Mark Miller — July 25, 2017 — July 25, 2017
If you’ve been even remotely connected to the realm of digital marketing recently, you’re no doubt aware of its constant, rapid changes. Digital marketers have been forced to evolve and add new skills to their marketing stack in order to remain competitive.
As digital marketing recruiters we have a firsthand perspective on digital marketing trends and what businesses are looking for in their new marketing hires. We notice the most desirable skills change quickly over time and vary widely between fields, from analytics to creative and everything in between.
What Digital Marketing Recruiters Want to See
We recommend adding some of these particularly hot skills to make your resume a little more irresistible and improve your career options. This list isn’t entirely complete, but features some of the hottest and most in-demand skills among digital marketing positions this year:
1. Content Marketing
Though the hype surrounding it has waned, content remains the “King of Digital Marketing” in 2017. It’s no longer the “pretty new thing” everyone is talking about, but has matured to be a mainstay cornerstone of almost any comprehensive digital strategy.
Brands have finally started to catch on that they need to be producing a steady stream of high-quality content in order to attract their audiences. And thanks to new analytics capabilities and tools, the ROI has never been more apparent.
Now anyone who can plan, strategize, create and promote compelling, engaging content is in high demand from digital marketing recruiters and content marketing staffing specialists.
What makes it such a valuable skill? Content now touches nearly every component of a complete marketing program today. No matter what field you’re in, understanding what quality, well-targetted content brings to the table is crucial to getting and retaining the attention of potential customers.
2. Lead Nurturing
The 2017 B2B environment is unlike previous years’, so don’t expect to draw up an effective marketing plan that looks the same as last year’s. As customers increasingly reject hard sales tactics and cold calls, businesses look to lead nurturing and B2B lead gen agencies as a better solution to generate sales.
Skills within the realm of lead nurturing and client development are in especially high demand. The ability to truly understand a sales and marketing funnel, design and attribute personas, and then methodically convert prospects into customers step by step is extremely valuable, especially to B2B marketing recruiters.
Professionals with experience in this area should be sure to note it on their resumes and in their LinkedIn profiles. Be sure to mention any experience you have with demand generation, audience segmentation, campaign management, conversion rate optimization, and navigating the buyer’s journey!
3. Email Marketing
Email is a mainstay in the marketing toolbox, but marketers need to continuously update and innovate their email tactics to cater to changing user expectations. It’s one of the oldest digital channels marketers have had to reach customers, yet it continues to change and provide some of the consistent ROI out of any marketing outlet.
Smart businesses, agencies, and digital marketing recruiters are hungry for email marketing staffing candidates and full-time digital pros who can help them grow, retain, and delight email subscribers.
Moreover, with social media channels turning to algorithmic feeds and Google trying to increase reliance on their paid ads, it’s crucial for brands to control where, when and how they are presented to their audience. Strong email marketing provides those capabilities.
4. HTML, CSS, and Other Coding Languages
Coding is an invaluable skill to add to your stack. And you don’t have to be a master coder (though it certainly doesn’t hurt); even basic level of skills and understanding will equip you to advance in the job market.
With a basic level of HTML, CSS and other common coding languages, you demonstrate to employers you know how to troubleshoot basic problems without help from IT or make minor updates and improvements to a site page or email without having to use developer resources. If you’re beyond the basics, even better!
5. Video Production and Live Streaming
Most successful marketing operations are now involved with or are at least considering video production staffing. Brands are recognizing that video is a very engaging and compelling form of content that can be used to a company’s advantage.
You don’t have to be an expert, but any experience in video production, editing, animation and marketing is highly beneficial.
6. Social Media Advertising
Powerful social real estate is in high demand. Social networks have massive, highly engaged audiences that should be valuable marketing territory. But in an environment where anyone can fire off a tweet in a matter of seconds and have it lost in a sea of other messages, images, links and more, it’s hard to make your voice heard.
Sometimes the best way to ensure your message is heard is through sponsored posts, paid ads, and influencer relationships.
To capture target audiences more quickly and efficiently, brands increasingly realize the advantages of working with paid opportunities. That’s where you come in. Maximize your company’s advertising results with paid social media advertising; either working in a social media advertising agency or client-side.
One of the best parts of adding this skill is how easy it is to show your value. Compared to many other marketing tactics, it’s relatively easy to determine the ROI and demonstrate the difference you’re making.
Facebook, in particular, is dramatically ramping up advertising capabilities, adding more offerings every year. For instance, this year Facebook announced its ‘look alike’ ad feature which allows companies to target identified users that will be interested in their product or services.
7. CMS Experience
Nearly all businesses with an online presence publish, manage and edit digital content with the help of a Content Management System.
Even a basic comfort with these platforms is valuable almost universally valuable among digital marketers. A more advanced developer-level competence is enough to have employers calling left and right.
WordPress and Drupal are two of the most common examples of content management systems you may want to get your hands dirty with. Strong familiarity with these platforms will mean you’ll be able to look and work ‘under the hood’ of a huge portion of business’s websites without relying on someone else to help you along.
8. Data Science
With all the analytics capabilities that are now easily accessible to anyone, data is plentiful. But most organizations struggle to make effective use of it. From conversion tracking cookies, social media responses and video views to GPS data and app activity, the sheer volume of big data companies have access to is overwhelming.
That’s why marketing operations are increasingly turning to data science recruiters to help them find experts capable of reading and using those mountains of information. As a data analysis expert with data science skills, you can step in to help sort, organize, and (most importantly) extract meaning and actionable insights from these huge data landfills.
If you’ve found a passion for crunching numbers, adding data analysis and science to your stack could be an excellent career move. You’ll be in a prime position where digital analytics staffing or recruitment experts will be knocking at your door. Furthermore, this skill is incredibly valuable if you want to take a career detour and try something other than marketing, as it transfers well to many other fields of business.
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