20 Digital Marketing Skills In Demand in 2024

Learning a digital marketing skill is like a dream come true for a lot of folks. Digital marketing specialists now earn up to six figures and have unlimited vacation time. Their schedule is flexible, allowing them to work from home or even travel the globe as digital nomads, thanks to the rise of numerous technology corporations, better work benefits, and telecommuting employment.

In this present generation, mastering the art of digital marketing isn’t just about selling products or services—it’s about connecting with people on a human level.

Think about it—behind every click, every like, and every purchase on social media, there’s a real person with desires, needs, and preferences. That’s where digital marketing skills come in. They’re not just about algorithms and analytics; they’re about understanding human behavior, building relationships, and creating meaningful experiences.

Here are the top 20 digital marketing skills that will help you grow professionally and significantly benefit your business.

Communication

There are a variety of channels and tools available to you as a marketer to effectively reach your target market/audience. Before the rise of inbound marketing, marketing communications were frequently one-sided. People are inundated with content nowadays. Reaching out to and advertising to consumers with sporadic messages is no longer sufficient.

You need to be able to listen to them and provide insightful material at every turn in the buyer’s journey. Marketers must take into account the evolving wants of their clients and include them in their communication plans.

Writing and Rewriting

Perhaps the most crucial set of abilities for a digital marketer to possess is this one: There is no digital job that does not require writing or editing (content writing). Because content marketing is so important, knowing what makes a great blog post, where to find great material to produce, and how to improve content will help you go far in your digital marketing career. Additionally, you should understand how to use copywriting resources.

Content Creation

Effective marketing starts with content. You should provide your prospects with the right materials that meet their needs and solve their issues at every stage of the buying process.

When it comes to content creation, a good marketer must be articulate and creative. Researching your target audience and their demands is essential to being a skilled content creator. You should also keep up with any changes in trends and lifestyle that may affect your prospects.

Search Engine Optimization(SEO)

To succeed in a profession in digital marketing, it is imperative to comprehend and make use of search engine optimization (SEO), as organic search results are more likely to be clicked than sponsored search results. These days, “white hat” SEO strategies include guest blogging, content marketing, and constructing links via social media. However, you should also be familiar with technical SEO strategies like adding keywords and altering title, H1, and H2 tags.

Speaking of keywords, to generate results for the companies you represent, digital marketers must understand how to do keyword research for use in blog posts, PPC ads, and website text.

Research And Data Collection

Good research and data collection abilities are the only way for marketers to create messages and content that truly speak to the target audience. In marketing, it’s important to connect with people on a personal level. This involves actively seeking out relevant information, accurately assessing it, and using that knowledge to understand the current needs of potential customers. Additionally, it involves forecasting trends by understanding their experiences and anticipating their future desires.

When necessary, you should be able to find experts in specific subjects and analyze data. Involving internal professionals can improve the product you create for your target audience by making it more credible, valuable, and trustworthy.

Design

The use of images drives a great deal of modern Internet marketing. Having top-notch photos significantly boosts how well your content performs across all social media platforms. If you’re aiming to work in digital marketing, it is essential to be capable of both producing and editing your own images.

You’ll save time and effort when you create a logo, social media image, email banner, or banner ad yourself using Photoshop. Your customer or company won’t have to pay as many people when you can do it yourself. If you lack the necessary expertise to use Photoshop or another Adobe program, there are plenty of resources like Canva that can assist you.

Advertisement on Social Media

Social media was once ‘free.’ Those days are long gone. Using social sponsored advertising is the most effective approach to ensure that your content is shared on social media platforms and reaches users in the present.

Your career will seriously benefit from your ability to write copy, including changes in length and style, and from adhering to each site’s image best practices. In addition to recognizing when to seek help if you’re short on time to dedicate daily, it’s crucial to understand how to track and adjust bids effectively to optimize your advertisements.

Exceptional Branding

You will probably represent a brand as a digital marketer through social media, content marketing, or conference attendance. It’s critical to have a strong web presence that demonstrates your professionalism and activity. Furthermore, by developing your brand on eminent content platforms, you will eventually gain a deeper understanding of them and learn how to best utilize them for the brands you represent.

Building A Network

While networking can take place both physically and digitally, marketing mostly occurs online. To increase brand reach and awareness both offline and online, an effective marketer should be a “people-person” who understands how to establish connections with the appropriate industry players.

As a marketer, you should be able to cultivate meaningful relationships, interact with leaders and industry experts on social media, and attend industry events to become a superb networker.

WordPress

Most likely, WordPress is the most widely used content management system (CMS). Small businesses don’t only use it as a tool to cobble together a website in the absence of a developer.

Companies you work for will likely either need to transition to WordPress or use it already. Having a solid understanding of WordPress and all of its plugins will be extremely helpful in your job in digital marketing. You can even use it to set up your blog and website for your own company.

Excel

For decades, Microsoft Word applications have been found on almost every resume. However, with the volume of data available today and the significance of data analytics, it is more crucial than ever to be an Excel specialist, be able to work with data rapidly, and be able to produce tables and graphs from the data you are viewing.

Marketing On Social Media

Social media is currently used by about one-third of the population, and 97% of businesses worldwide employ social media marketing. Because of this, social media marketing is a crucial skill for any digital marketer’s toolkit.

Social media marketing is much more than just updating your status updates on Facebook. You should be proficient in copywriting, ad construction, visual production, reach and engagement analysis, and user engagement generation across all platforms. Additionally, you must be aware of how quickly each platform is evolving and know which platforms to use for which internal business objectives.

Email Newsletters And Marketing

Many online articles may pose the query, “Is email marketing dead?” It’s not! Emails are still read by all. It remains a highly powerful customer-reach strategy. Any brand you work for will have materials they would like to share, and one excellent way to do so is by leveraging email newsletters to reach a larger audience.

You should use email marketing software if you want to get the most out of your email marketing. With so many tools at your disposal, email marketing software like Benchmark Email can help you automate email marketing, expand your email list, and create audience-resonant campaigns that are both successful and consistent with your brand.

Pay-Per-Click & Google Ads

With pay-per-click and advertising, a lot of firms can expand their reach significantly and create high revenue and brand exposure. You’ll be able to land some of the best-paying positions in digital marketing if you can do this for companies. To perform PPC effectively, you must be able to think strategically and scientifically as well as efficiently build, optimize, and report on campaigns utilizing Google Ads and Google Analytics in tandem.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

The goal of digital marketing ought to be to increase website visitors and convert that traffic into buyers. CRO is the art of experimenting with various web pages, text, and calls-to-action (CTAs) to see which ones generate the highest conversion rates. It blends copywriting, user experience, and website design. As a digital marketer, it’s important to understand A/B testing and be skilled in using research tools like Optimizely.

Marketing Automation

The art of marketing automation is coming up with automated tasks that website users may complete to help marketers save time. Understanding how to put up landing pages, fill up forms, and start drip campaigns that will convert website visitors into paying clients is critical. It’s a crucial tool for your sales team to use when searching online traffic for leads that meet sales criteria.

It’s critical to have a marketing automation solution that supports your company’s objectives. When it comes to sales-qualified leads, you will have an advantage over many other digital marketers if you understand how to rate website visitors based on how valuable they are to a marketing or sales team.

Design of Presentations

You have likely had to prepare multiple presentations over your work. The ability to put together a deck is essential for presentations, whether they be internal, webinars, or client-facing.

Digital marketers must understand how to make a presentation that is more than just text on a page using Google Presentations or PowerPoint. To effectively spread the word about your project and its outcomes to a variety of key stakeholders, including leadership and junior-level employees, you must weave together a narrative and articulate your plan in simple terms.

Fortunately, there are resources available to make this task simple for you. You may generate visually appealing and professional-looking graphs and pictures for your presentations with the aid of tools such as Canva.

Influencer Marketing And Promotion

By collaborating with internet influencers to share to co-create content, brands can achieve significant brand recognition gains. An essential digital marketing skill is knowing how to engage influencers and turn them from followers to advocates. You’ll get an advantage and save time if you can locate and follow online influencers using a service like Traackr.

CSS & HTML

It will help you if you understand basic HTML and CSS because you will need to use WordPress, write copy and update websites, apply marketing automation, and comprehend CRO. You can save a ton of time by updating a blog’s title and accessing the website code yourself rather than hiring a custom WordPress developer or contacting a brand’s product team.

Analytical And Creative Skills

Lastly, digital marketing combines analytical (Google Analytics, CRO, marketing automation) and creative elements (writing, photography, and design). You need to be able to balance these two crucial skill sets and be able to apply both art and science to your work to be a true success in digital marketing.

You’ll be the exceptional digital marketer you’ve always desired if you can master all of these abilities and combine them with the ideal balance of analytical and creative tactics that could improve your digital marketing skills.