Do you want to change careers in 2018? Do you need to up-skill before next year?

To land a lucrative job (or promotion) in digital marketing you need to ensure that your skill set matches the diverse, evolving environment that marketing professionals find themselves in currently. With businesses moving into newer technologies and trying to stay ahead of the next competitor online, there are must-have skills that will help you craft successful marketing strategies online.

To cut to the chase, here are the most important skills that a digital marketer needs today:

 

1. Search engine optimization (SEO)

It may come as no surprise that we would list this as number one, but yes: SEO is an essential digital marketing skill.

SEO is more than just keywords and getting them to rank. It involves optimizing websites to generate web traffic and online conversions.

It is vital that a digital marketing professional have technical SEO skills and knowhow – dealing with everything from sitemaps to server response codes. Additionally, the experience of using tools such as SEMRush, Moz, and Screaming Frog is vital to identifying search behaviors and the competitors and will add more credence to your SEO skills.

2. Crafting Art Like A Wordsmith

Cliché time: Content. Is. King.

It is important that quality content is created as this contributes to every aspect of the marketing cycle.

Marketing skills such as SEO, email marketing, and social media need to be backed up by excellent writing skills that can be applied to multiple platforms. You need to write content for emails, press releases, social media, websites whilst having the ability to easily move between these different channels.

Essentially, you need to demonstrate your writing ability across different media and marketing channels and be able to optimize the content written by others as well as guide colleagues with their writing.

 

3. Mobile

If you’re reading this on your smartphone, the point has already been proven.

The influence of mobile is growing every year, and as such, there is a growing skills gap with regards to mobile marketing. Therefore there are a number of mobile opportunities for digital marketers to embrace as every business and brand moves fully into mobile and the need to optimize their content for mobile devices.

As a digital marketer, you need to understand the differences between mobile marketing and desktop marketing and be able to communicate why each is important to a business. You should also be familiar with mobile development and mobile terms (such as responsive design).

Overall, you need to able to create an effective mobile marketing strategy that aligns with other marketing efforts and channels, both online and offline.

 

4. Email marketing

Email is one of the oldest channels of digital marketing, yet it is still one of the most effective.

Email marketing is more than just sending out regular newsletters and mail shots. You must be able to create an effective email strategy that compliments your overall marketing plan, as well as ensuring that you test and refine content based on email campaigns that have worked.

Digital marketers must also know the most effective methods to build new email databases, create custom defined and targeted email lists, and utilize email campaigns to further business opportunities.

 

5. Analytics

Even with all the right skills, a digital marketer will not be valuable to a team or business without analytic and insight skills.

In digital marketing, you will need to not only craft incredible digital strategies but also be able to analyze them on a regular basis. Importantly, the insights you gain from this analysis will help you to improve your digital marketing strategies going forward.

Essentially you need the ability to interpret data from email campaigns, social media, SEO efforts, PPC campaigns and content through the use of analytics tools (such as Google Analytics) to evaluate and compare channels and digital strategies. Without these abilities, a digital marketer adds little value to a business or team.