If we can learn anything from 2020, we must sharpen our marketing skills and put on multiple business hats to adapt faster to the new economy we are facing. Here are eight digital marketing skills we think any marketer should master during 2021 to improve sales, promote his services through better leads, and have an ROI out of his efforts.
1. Data / Google Analytics
Whether you are a full digital marketing specialist, a CEO of a company, or just starting a new business, Google Analytics will probably be central to your strategy. Monitoring your performance and reporting through such tools is pretty straightforward. The tricky part is gathering and applying that information to learn about consumer behavior and apply key learnings to new solutions that might help your company boost traffic and conversions, through all the different channels.
Most businesses (even small ones) have vast amounts of data to measure, and great digital marketers need to understand how to gather and properly use this to the business’s advantage. Most companies are always looking for people who know how to “translate” this data but most importantly, to know which exact data to use in order to improve business strategy in the future.
If you can do this in alternative ways and that it results with significant results, you will be a valuable asset in the industry. There are multiple free platforms to learn about Google Analytics and how to make the most out of it.
2. Video Marketing
Video took the net by storm, and also this isn’t ready to stop. Videos can hold customer’s interest on retail websites for 2 mins longer than typical (which is like a lifetime in the digital landscape) as well as create extremely engaged website traffic to your site. A well-optimized video could improve your chances of being in a leading Google Search Ranking placement by at least 50. After seeing a comprehensive video clip, more than 80% of customers are more likely to buy a product or service. Do not forget Youtube will certainly assist a long way in showing higher content in Google Search results.
Although these are just loose statistics that vary from an industry to the other, the fact is that most statistics point to higher conversion, engagement, traffic and SEO rankings when it delivered through video.
As Digital Marketers, you might ask what makes it so engaging? Well, simply put, because it’s personal. When people can see a face (or the face of the person promoting the brand), they are more likely to trust. Also, it is a wonderful format of content, highly versatile to be used through multiple social media and its own platforms.
Digital marketing specialists don’t need to know everything about video production, but knowing how to create a quick intro video from your smartphone or computer is an excellent starting place.
3. SEO
Search Engine Optimization (also known as SEO) is key to all digital marketing levels trying to improve the organic traffic and its metrics. Any digital marketer should have at least a basic knowledge of how Search Engines, such as Google, work. It is a good practice to leave the highly technical, back-end stuff to the more technically-oriented people on the team (such as developers or SEO specialists); but having a solid understanding of principles, best practices, and how to optimize any form of content is crucial for running a successful SEO Strategy. Learning the shortcuts of SEO and the best techniques will lead your company to higher Conversion Rate Optimization and get constantly new engaged visitors.
4. SEM
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) nurture your entire digital strategy on both a data and content level. You need to understand not only the KPIs, objectives and possibilities, but also be able to question your team about all the digital advertising campaigns running. What are they accomplishing? Are you building awareness (top of the funnel)? Or are the banners intended for sales and conversion (bottom of the funnel)?
No worries, if you don’t fully understand the setup and capabilities we can surely help you with that.
5. Content Marketing
Content is the core of digital marketing. It will continue to be a crucial part of the game no matter what happens. But content marketing is a massive job. You have to be able to fully understand how to not only create high quality, SEO-friendly content of various sorts; you also have to know how to get audiences to engage effectively.
But since the digital landscape is quite more challenging, it’s important to note that content can take many forms, from emails to videos, videos to social, web content such as blog posts, e-books, whitepapers, Linkedin and Instagram particular formats, and the list goes on. You need a firm grasp on as this will tie into most content marketing types of work. timestimesYou’ll need to plan based on a given client’s business goals, develop a campaign involving an effective strategy, and monitor analytics of all content marketing strategies at the same time.
6. Understand Design-Based Thinking & Planning
Design Thinking refers to a methodology of approaching and resolving any kind of problem thinking from a user-centered perspective. It encourages clients to think in a human-centered manner when solving larger complex problems.
According to The IDF, there are five key phases to this process: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. This process works so well in the digital marketing sphere that so much of it is centered on the user experience. Another exciting fact about the Design Thinking process is that it can be used alternatively in a non-linear way – in some instances, you may get to the testing phase and then come back to the middle stage, for example, to re-consider ideas.
Modern designers and development teams are very likely to use such an approach, so even if you’re not part of such a team, it’s smart to at least have a solid understanding and apply it when possible.
7. Being Tech Savvy
Because the industry is technology-driven, you have to have a decent grip on technology and learn quickly from it. For millennial-age or younger, this is probably going to be second-nature. But more experienced generations may need to put a bit of elbow grease into teaching themselves specific technologies and get familiar with the most frequently used software and tools in their focus area.
Generally speaking, you should understand the basics of web coding, be familiar with Google Docs, project management tools such as Monday or as well as having a clear idea of how to use any essential CMS like WordPress, thus you’re likely well on your way to landing that dream job.
8. Being Persuasive in every landscape
A great digital marketing leader should not only practice excellent people skills but also must be able to successfully join analytical thinking with creative problem solving, in order to help teams develop innovative campaign ideas and drive the business forward.
An important part of this is being persuasive. Can you convince someone to buy something? Can you tell when a copy is intended for conversion? How about convincing other team leaders that your strategy will give better results? This is not about arguing as much as having the confidence to know what you’re doing and showing this in detail.
