Professionals with expert marketing skills are in demand these days. Most of the employers look for exceptional marketing skills that that elevate their business.
Conventional marketing was simple and direct. Marketing before the invasion of the internet over the world was all about strategizing, creativity, copywriting, print designs and advertising on traditional mediums such as newspapers, radio, Television, etc. It doesn’t mean it was easy, it had its own challenges.
Evidently, the brand with a higher marketing budget was advantageous. But, creativity has always been on the upper hand.
Such creative old school marketing in India would be of “Washing Powder Nirma”, “Santoor” etc. These brands are still stuck to their age-old jingles which are still very fresh in the minds of Indians. Marketing skills required in the olden days were completely different than today.
As the era of the internet commenced in 1983, the whole marketing way transformed gradually. Today’s digital marketing demands for age-old marketing skills along with enormous new age and technological marketing skills.
At a glance, it might look overwhelming, but once the need and importance of each marketing skill are understood, it makes sense and easy to grasp.
It isn’t necessary that all these marketing skills should be known by a digital marketer. One can start with 2 or 3, master it and then take up others.
One can always be an expert one area such as PPC or SEO. But when you raise the ladder of career, it is beneficial to be a holistic digital marketer.
T-shaped marketer
The t-shaped marketer is the most sought after marketer. As the letter “T” indicates, it is the breadth & depth of various skills required in digital marketing. Let’s have a look at the T-shaped marketing diagram used by the “Buffer” company;
Why is T-shaped marketer in demand?
A T-shaped marketer brings his/her in-depth expertise in 2 or 3 fields to the table. But, such a marketer will have the breadth of knowledge in other areas of digital marketing which will work in his/her favour to collaborate with other experts to bring out the best marketing results.
At Buffer, there are 3 slices; Base knowledge, Marketing Foundation, and Channel Expertise.
Base knowledge consists of areas which would help every professional irrespective of whether he or she is a marketer. Marketing foundation – marketing subjects which every marketer should know.
Channel Expertise – This is where a marketer can choose to gain in-depth expertise in 1 or 2 skills.
In this article, we have covered the top 10 marketing skills list;
Top 10 Marketing Skills List
1. Storytelling
Every brand has a story behind it. Storytelling is one of the skills needed for marketing. It can be a pretty common story or an interesting one, but it is the skill of the marketer that how the story is weaved and presented to the outside world.
Storytelling isn’t content writing. Storytelling is much more than this. It is a creative skill which sets apart the digital marketer from the rest.
Storytelling is one of the marketing skills which will help you look at the brand differently and build characters to support it. Some of the awesome brand storytellings are Amul’s baby girl, Paper boat’s childhood illustration, Vodafone’s zozo, etc.
2. Content Writing
Content writing is one of the basic marketing skills needed by a digital marketer. It isn’t a must skill, but possessing good writing ability will open a lot of opportunities for you if you want to build a career in Digital Marketing.
Content writing is a subset of storytelling. A good content writer understands the business and its audience and then weave the content in a way that it connects to the end audience.
Content in digital marketing can be a huge spectrum of items such as website content, ad copies, blogs, etc.
Though it is widely believed that content writer should be a grammar nazi, I differ with this. One of the crucial marketing skills a content writer should possess is storytelling.
Language comes later on which can always be learned. There are many tools which come in aid for content writers to edit their content.
3. Technical Knowledge
Since marketing took the digital way, technical knowledge has been must for marketers. A marketer needn’t know how to build a website but knowing it is going to be a boon for him or her.
Thus, Technical knowledge is one of the skills required for Marketing.
Digital marketer needs to work with a web developer very frequently. Basic knowledge of website building will help marketers to know the flexibility which allowed in website designing and can plan their strategies accordingly.
The least amount of technical knowledge a digital marketer should possess should be at least to understand the technical terms spilt by web developers and it shouldn’t seem like Greek or Latin to the marketer.
4. Analytics
The most prominent advantage of digital marketing has provided is the availability of data. With the internet having the ability to track each and every move of its users, there is an enormous amount of data available for the aid of digital marketer.
A marketer with exceptional analytical marketing skills will know how to utilize the available data to make his marketing work exceptional.
One needs to be good in basic mathematics and statistics to possess analytical marketing skills. There are a lot of courses available which helps marketers to learn how to use including Google Analytics course.
5. Search Engine Optimization
The most popular marketing skill among digital marketing skills is SEO. Every business owner loves SEO as it will get the business without spending a penny. This makes SEO one of the important skills needed for marketing.
It is basically an investment in terms of marketing for business owners. Hence, it is the most in-demand marketing skill.
To acquire SEO marketing skills, one needs to understand how search engines work and on what factors they rank websites. Once these things are known, an SEO professional should develop strategies to outrank the competitors and improve the ranking.
The two pillars of SEO are on-page and off-page optimization.
On-page is about making the website built properly as per the Search Engine’s (Google’s) guidelines and creating high-quality content.
Off-page is about creating high credibility in the internet world by acquiring more high-quality referrals.
6. Pay Per Click
PPC comprises Google ads, Facebook ads, Twitter ads, LinkedIn ads, programmatic advertising, etc. Any form of paid advertising on the internet can be part of PPC (Pay Per Click).
The marketing skills required to master PPC are a thorough understanding of the individual platform, strategy-making ability, and continuous improvement of the campaigns through in-depth data analysis.
7. Social Media Marketing
Social media are like communities. For a brand to succeed on social media, it is very crucial to build communities of its loyal followers.
How to build such communities?
There is no one answer to it. It depends on the platform whether it is Facebook or Instagram or Linkedin. Facebook becomes more of a chilled-out environment, Instagram is the visual face of the brand and Linkedin is of more serious and insightful content.
One needs to understand the platform and the type of audience before creating a social media marketing plan. As a matter of fact, taking the emerging popularity of social media marketing is one of the skills required for Marketing.
8. Email Marketing
Though email is one of the oldest ways of communicating, it still holds great importance in the digital marketing field. The reason is emails are the best way to make one on one connection with the end user. This makes Email Marketing one of the mandatory skills needed for marketing.
Emails landing in the inbox is a very tricky element for digital marketers. With the creation of folders such as updates, promotions, social by Gmail, this inbox landing has become tougher than ever.
With the clean email database with the option, consistent delivery of high-quality content, proper cleaning of database marketers can achieve success in Email Marketing.
9. Video Marketing
Video marketing is the talk of the town now. This is why it is one of the skills required for marketing. All social media channels have been supporting video content by creating separate video streaming tabs on their platforms. Also, end customer prefers video content over textual content.
Video marketing is a very interesting part of digital marketing. Storytelling plays a huge role in creating successful video content. There are a lot of forms of video content available such as animation videos, short movies, illustrative video.
Brand’s create topical videos such as videos for mothers day, fathers day, Diwali, Christmas, etc. Though brands aren’t directly connected to this occasion, they weave a story and insert their product in the story in a smart way. This creates a lot of noise in the world of internet and gains visibility to the brand.
Video making and marketing is the marketing skill of the hour in the digital marketing field.
10. Designing
Most of the brands work with creative designers for all their creative needs. But if the digital marketer knows the basics of designing and has the skill to provide creative ideas to the designers, it adds like a cherry on top for the marketer’s skill set.
It is advisable for marketers to know the basics of colour pallets, typography and brand guidelines.
Conclusion
The article covers basic marketing skills list to be possessed by a digital marketer. If you go in depth, there are other skill sets required to master each one mentioned in the article. Also, there are a lot of cross skill sets which helps to master other skill sets mentioned in the article.
Now it is time for you to design your T shaped marketing diagram and develop your marketing skill sets accordingly. Once, you have figured out your T shaped diagram, do a specific course. If you are finding it difficult to make a T shaped marketer diagram, it is advisable to do a digital marketing course.
