. 51% of the world’s population has access to the internet.
Web design involves the use of programming tools like HTML/CSS, and WordPress to create, build, and design webpages and websites.
Companies today are going digital. With the understanding that today’s business world now runs more online than offline, businesses are now looking to create an online presence for themselves by creating websites for their businesses, and as such, web designers and programmers are now in high demand.
As a great digital marketer, you should be able to design simple landing pages (home page) for collecting leads and manage CMS websites like WordPress, Blogger, etc. If you can’t do any of these two activities on your own it will be difficult to apply most of the digital marketing skills that were shared in this post.
Companies would require you to not just build their website, but also update and maintain it from time to time.
#6: Social Media Marketing
Social media has become rooted in our everyday lives and routines.
Social media is one of the single most powerful tools in the modern marketing world. As a digital marketer, you need to understand the usefulness of distinctive copywriting, color psychology- (color can influence consumers’ emotions and perceptions about goods and services), analytics, and visual marketing to improve your social media skills.
An effective digital marketer knows that there’s more to social media than just posting regularly and consistently.
Because businesses are now using social media to reach their target consumers, the platforms have significantly grown to accommodate digital marketing needs. There’s social media advertising, boosted posts, business pages, hashtags, groups, and more. Indeed, there’s a lot to learn.
This is why businesses are looking to capitalize on this unique digital marketing skill to drive new business opportunities.
#7: Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a form of digital marketing that uses paid search ads to get more web traffic through desktop or mobile web search. (SEM is more of paid ads on search engine websites like Google & Bing.)
Managing an SEM campaign requires constant monitoring, testing, tweaking, optimization, and learning and this is a vital skill for any digital marketer.
Companies looking to boost their traffic and brand awareness are constantly on the lookout for skilled search engine marketers to hire. Search engine marketing is, therefore, one of the most relevant digital marketing skills you can learn today.
#8: Digital Marketing Automation
It is difficult to keep up with the demands of all the digital marketing techniques and skills shared in this post without any form of automation.
Most businesses will rely more heavily on marketing automation tools, which means their digital marketing team must be skilled in various marketing automation tools like Hubspot, Buffer, Marketo, and Pardot to automate marketing activities.
Marketing automation essentially boosts the entire sales funnel as it creates a large user base and also creates awareness about your brand. The more people know about your brand, the more they trust it and eventually buy from it.
The consumer will not buy the first time they come to the website, marketing automation makes sure it keeps you relevant in the consumer’s head leading to sales eventually.
#9: UI /UX design skills
As a modern-day digital marketer, you need to understand and appreciate the difference between UI and UX.
They are different skills and functions and have a specific role to play in creating a unique online customer experience.
The first thing that gets internet users hooked when they visit a company’s website or webpage is the design. The impressive design gives them a good first impression of the company.
Although some companies typically have a separate design team, don’t underestimate the importance of knowing design principles as a marketer.
A little design skill can go a long way (and make you more attractive as a marketing candidate).
#10: Brand storytelling skills
Brand storytelling involves the use of narrative storytelling to keep a company’s audience engaged, boost the company’s brand awareness, and improve its patronage.
Hence, when it comes to content marketing, longer articles on topics important to your audience, which are a key tool in SEO—it’s important to be able to communicate your ideas not just clearly, but also in a way that feels compelling to the people you want to attract.
If you possess just five of these skills then your chances of getting hired in the digital marketing scene to have just increased by another percentage.
Final Thought
Digital marketing has successfully taken over today’s business world. And Companies and brands are utilizing digital marketing skills and strategies to boost their traffic, awareness, and patronage.
So for you to have a successful career as a digital marketer your skills need to evolve as well.
If you possess these skills already good for you. And if you don’t, don’t fret. All you have to do is invest in yourself. You can take your time to train yourself to acquire these skills.
Then there come soft skills, which scales from creativity to collaboration, and powerful influence, these skills are the basics you must possess to have a solid career in digital marketing. Knowing your job is one thing, and being able to present it to your clients and win confidence is another part that needs equal attention.
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