These 4 Skills Make All the Difference in Digital Marketing 

Marketing is making the move online. Increasingly, companies with an eye on increasing their profit margins are opting to spend their money on advertising and content that lives on the Internet, rather than in print, television, or radio. The reason? Digital marketing is endlessly tweakable, and the feedback is instantaneous. The analytical tools available to digital marketers are far more versatile and informative than those of the past, and innovative operators are using them to create targeted marketing campaigns that are measurably more effective than their competitors’. Here are four important skills that the modern hybrid marketing professional must build in order to stand a chance in today’s digital landscape.

1. Email Marketing Mastery

Building a solid mailing list was at the top of the to-do list for the marketing department at many a brick-and-mortar business in the past, and the modern-day equivalent is creating a catalogue of email addresses. Companies are looking for marketers who know how to generate large lists of potential customers, with or without an existing client base to draw on. But email marketing isn’t as simple as collecting addresses and information: it’s how you put that list to work that really counts. Email campaigns that fill a subscriber’s inbox with unwanted and irrelevant messages are a surefire way to lose customers, but informative and eye-catching email blasts can generate heaps of leads, and often create sales themselves. Familiarize yourself with tools like Litmus, MadMimi, and Mailchimp, and you’ll be prepared to tackle this important aspect of digital marketing.

2. Social Media Savvy

The biggest explosion in Internet usage has been on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where users don’t just consume content, but generate their own. More importantly for marketers, people also use these platforms to share things they find interesting, or to curate their own personal brand. Marketers who know how to keep up with the ever-changing trends in social media will be prepared to craft posts that people want to share. And a share carries with it an implicit endorsement of the product (or content) being shared-which means more to the sharer’s followers than you might think. Get up to speed on how each platform’s content algorithms work, and check out the many tools available for streamlining social posting (like Buffer, which lets you schedule and distribute posts across multiple platforms with a single click.)

3. SEO Supremacy

Search engine optimization has grown into its own field, with firms that exist solely to help businesses boost their rankings for important search terms. But a hybrid digital marketer can’t just leave SEO to the search nerds. Learn about how search engine results pages (or SERPs) order their results, and how you can manipulate them to put your company’s page in view of potential customers. And check out Google Analytics and the other awesome tools available to SEO assassins. With a firm grasp on SEO, you could be maximizing your company’s web traffic in no time- without hiring an outside firm.

4. Content Capability

This skill is tied in heavily with the others we’ve discussed, but it can’t be left off the table. While much has changed as marketing has shifted online, one thing remains the same: good content brings in good customers. A hybrid marketer needs a firm grasp on how to write compelling copy, select and arrange eye-catching images, and commission attention-grabbing art from graphic designers and video editors. Content marketing, like SEO, is rapidly growing into its own independent field, but a truly hybrid-minded marketer will understand its importance and how to put it into play. Learning about creating easy-to-read content, with compelling storylines and continuous narratives, is an easy way to set yourself apart in the competitive world of marketing.