Digital Marketing Specialist Skills

If you’re on Linkedin or Indeed looking to fill a digital marketing specialist role in your company, there’s a wide range of skills you might hire for.

Which skills are actually useful might depend on your specific needs. Or they might depend on whether you’re progressing to win in the future. For instance, AI marketing skills will soon be in demand as artificial intelligence software platforms incorporate copywriting, sales, SEO, funnel optimization and customer journey tools.

This post may open your eyes to a wide range of skills from copywriting to marketing automation management to predictive intelligence with AI Marketing software.

At this point, firms are looking to reduce staffing costs while improving performance. One way to achieve that is to look for a specialist who can be a strategist, and who can contribute in a wide variety of ways from campaign testing to copywriting to SEO and social engagement.

You’ll discover there’s no unified description of a digital marketing strategist – it extends from email marketer to SEO specialist to social media manager to conversion optimizer. The specialist is only a specialist in the sense that it’s all digital.

Digital marketers can extend their digital marketing prowess significantly through software. As long as they have the basic creative and strategic capabilities, the digital marketing specialist could inded contribute significantly to the company’s bottom line.

The overall sentiment? There has been a significant increase in demand for both specialist skills and more general digital marketing roles across the board. When asked about the digital marketing jobs landscape, Jane Creaner Glen, Head of Recruitment and HR at the Digital Marketing Institute said, “I would say it is evolving all the time. A lot of companies are still looking for broad digital marketing skills at Manager and Executive level. Although, as the industry matures it is separating out more into specific skills areas, such as Content, SEO/SEM, Analytics and Social Media.” — from Digitalmarketinginstitute.com.

Needed Skills for a Digital Marketer Manager/Specialist

If you don’t actually do these things, you should at least have a good knowledge of or sensitivity to them.

SEO
copywriter
website and email administration
email campaign management
content research and content strategy
content testing
analytics and performance reporting
pay per click advertising and media buying
KPI planning and conversion optimization
social media account management
social media engager
client management
landing page designer
brand image management
marketing automation and AI marketing software execution

A Chance to Make a Big Difference

It’d be nice to be a pro at everything and it’s a great stretch goal to have. As a current candidate, trying to land a job as a DMM, I’m pushed to get the essentials nailed, and then develop into someone who will be a powerful producer for the company at a macro and micro level. The pain I’m going through now will be yours too if you’re looking to find a great job in digital marketing.

You’re on the right track here though as the digital marketing specialist is a key role, although resting on any one skill won’t suffice. Stick to these specific strengths? You need at least one outstanding go-to skill, however you should be versatile since you need to be on top of everything.

Overall, it’s the ability to orchestrate or bring tools, channels, and customer experience together online.

Big companies can hire a specialist to manage the digital marketing process, however smaller companies need someone with broader skills. In smaller companies, we may actually need to create content, do SEO, conduct monthly or quarterly email campaigns, as well as engage customers on social media.

You Have to Figure it Out

As a SMB digital marketing specialist, you’d want to be ready to do anything and be anything they require. For that reason, it’s important for a digital marketing specialist, automated marketing specialist, or online marketing manager to have a wide range of skills and be ready to upgrade skills soon. Even after you’ve mastered the educational, experiential, and team fit requirements, there’s the need for more software mastery.

Marketing Automation Software

That’s where marketing automation software arrives. It’s a suite of services that allow you to automate common digital marketing tasks such as email, social posting, blogging, traffic and lead scoring, track the lifecycle of customers in your marketing funnel.

The names Hubspot, Marketo, Eloqua, and Pardot are the heavy hitters for large scale automation. Smaller companies can use more cost effective solutions such as Canterras Engage, Brand Maker, Act-on, Wishpond or Active Demand. If you’re not with a larger agency, you won’t be using Hubspot or Eloqua.

Active Demand Marketing Automation Software

I’m learning Active Demand currently, which is a fairly new marketing automation offering. It’s presented nicely and might be a good software for you to cut your marketing automation teeth on.

There’s plenty of services modules as you can see in the graphic below. It’s pretty exciting to think you can do almost every marketing task from email campaigns to multi-variant testing. It’s intimidating at first, but once you learn the software, you’ve got some impressive marketing power.

If you’re interested in the other marketing automation software available, try these reviews.

https://www.ngdata.com/top-marketing-automation-software-tools/

https://www.canadianbusiness.com/innovation/how-startups-make-marketing-automation-affordable-for-small-business/

https://resources.workable.com/digital-marketing-manager-job-description

https://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Digital_Marketing_Manager/Salary

Need a Digital Marketing Strategist? in Toronto, Give me a call. I’m looking forward to speaking with you.