Marketing has come a long way since its early days, and technology continues to push digital marketers into new content universes. Those who want to land a marketing job in the near future will need digital marketing skills that were unheard of a decade ago — but, the opportunities are there.
10 digital marketing skills you need to master in the new year
If you’re in search of a digital or content marketing job, this could be a great year for you. Just be sure you’ve mastered the following 10 digital marketing skills.
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Augmented and virtual reality.
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Data-driven marketing.
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Skills in targeted advertising strategies and techniques.
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Professional live video.
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Conversational interfaces.
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Personalization.
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Measuring outcomes.
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Native advertising.
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Voice search.
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Machine learning and artificial intelligence.
1. Augmented and virtual reality
Pokemon Go is more than just a revolutionary video game. It brought AR technology mainstream. Now, companies are using this technology to provide improved user experiences. Social media platforms are also integrating AR technology.
Virtual reality is a recent trend among movie distributors that they widely use in their marketing campaigns. One of the recent VR video promos is Warner Bros' “The Meg,” that features the titular underwater monster.
James Daily, a head of marketing at FlashEssay says, “There are so many ways to get valuable content to target audiences using AR and VR. First and foremost is placing content within social media apps and games.”
Related: Augmented reality in business: 3 ideas worth considering
2. Data-driven marketing
Data will provide accurate and scientific information about the customer journey. Insight-driven digital marketing will become the norm.
As such, those who can analyze this data and crunch the numbers will be in high demand.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job growth for market research analysts is increasing significantly faster than average. Marketing professionals who prefer the analytical side of digital marketing should find their skills are in great demand over the next 12 months and beyond.
Related: How to make data driven decisions using Google marketing tools
3. Skills in targeted advertising strategies and techniques
Advertising is increasingly moving mobile and going local. Digital marketers will need to work hard to keep these skills up to date. This will include location optimizing content, using local tags on social media posts, writing location-relevant content and optimizing all content for mobile users.
Related: 8 quick tips for showing up in local business searches
Land Rover has shown an example of a brilliant native advertising campaign:
It’s a sure bet that Google, Facebook and other platforms will continue to add tools to facilitate targeted advertising techniques.
Learning these might become an ongoing process.
Related: How to retarget website visitors with Google Ads
4. Professional live video
Written content will never disappear, but its popularity is lagging behind video. That’s not all — even within this medium, some formats are emerging faster than others. For example, live video by amateurs is starting to fade while professionally shot live video is thriving. At the same time, consumers want the same level of personalization and engagement.
Content marketers who have been putting off mastering video should probably embrace it at this point.
It’s also time for them to up their games when it comes to producing video-related content such as promotional material, video scripting, articles and recaps. Fortunately, there’s a wide array of tools and resources available when it comes to creating videos and any associated content like OnlineWritersRating, EpicPen and Facebook Live video tools.
Related: 9 types of video content to help you move customers through the sales funnel
5. Conversational interfaces
Conversational interfaces have gained such traction that a new term has been coined: conversational marketing. Brands are now using personal assistants and chatbots to provide one-on-one interaction with customers.
These bots curate product recommendations, answer questions and gather information.
The last part might be most important. Until conversational interfaces, digital marketing was all about pushing content toward the customer using assumptions (albeit educated) about what they wanted. With conversational interfaces, the customers have more control over the conversation and what they want from these interactions.
Marketing pros will need the digital marketing skills to implement these solutions.
6. Personalization
Amazon might be most known for creating hyper-targeted and personalized landing pages. In the near future, customers will expect this from all brands, not just the big players.
Pat Fredshaw, a digital marketing manager at EssaySupply, says, “The future is really in dynamic landing pages. Online marketers can use these to create personalized and targeted pages, not just for certain consumer segments, but for each individual customer who surfs through.”
Related: How to use personalization to boost sales and marketing effectiveness
7. Measuring outcomes
As new techniques and technologies become popular, so will requests for the budget to cover them. Getting the people that control the money on board will require proof of solid ROI on every campaign.
Effective digital marketers will need to learn to use the tools that measure ROI.
While Google Analytics and Facebook Insights will continue to dominate, marketers should be on the lookout for new tools and additional features.
Related: Social media metrics and ROI: What your business needs to know
8. Native advertising
The demand for organic advertising content that is relevant to the user experience has never been higher and will only grow in the future.
Native advertising is a must to develop customer relationships and create engagement through sharing and conversation.
Marketable digital content professionals will prioritize this skill. While native advertising might not be a new skill, expectations will be higher. Employers will want assurances that candidates are up to the task.
9. Voice search
Veronica Wright, a recruiter for marketing research at ResumesCentre notes: “Nearly a quarter of people shopping online in the U.S. are now using voice recognition technology to search for items on the web. Moreover, almost half of all adults in North America now use voice recognition on a daily basis.”
According to Bright Local survey, 58 percent of consumers have used voice search to find information regarding a local business during the last 12 months.
Content creators are already optimizing for typed search, mobile, images and local search. Voice marketing creates another optimization need. As people increasingly use voice search functions on smart home speakers and mobile devices, brands are prioritizing their placement in those search results.
There will be increasing demand and better prospects for professionals who are experienced in working with these interfaces.
Related: Voice search and SEO: What’s the big deal?
10. Machine learning and artificial intelligence
Predictive algorithms and AI are an important part of online marketing. Technologies such as image recognition, predictive marketing and AI driven personalization are emerging to improve user experiences.
In fact, AI and machine learning create the infrastructure for many of the skills and technologies mentioned above.
As AI becomes more popular, it becomes more accessible to business and is no longer solely the realm of large corporations.
Securing your digital marketing job in the new year
Content and digital marketing has grown beyond social media account management and blogging. Marketers will need to employ the latest technologies to capture attention and reach out to them in ways that are meaningful. Succeeding in this field and securing a marketing job will require developing some if not all of the digital marketing skills mentioned here.
