TOP 9 High Demand Skills in Digital Marketing – Digital Ashis

Top 9 High Demand Skills in Digital Marketing | Deman for Digital Marketing in 2022

In this article, I am going to discuss 9 high-demand skills in digital marketing currently and that are going to stay in demand in near future. I have selected the list of these 9 skills from my experience in this industry for five years now and also talking to many clients. Now we all know that digital marketing skills are in very much demand at the moment and it’s not even near saturation at the moment.

One of the reasons being there is a lot of companies who realize every day that they have to invest in digital marketing and they are getting on board in this digital marketing industry. Now with this demand, Digital marketing professionals are getting paid well. One of the reasons is that they directly impact the business of any client they work with. Now, before we jump into these eight points, I want to show you what a modern skillset looks like.

Now, if you look at the picture, there is a strategic skill. There are technical skills and there are creative skills. You kind of have to be in the intersection where you have all of these skills somehow related to strategy creative as well as technical.

1. First Skill – Data Science:

So our first point is data science. Now this skill is usually related to data interpretation as well as for analytics. To give you an example like there are a lot of good data scientists and BI people I have worked with, but what I realized is all the good data scientists, don’t understand media and they don’t understand media metrics.

Now for example, recently I used to work with a person who was good at data science and BI and reporting and all these modules. But the problem was he didn’t understand media metrics, for example, one day we were just presenting a report to the client and what we realized is the overall reach of the campaign. He had directly added them from all the channels. The campaign was live on multiple channels like DV 360, Facebook, Google ads, and a lot of other channels.

So what he had done is he had directly added the reach from individual channels as the campaign’s total reach, which is not the right way to do it. In some instances, we had a reach more than the impressions. So it’s very important for a data scientist who is working specifically for a digital marketing agency or a client they understand metrics as well.

This is one of the gaps I found in the industry. So that being said, I think that there is a huge gap. There need to be data scientists who understand media or there needs to be media specialists who understand data science. Now, if you are a media specialist and you want to understand data science. If you want to go on this journey to learning, you can try Google Cloud certification which is free and they will also provide you access to free tools like big query. Which also involves a little bit of SQL.

And I think that this is one of the gaps and this is one of the high demand skills. That’s already what Companies are realizing and in near future, I think it’ll be even in greater demand and that leads us to our next skill.

2. Second Skill – Know-How Of Skills:

Which is basic know-how of important tools. Now what I realized is with the Boom in e-commerce with the boom in small companies investing in Digital marketing, what I realized is these companies, when they start to invest in digital marketing, they come to you, usually the small companies, they don’t have any creative team. Also, they don’t have any design team, so they rely on you completely.

If you are going to buy media for them, run Digital marketing campaigns for them. You will have to assist them on how to create creativity. Now, these companies do not usually have Nurse, any branding guidelines. So you can literally like play around and create any type of creatives for them.

For example, if they’re running a campaign on Facebook, Canva can be a very good tool to start with. Like, you go ahead and you can create these. These ads for them. Now, that’s one thing I realized these small companies do not have Web developers who can create learning pages for them. They don’t have designers who can create these ads for them. Now, if you are working with such a small client. And definitely, you need to understand how to work on tools like Canva for designing or Adobe Spark or as well as work on tools like Instagram Pages or have basic knowledge of WordPress.

So that you can create or help them to at least create. These landing pages and ads. These lead us to our next Third Point.

3. Third Skill – Marketing Automation and Data Handling:

I strongly believe that this is a very important skill to have, which is in demand and is going to be in demand in near future. About your knowledge to set up marketing automation setups for your clients and as well as guide them on how they can leverage their first-party data, how they can store their first-party data, how they can activate this first-party data. Now with the boom and e-commerce industry, people are selling physical products, digital products courses, and whatnot.

So in this kind of scenario, it’s crucial to understand how we can automate as many processes in our digital media as possible. For example, if you are working on a client who is selling courses, it’s very important that you set up an automation system for them so that if somebody shows an interest, you show them a retargeting ad. If they register, you send them a free ebook or free video demo, where you can lead them to buy a course if somebody bought a course and completed the course and you reach out to them through different channels to upsell new products.

So I would say you need to understand at least one automation system whether it’s Systeme.io whether it’s Mailerlite or any other MailChimp or Clickfunnels, any of the automation systems which you can assist your clients with. Now with that being said, there is one more thing that you need to understand.

We all know that first-party data is going to be very important shortly. So you need to also have perspective or node tools where you know how to collect this first-party data, whether it’s email IDs with its phone numbers so that you can use this first-party data for the benefit of your client.

Now one of the tools I think is going to be in demand in near future are CDP. So for example there are multiple in the market at the moment, which is one of them is Talium or there are other multiple CDP’s as well. So I would say that if you don’t already know, you should go ahead and try to learn any of these automation tools.

So to give you an idea or an example. For example, whenever you work with a client, you should be able to show them or at least visualize for them and architecture like this for example, how will we. Collect first-party data, second-party data, third-party data. Where will we store this and how will we utilize this? So should you should be able to visualize at least this for any client you are working with now. *

4. Fourth Skills – Market and Competitors Intelligence and Analysis:

Now at any given point in time, you need to know what’s going on in the market. What are the competitors doing and be smart to make decisions based on what competitors are doing? And when you have that knowledge, you need to basically be ahead of your competitor, no matter which client you are working with.

Now. Trust me, it’s very important to understand how your competitors are thinking. How are the tactics they are using, what’s working for them, and what’s not? Working for them, how that even crafting their messages and ads. Now if your competitor is a bigger company than who you are working with their competitor or it can be can provide a lot of benefit for you. He will basically be able to understand what is the starting point. It’s working for them and where should you start?

And the other reason for this is, for example, I’m sure if you go to Facebook and you see an ad, let’s say for example a consultant who helps you to immigrate to Canada. You click on that, you fill a form. The moment you come back from the form on your feed, the next ad you will see is from another consultant.

And for the next few days, you will see all the ads from the consultants. So if there is a person who is in the market for a product or service. Trust me, Facebook will bombard them with the ads. So you literally have to make a difference among your competitors. So that, that client will fill a lead form for you.

How important it is, there is a book called Art of War which is one of my favorites in the book. The author says if:

“You know the enemy and know yourself, you need not to fear the results of 100 battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. And if you know neither the enemy nor yourself. He will come in every battle”. *

So you must do competitors audit for your client and to do that this is a very important skill to have to know how to do this kind of audit and take learning from there. So the first is competitors audit and the right one is made after analyzing the first one. So you can definitely say the second one is more effective than the first one. So you can understand how much competitors analysis is important for any kind of business. With that being that this is one of the key skills to learn now.

5. Fifth Skills – JavaScript and HTML:

A lot of people ask me that is JavaScript and HTML important in being a performance marketing specialist? Honestly, it’s not very important, but if you are focusing on programmatic advertising, This is a very important skill to have. You can go ahead without it as well, but this will really give you an edge.

For example, knowing JavaScript and HTML is very important when you are kind of testing any creative tags you are testing. Click macros and you are testing any other kind of macros or for example if you want to test what kind of landing page is a particular add tag returning. So these kind of things literally help you sometimes if you know JavaScript and. HTML.

Once I was working on a client and I saw that there was a problem between the publisher and my team, When I tried to research it and I realized that the publisher’s report was not matching to the client’s report. And the publishers provided the report was not matched in terms of clicks and CTR. There was an email communication going there for like few days and I was really curious what was going on when I realized the issue was the additional tax provided by the client did not somehow had Click macros and the publishers tried to implement the click macros, but they were not doing the right implementation, so that’s what was causing all the issues.

Now I know a little bit of JavaScript and HTML and I was able to figure out in like one minute what the issue is. And it was resolved now in case you want to learn HTML and JavaScript, I recommend W3 school is the best resource you can have to learn basics of HTML and JavaScript even me like 7 years ago I have learned JavaScript and HTML on W3 schools.

6. Sixth Skills – Digital Marketing Eco System:

What I mean by that is I constantly repeat this in my videos in the digital marketing ecosystem, there are three parties involved.

• One is that advertiser
• One is the publisher.
• Then there are agencies and our tech providers.

Now agencies are like an intermediate who help advertisers by media and there are add tech providers like Google. They provide Google ads or DB 360 and there are verification vendors like IS mode and there are other suppliers who are somehow connected to this ecosystem.

Now, What I mean by understanding the ecosystem is you basically have to understand what each of these parties do and how do they work together. Now for example in any interview conducted, the Interviewer usually asks this question. OK, I run a video campaign on Facebook. Can the art show be on? Can this video add shown on Instagram?

Most of the people are not able to understand because they know so much about just Facebook ad manager. They know about Google ad manager but they don’t understand how the different parties involved in this ecosystem work with each other. What does the whole ecosystem look like? Now, before you can suggest a strategy to a client or a channel mix, or a media plan, you definitely need to understand the whole ecosystem. You need to step back and have a broader picture of this ecosystem. I think it’s a very very important skill to have because it will not help you to suggest strategies.

Sometimes you are talking to a client and makes you really confident if you know something and you’re able to explain because sometimes out of nowhere a client will send you a screenshot showing you an ad on Instagram and telling you we are not running any campaigns on Instagram, why are our ads appearing there? So you need to understand the whole ecosystem to be able to answer confidently all the questions clients ask you.

7. Basic Of Digital Marketing:

What I mean by this is, I see a lot of people who are in digital marketing field, but they lack the knowledge of basic marketing fundamentals. You have to understand something digital marketing before anything else is a form of marketing. Now, as much as digital marketing is dependent on numbers and working around those numbers to kind of create your strategy and optimize your campaigns. But Digital Marketing relies on the fundamentals of marketing as well.

Now if you have to decide your overall strategy or let’s say the communication strategy of your channels, you need to know the basics of marketing. So your digital marketing strategy has to be a mix of your logic analysis as well as the emotions which are important in any marketing campaign.

Now to give you an example of this, no matter which client you are working on, they cannot be best in everything in their industry and competition. There definitely will be good at something and how to portray that something and use that something in your marketing campaigns, that you can only do using fundamentals of marketing.

Now why I’m saying this is because honestly, this is one of the gap I see a lot of people in digital marketing. They’re really good at what they do, but they lack somehow the basics of marketing which really shows. So if you are a digital marketer, I would definitely suggest you to go back and study some basics and fundamentals of marketing so that it can give you an edge and you can be successful in your career.

8. Eight Strategy – Open To Grab:

Please be open to learning now. I always mention that I have been working in this industry for five years now and since I started working in this industry, everything has changed. Digital marketing industry in its DNA is always changing and evolving. There is always new add tech. There are always new channels that are trending and on top of that, we see a lot of user behavior changes as well as there is a lot of laws that are coming now and then around digital marketing and how we you can kind of use collect and utilize the data.

In my experience as well, I have seen a lot of people who used to work who I used to work with and they were good at what they were doing, but somehow they lost their relevance because they were not open to learn new technologies, new trends.

And I saw a lot of people become insignificant. It happened when offline advertising was a thing and there was a drift towards Digital marketing. There and a lot of people who did not embrace these changes from offline advertising to online skills.

They kind of became insignificant and I know a lot of people like that. So if you want to be relevant and be successful in Digital marketing career, you need to be ahead of the trends and you need to understand what’s going on.

Now if you go for any Digital marketing interview nowadays, the first question probably they’ll ask you is now what will you suggest to us to kind of minimize the impact of these iOS changes and the new regulations like GDPR? And what do you think that Cookie List World will look like. How will it impact our Digital marketing, advertising, or what? What do you suggest that? How can we ensure that we have a minimal impact?

So these questions being asked in the interviews give you a signal that this is a very important skill to have. As well, where you have kind of, you’re open to learning new technologies, new trends and always have this approach that you are open to learning any new technologies or any new trends that come in this particular space.

Now if you are interested to know more about how to be ready for those questions, I have many articles and many videos here which talks about the Eight different things you need to consider in your 2022 Digital marketing strategies. Considering all the changes that are happening around in this particular space. With that being said. That is the end of the list. I hope this was helpful to you. Anyway, thank you so much. I will see you at the next one.