Recruiters’ Checklist: Digital Marketing Skills Every Marketer Should Have
Hundreds of people are applying for various positions in digital marketing every day. As the number of vacancies in the industry has gone up, so has the number of digital marketers in the market. So in such a crowd, what digital marketing skills set you apart?
As is the case with every field, there is a certain skill set that the jobs in digital marketing require. While for a specialist these might be narrowed down further (such as social media specialist, web analyst, etc.), for generalists (digital marketing executive/managers, etc.), there are a few skills that every recruiter looks for.
In today’s article, we’ll be decoding what these skills are and helping you understand the expectations of your future employers.
Current Scenario
Even though, as mentioned above, there has been a steep rise in the number of digital marketers, there is still a heavy shortage of skilled marketers. In fact, 74% of marketing executives believe that marketing organizations aren’t able to get as much out of their employees as they would like since they lack digital skills.
What they mean by this is that the knowledge they possess currently and the knowledge they need to have are not the same. There is a gap. As a result of this, recruitments are going up and organizations are also actively working towards reskilling their people.
In such a case, mastering the required digital marketing skills and coming out on top becomes all the more important for anyone who wants to make it big in this industry.
Source: Street Smart Creative
Skills Recruiters look for in Digital Marketers
Given below are some of the primary digital marketing skills that recruiters look for in candidates applying for digital marketing roles:
1. Data Analysis
As the field of digital marketing has rapidly progressed, it has led to the creation of copious amounts of data. As a result, marketers have a lot of data that they can easily access and determine whether campaigns are performing well or not, and understand the customers’ behavior.
Now since there is so much data, naturally companies want marketers who can decipher it well. Digital marketing’s data analytics goes beyond your usual web analytics and how a website is performing.
A good digital marketer needs to be well-equipped to decipher data shapes and know how they drive the customer experience across the different platforms as well as channels. You need to have a good knowledge of tools such as Google Analytics, Google Ads, and other ad exchanges.
Further, if their work includes a collection of additional customer data, they will have to learn Excel as well as SQL too so that they can decode the data better and learn more.
2. Management Skills
As a marketer, you’ll be expected to take care of several campaigns simultaneously. This can get complex really fast. Working on an omnichannel plan means using several technologies and taking the help of different measurements in order to coordinate them, and get effective results.
Therefore, a good digital marketer needs to have excellent organizational as well as project management skills. This is because they’ll be playing the role of a project manager and ensure that the different teams come together to execute campaigns smoothly.
Source: The Balance Careers
Project management skills such as leading and directing the different teams, technical knowledge so as to break down complex projects into simple steps for the team members, and most importantly, good communication skills are a must.
In order to effectively do this, digital marketing managers must have the knowledge of how to manage the whole workflow process. To help them do this, knowing how to navigate tools such as Trello, Basecamp, and so on, and content management systems (CMS) is vital.
3. Automation Knowledge
With the help of automation, many marketing processes have now become much more smooth, enhanced, and effective. Businesses can easily target their audience and get their message across in a much better manner.
Since it helps in understanding your target audience better, sending across precise messages, it is quickly being adopted everywhere. Currently, 68% of marketing leaders are incorporating automation in their marketing strategy in some way or the other.
Therefore, having a good and functional knowledge of automation are important digital marketing skills. To be more specific, artificial intelligence and machine learning are behind most of the automation systems these days.
4. Understanding of Customer Experience
Marketing these days isn’t just confined to the purchase part of the buying process anymore. It is all about giving them a good experience so that they come back again and again. To make this happen, marketers need to have a good grasp of the full customer experience.
Source: Access/Information
They need to understand and learn as much about their customers as possible – their needs, wants, as well as pain points. Getting feedback and conscientiously working on improving the whole system is another important digital marketing skill.
5. Social Media Awareness
We all know and understand the effectiveness of social media and the impact it has on people as we have all experienced it ourselves. Many organizations globally have been able to leverage this successfully and by improving their enhancement, boosted their website’s traffic, and generated more sales.
Every marketer needs to have a good sound knowledge of the workings of the different social media platforms so that they can use them effectively. They need to know how to use analytics to monitor the different profiles and work accordingly to get the best results possible.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, a recruiter will only hire you if they think that you bring something good to the table. Everyone wants their company to grow, and good, dependable employees form the foundation for this to happen.
Therefore, make sure that you put your best foot forward and really know what you’re doing. Don’t oversell yourself but at the same time, don’t undersell either. Maintain the balance and be confident about your digital marketing skills.
For more such content, don’t forget to go over our Blog section. Further, you can also check out the various digital marketing courses that we offer and take your first step towards becoming a digital marketer.