The expectations from digital marketers are only increasing. They need to understand how the ecosystem is evolving and how best to leverage content, tools and systems to drive growth.
The digital landscape is constantly evolving. Not only are the mediums increasing ( Tiktok ads did not exist a couple of years ago), the rules are changing too. Google updated its search algorithm 3,234 times in 2018, that means the digital marketer need to up her SEO game every day!
The expectations from a digital marketer are only increasing. The top 7 skills that a marketer needs to invest in are:
1. Strategic Thinking
Given the phase of growth of the company and the target audience, a marketer will need to chart out her roadmap for media buying, growing organic traffic and partnerships that can drive growth and product improvements. She will need to work closely with the product and engineering teams to ensure that the marketing teams' requirements are baked into the product roadmap while she transitions the company to building effective growth loops.
2. Paid User Acquisition
The platform that was efficient in 2016 will not work today. Other advertisers have most probably rushed in to leverage the new platform. Facebook was a dominant platform used by D2C brands a couple of years ago, but it may no longer have the same ROI today due to changes in the audience behaviour and newer platforms coming to the fore. Additionally, with programmatic having taken center stage the marketer will need to work either with an inhouse team or an agency to leverage google, facebook, youtube, DV360, etc
3. Retention Marketing
Increasing retention by 5% can lead to a revenue uptick of over 25% over the long term according to Harvard Business School. Marketing is headed toward creating more personalized experiences for customers. This means that a marketer not only needs to work with the product team to build personalisation in the product, she also needs to identify the right time to communicate with the user and also work hard at the messaging.
4. Video
In the past year over 87% of marketers say video has helped them increase traffic to their website. Videos have become an integral part of the user’s journey to purchase. Marketers need to understand how to use video in the digital medium to explain their service, tell a story and deliver a personalised experience to the user. Video has become the preferred way users consume content and marketer will need to invest time and effort into creating both long form and short form video content.
5. Data Analytics
The digital medium has an efficient feedback loop and can given real time feedback on your campaigns and consumer behaviour on the app/website. Data analytics is the backbone for a digital marketer’s campaigns and efforts. As a result, investing in a scalable and efficient analytics tool is paramount. In your quest for growth, experimenting and A/B testing will be a daily part of your work. Understanding data will enable you to identify what is working and double down on that.
6. Content Marketing
Content marketing has been the mainstay for B2B companies for a long time, however even B2C companies have seen significant value in it in the past few years. Creating content that addresses specific user problems helps build trust, and leads to an increased traffic to your website. While creating content is one part of the problem, distributing content is equally important. This means your email strategy and social media marketing needs to be aligned. Also, every content may not be suitable for every user, a marketer will need to tailor the content depending upon where in the funnel the user is. Thus building a robust content calendar is important.
7. Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is the process of using software platforms to complete repetitive marketing tasks - mainly to nurture sales leads, personalize marketing messages, and accurately measure marketing success. It also helps marketers understand each step of the marketing journey and in capturing the marketing ROI. Knowledge if these platforms enable marketers to build scalable marketing teams and initiatives.
Bonus Skill: SEO
The marketer will need to use the right tools to optimise the site for the keywords it needs to rank on. Besides, she will also need to ensure that the tech platform is built for scalable SEO. Throwing people at the SEO problem are days in the past. Tech needs to be leveraged efficiently and for that to happen the marketer needs to have foresight on how to build out the SEO strategy.
In conclusion, a digital marketers needs to understand how the ecosystem is evolving and how best to leverage content, tools and systems to drive growth.