To be an effective digital marketer, it’s more important than ever to develop a range of digital skills and experiences. A digital skillset helps individuals, and the companies for which they work, harness existing technology and profit from it. Being empowered with a digital skill set allows for you, and your team, to keep up and stay ahead of the competition in the digital world.
The phrase “digital skillset” is very abstract, so it’s helpful to know what exactly this term means as you work to develop this particular set of tools and skills. Businesses might require the following digital knowledge of their employees:
- Remote work collaboration
- Using cloud-based business solutions
- Digital business operations management
- Information and data literacy
- Programming
- Cybersecurity and privacy
- Digital marketing
- E-learning
- Real-time tracking and reporting
To start, it’s important to assess your current digital skillset. How comfortable are you with the list of technical knowledge presented above? What are your business goals? Consider what current digital solutions exist in the market that could help you achieve these goals, identify where your strengths and weaknesses may be, and determine what you could achieve with the best tools. Work with your employer to be properly trained and on boarded onto these digital tools, and then set a strategy for continuous learning.
The digital world is always changing, and as a result, it’s important to be aware of digital tools to stay on top of the competition and reach potential customers. Developing digital skills empowers you to gain the key skills that not only help your employer succeed, but allow you to reach your personal and professional goals as well.
Benefits of a Building a Digital Skillset
As you build a digital skillset, it will help you strengthen the brand of the product or services that you currently offer customers. If branding is one of your current focuses, you will need to develop social media marketing, reputation management, and customer service skills. All of these digital skills will help you strengthen the online brand messaging and presence of your company and its products or services.
If you are looking to offer direct-response marketing to your client base, which results in direct action from your audience, you can focus on developing email marketing, copywriting, sales skills, competition analysis, and ad testing and performance analysis. These digital skills allow you to communicate directly with current and potential clients in order to, ideally, increase your revenue stream.
Finally, by developing your marketing skills, you see these digital skills extend and expand over time. In order to see results from your content over the long-term, develop a digital skillset around:
- blogging and content marketing.
- search engine optimization (SEO).
- search engine marketing (SEM).
- audience nurturing.
The benefits of building a digital skillset are clear:
- Digital skills are your biggest potential lead development tool.
- These skills deliver a high ROI while being cost effective.
- They create higher-quality leads.
- They offer measurable results.
- These digital skills are effective methods in building a brand.
- They capture buyers early in the online process.
- They allow you to adapt your marketing efforts with little cost or work.
- Digital skills lead to bigger profit margins.
Key Tips and Strategies for Building a Digital Skillset
The benefits of building digital skills are clear, but how do you start?
To start, assess your current situation.
Do you and/or your team use any of the digital tools for online brand management and marketing?
Research shows that only 52% of executives rate their digital IQ as “strong.” Take time to research digital solutions that are available on the market and brainstorm with your team so that you are all on the same page. Consider which digital offerings are applicable to your business and learn how you can use them to your advantage. Then, advocate for proper onboarding from management so that you can use these digital tools effectively. Additionally, consider reaching out to experts who can train and partner with you, and your company. This not only ensure comfort with these digital tools, but also allows you to work with these experts and set a strategy for continuous learning.
It is clear that in this era of technology, it is imperative to develop a digital skillset. As a result, teams need advanced technical, analytical, and digital collaboration skills. Finally, companies need to establish online branding, marketing, and advertising strategies. Do not leave revenue on the table; take action to develop a digital skillset to see an increased revenue for both you and your company.
