Digital Marketing Essential Hard (And Soft) Skills

With over 600 job openings for digital marketers in Ireland alone, the demand for online marketers is escalating. 

Businesses are willing to promote their products and services to the audience globally. So, brands are hiring - you only need to gain digital marketing essential hard (and soft) skills to break into the field.

Most hard skills are related to tech, while soft skills revolve around creativity, communication, and empathy. 

We’ll take a closer look at what technical and non-technical skills recruiters seek from novice digital marketers and those that’ll likely set you apart from your competitors.

The Technical & Non-Technical Skills You Must Acquire as a Digital Marketer 

Digital marketing requires you to be a T-shaped person. That is, you must be familiar with numerous digital marketing skills. However, you’re required to be an expert in only one. This discipline can, fortunately, be chosen per your interests and preferences. 

But how can you discover your area of interest? As you learn basic digital marketing skills, you’ll know which domain fulfils the following criteria 1) it appeals to you, and 2) you have a knack for it. 

To learn more about digital marketing skills, we’ll dig into common technical and non-technical skills you require to advance your career.

Writing 

Every content online begins with a written word, whether a video or a podcast. Therefore, to promote the products and services of a particular brand, you must have decent writing skills. 

However, it is worth noting that decent writing skills don’t imply you have to be the next Earnest Hemingway or Jane Austen. The ability to express your ideas clearly in words and use correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar makes you a good writer. 

You do not even have to pay much attention to the grammar, spelling, and punctuation bit because tools like Grammarly have your back. Simply paste your content, and Grammarly will highlight all your mistakes.

Further, if you’re boxed out of ideas, tools like ChatGPT will help generate content ideas for social media posts and email writing.

Copywriting 

Copywriting differs from blog writing because it persuades the audience, unlike the latter, which seeks to enlighten them. The copy is written to encourage the audience to take action, from sharing their email address to purchasing a product. 

Learning copywriting is essential, even if you aren’t willing to go the paid advertising route. That’s primarily because you’ll repeatedly encourage the online audience to take the desired action for generating sales as a digital marketer. 

You might also need to reach out to influencers for collaboration. Effective copywriting skills will convince the influencer to collaborate, leading to revenue-boosting partnerships. 

Besides having good grammar, you must have excellent attention to detail and creativity to craft a unique copy.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) 

Good writing skills without SEO are like a car without an engine. The content will exist online, but it’ll fail to do its job - promoting business that is. 

To become discoverable by your audience, you must implement basic SEO strategies, from keyword research to title tags and backlinks. 

Keyword research is all about searching for words with a high search volume. This gives you an insight into what words and phrases your customers use when searching for a product and service. Incorporating exact keywords in your content helps boost visibility and increase brand awareness. 

Title tags, on the other hand, entail adding H1, H2, and H3 tags in the blog content to meet content optimisation criteria. 

Further, you must also include backlinks to authoritative websites to make your content more valuable. Remember, SEO is the backbone of digital marketing because it brings organic traffic to your website and builds customer trust.

Social Media Skills 

The number of social media users peaked at 4.39 million in 2023 in Ireland. The same data reveals that it is expected to reach 4.7 million users by 2027. 

With numerous people flocking to social media, the platform offers an opportunity to connect with your ideal audience. However, you must know how to engage and convert the audience organically. Here’s how to go about it. 

• Write creative content to attract a relevant audience 

• Engage the customers through quizzes and polls 

• Leverage the art of storytelling to make your content relatable 

• Have efficient customer service skills to listen and respond to customer queries actively 

• Understand key social media metrics of different platforms. This may include monitoring reach, engagement, conversions, and impression 

• Know how to create campaigns that have the potential to go viral 

• Use relevant hashtags to boost content visibility on social media

Video Creation 

The number of video viewers keeps increasing each year, reveals Statistica. As a result, digital marketers are embracing videos as a promotional strategy faster than ever. 

Imagine you launched a technical product, explaining its features in a 200-word paragraph on social media. Good writing may get you a few reads, but the audience will eventually struggle to comprehend the product’s usage. 

Conversely, creating a short video highlighting primary product features will get more eyes for obvious reasons. The online audience appreciates visuals, and videos are a perfect way to grab their attention when they’re busy scrolling their feeds. 

While you aren’t required to master video making as a digital marketer, basic video creation and editing skills are a plus. You must know how to produce and share videos on popular platforms like Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.

Google and Social Media Ad Creation 

Ad creation can be profitable, but only if you know how to go about it. You must become familiar with Google Ads skills, including copywriting, keyword research, developing and implementing ad campaigns, and tracking metrics. 

Google also offers free training for learning how Google Ads works. 

Besides, learning how to run social media advertisements is equally important. Brands execute ads on different social platforms depending on where the target audience exists. 

However, as a digital marketer, you’ll likely need ad skills for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Email Marketing 

A couple of articles on search engines say, “Email marketing is dead,” but the growing user base tells otherwise. 

Professionals still use emails to exchange meaningful conversations and ideas. Besides, email marketing is your chance to build relationships with the audience already interested in your brand. 

This means they’re more likely to engage after subscribing to a brand’s newsletter. You can send personalised messages to make them feel special. However, get creative when sharing emails. For instance, say you’re willing to thank a potential customer for subscribing to your newsletter. 

Instead of sending a blandly written “Thank You for subscribing to our newsletter,” give your voice a human touch and customise your message. 

A personalised message like  “Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter John! We appreciate your gesture” is more likely to entice the receiver and grab their attention.

Influencer Marketing 

When digital marketers struggle to grow their following, they often turn to influencer marketing. Collaborating with influencers in a relevant industry lets them score big. Apparently, Instagram remains a popular platform for this marketing tactic. However, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube have followed the lead recently. 

Influencers have millions of loyal fans who adore them. Collaborating with an online influencer means encouraging their audience to purchase your products and services. 

Not only will you generate more sales, but you’ll also grow your followers. Again, ensure you write a compelling copy to pique the influencer's interest and give them a reason to partner with your brand. 

Data Analysis 

Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing is measurable. You cannot know how many people checked out your billboard on a specific day and who bought the product after seeing an ad in a magazine. Knowing such insights feels almost impossible. 

Fortunately, digital marketing offers a quick way to measure your conversion rates. You can even know the details of email clickthrough and list growth rate. 

Analysing such insights help measure your success as a digital marketer. You can experiment with other strategies to boost your growth and engage your audience. However, to conduct effective data analysis, you must also learn about the key metrics of different digital channels.

Storytelling 

While a few people believe storytelling is instinctive, the skill can be learned and honed over time. Sharing personal or brand stories lets you share emotions and connect with your audience more deeply. Here’s why else storytelling works in the realm of digital marketing. 

• Storytelling allows you to share the brand values and vision while resonating with your audience. By writing stories that your customers can relate to, you get to form an emotional bond with them, which is likely to turn into a long-term relationship. 

• Netizens are smart enough to detect inauthentic brands. Sharing stories allows you to build credibility and gain customer trust. 

• An emotional connection formed via storytelling lets you persuade your audience. This means you can encourage them to take the desired action, like buying a product or subscribing to the company newsletter. 

• People today have shorter attention spans. Storytelling offers an excellent way to engage them and capture their attention.

Creativity 

A successful digital marketer complements each campaign with their creative skills. With numerous brands competing in the same industry, standing out from the crowd requires out-of-the-box thinking. 

This means bringing innovation to each marketing campaign, including social media posts, infographics, blogs, videos, and more. 

Besides, creative content is more likely to create engagement and go viral. For instance, Oreo’s “Daily Twist” campaign went incredibly viral in 2012, with 433 million views on Facebook and over 280% share boost. 

All this was made possible due to the brand's creativity and relevancy. As a digital marketer, you can always draw inspiration from viral ad campaigns and use your creative skills to execute the next popular marketing campaign.

Empathy 

Regardless of the quality of your social media posts and blogs, you’re missing out on something important if you lack empathy. Without it, understanding your target audience or building trust would feel like a struggle.  

When a marketer shows that they understand the customer's pain points and are willing to help resolve them, the audience will gladly form a strong relationship with the brand. 

What’s more, the better you comprehend your target audience's needs, the more targeted your marketing campaigns will be. Engaging the relevant audience would generate more sales and increase business ROI.

Communication

The relational field of digital marketing requires you to be an efficient communicator. You must get the brand message to the audience accurately. This means the brand’s reputation significantly depends on your communication skills. 

Also, besides sending emails and responding to customer queries, you must learn to communicate effectively with team members via in-person and virtual meetings. 

This will ensure everyone is on the same page and help achieve business objectives faster.

Top Tools to Become Familiar With as a Digital Marketer 

With numerous tasks to achieve as a digital marketer, the need for efficient automation tools and the software comes naturally. Not only do they help you implement marketing campaigns, but they also allow you to analyse data and monitor campaign performance. 

Here are a few tools you must get familiar with to ease your life as a digital marketer. 

• Mailchimp. If you’re into email marketing, this tool can be your saviour. It lets you create email campaigns, automate actions, and determine the campaign performance metrics. 

• Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool that helps track valuable insights, including visitor behaviour, website traffic, and other performance metrics. 

• Buffer is a go-to tool for social media marketers. It lets you schedule social media posts, collaborate with your team members, and track post engagement. Automating posts saves time, and monitoring engagement helps tweak your strategies for better results. 

• SEMrush complements your SEO strategies by tracking competitor keywords and providing backlinking opportunities. In other words, it helps boost online visibility and get more website visitors. 

• Canva lets you create compelling graphics to enhance engagement on your social media posts. You do not have to be a graphic designer to create images because the tool has simple design options. Besides, the free version has numerous decent templates to create aesthetically pleasing images, which is a plus. 

• Google AdWords. As the name implies, this tool helps marketers who want to execute paid-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns on Google. It allows you to create and implement ad campaigns for better visibility.

Tips to Start a Career In Digital Marketing 

If you’re passionate about learning something new every day, digital marketing will make up for a suitable career. Here are a few tips for beginning your marketing journey and ensuring you’re headed in the right direction. 

• Take a course. Because digital marketing strategies shift with changing technologies, a professional course equips you with the latest knowledge and tools to create successful campaigns. Also, a course on your resume will help when hunting for a job. Employers are more likely to consider applicants with qualifications on their resumes. 

• Network with industry professionals. You can connect with industry professionals at local events or on LinkedIn. Exchanging ideas, learning new skills, and landing a reliable job is easier when your network is strong.

• Build your personal brand. Personal branding is one way to execute your learning in the real world. Get creative with your social media posts, build a website, and create infographics to boost engagement and connect with like-minded people.

FAQs

Why Is Digital Marketing Important? 

Digital marketing is important because it offers a way to connect with your ideal audience, build a brand reputation, and gain an edge over competitors. It has become necessary for businesses that seek to keep pace with the changing marketing trends and target their customers regardless of location. 

What Role Do Creative Skills Play In Digital Marketing Campaigns?

Creativity plays a major role in crafting and implementing successful digital marketing campaigns. Because businesses seek to outpace their competitors, they seek innovative and engaging ways to target their ideal audience, and creativity offers just that.

Are Digital Marketing Hard Skills More Important than Soft Skills?

Digital marketing soft skills are as important as hard skills. A combination of both skills helps businesses achieve their marketing goals. Therefore, besides having technical SEO, PPC, and analytical skills, brands expect marketers to have effective communication and collaborative skills for high-performing campaigns.