With the job market providing more hybrid and fully remote professional roles, there is a lot of flexibility that comes with pursuing a career in digital marketing today. But with this increased flexibility comes the added responsibility of taking control of your upskilling and industry learning. The growth of the gig economy has also had a major impact on the job market, allowing employers to hire people from anywhere in the world on an as-needed basis. Once again, this means that it’s more important than ever to develop your marketing skills to ensure that you can stand out in the industry’s crowded talent pool.
On that note, it’s also crucial for marketers to gain experience in the field or fields that they want to work in. Gaining as little as six months to a year of experience and building up a professional portfolio, can give you a considerable edge over your fellow candidates. This is excellent news for job seekers with formal qualifications as they will already have the fundamentals covered through their academic experience.
So how else can you position yourself as the strongest possible candidate in time for your next job application in the communications sector? Let’s review five important marketing skill sets that will help you snag your dream job.
1. Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing is perhaps one of the most dynamic disciplines in the industry. This is because both content and data analytics tie back into this practice. So in order to offer local SEO packages, SEO marketers need to have an in-depth knowledge of those local markets (through market research and engaging with industry analyses), and the creative energy to come up with campaign strategies that are unique to their clients. In other words, the best SEO marketers have multidisciplinary skills and are ideally both left- and right-brained thinkers.
As you might imagine, search engine marketing refers to optimising web content in order to ensure that the content has the strongest possible chance of appearing (or ranking highly) on search engine results pages, or SERPs, as SEM professionals say. SEM marketers utilise SEO (‘search engine optimisation’) best practices for producing web content to ensure that content aligns with the needs of their target user. The best SEO content is typically considered to be purposeful and strategic in its structure, just to make sure it consistently aligns with exactly why the reader may have searched for those keyword terms that led them to that content in the first place. In addition to content optimization, an integral part of SEO strategy is link building. This involves acquiring hyperlinks from other reputable websites to your own, thereby enhancing your site’s credibility and rank in search engine results. This practice helps in weaving a network of trust and relevance around your content, adding to its value in the eyes of both the search engines and your target audience.
Search engine marketing is actually easier to learn than you may expect. For starters, there are plenty of free resources like articles and even YouTube videos available online to help you engage with SEO principles. Having a go at crafting and publishing your own SEO content can also reveal plenty of insights into this particular marketing discipline. And for those that are especially eager to learn, you do have the option of enrolling in dedicated SEO courses.
2. Paid Advertising
Paid advertising on social media is becoming increasingly crucial for businesses operating today. Employers need candidates who can manage social media advertising campaigns, including creating and optimising ad content, targeting the right audience demographics, and analysing ad performance over the course of any given campaign.
When performed correctly, advertising on social media and even through Google, can help businesses better engage with their target audiences and increase revenue streams. The best job candidates are likely to be those who have taken the time to engage with paid advertising methodologies and best practices, and are able to demonstrate their skills or even showcase their skills through sharing personal case studies detailing past successful campaigns. Those who are willing to learn can easily take some short courses in pay-per-click advertising and the analytics behind managing a digital ad campaign, or even seek opportunities to get involved with managing or overseeing campaigns with their current employer.
3. Influencer Marketing
Of all the marketing trends that we’ve seen come and go over the past decade, there’s one in particular that’s been able to evolve at a monumental rate. We’re of course, talking about the unique model that is influencer marketing. This particular marketing discipline involves companies collaborating with bloggers or popular influencers in order to market their products directly to that influencer’s follower base.
As you may imagine, influencer marketing is most impactful if the selected influencer’s follower demographic aligns with your business’ own target consumer demographic. For example, a beauty brand can partner with an influencer who posts makeup tutorials in order to reach an audience of beauty enthusiasts, or a fitness brand can partner with a fitness influencer to reach its target audience of health and wellness enthusiasts. Adept influencer marketers should be confident with researching and reaching out to influencers, developing relationships, and managing influencer campaigns.
4. Analytics And Data Analysis
Nowadays companies need to be able to analyse marketing and performance data and use it to optimise their digital campaigns, conduct development projects, and understand consumer behaviour trends amongst a wealth of other applications. Employers are actively looking for individuals who can use tools like Facebook Insights or Google Analytics to track performance, measure success, and identify areas for improvement.
Data analysis skills are also critical for making data-driven decisions and adjusting campaigns to achieve the best results. Identifying existing marketing initiatives that can be used to enhance an existing campaign can potentially save a company tens of thousands of dollars and person-hours versus creating a new campaign from scratch. This is the power of data analytics, and as such, most employers are likely to consider analytics experience as a genuine asset when interviewing job applicants.
Thankfully, as analytics tools like Google Analytics are easy to use (and perhaps also easy to master), marketing analytics is surprisingly a skill that you can develop independently. And you can go on to use your analytics skills to help with all aspects of your marketing career, from learning how to increase reviews on Google to performing A/B testing in order to map out micro changes to your sales funnels.
5. Copywriting
Creating compelling and engaging content is crucial in the ever-digitized world we live in today. Having the skills to write and produce high-quality content that can be used across various digital channels is a skill that simply cannot be underestimated. In truth, a capable copywriter or content writer should feel comfortable writing content for a variety of applications, ranging from social media copy, content for graphics and videos, and even developing strategic content calendars that align with the company’s overall marketing strategy.
Job candidates should be skilled in efficiently producing and editing various forms of content, like customer testimonials, video demos, and product descriptions. Many hiring managers will gladly speak to you if you are proficient in using industry-standard video editing software suites, but be sure to have a portfolio prepared that showcases your work to support your experiences.
As job markets are constantly evolving, the candidates of today and tomorrow naturally need to be prepared to learn new skills and expand on their knowledge base on a routine basis to keep themselves adaptable. This rings especially true for younger generations of marketing specialists, who will be contending with a growing and highly dynamic digital landscape.
In addition to the skills listed above, it’s worth noting that employers typically hire individuals who have strong interpersonal skills, are creative and innovative, and have a broad knowledge of the niche in which their company operates. Keeping up with the latest industry trends is important and will show potential employers just how passionate you are about working in this area. Continually developing your skills as time goes on will ensure you will have every chance of finding a fulfilling position to further your career objectives.
