By Paul Flaharty, Executive Director, Marketing and Creative Practice Group, Robert Half
The world of digital marketing never stands still. Cutting-edge tools and niche specializations emerge all the time, helping brands reel in customers and reach new audiences.
For digital marketers, every new development represents a learning opportunity. But while it’s exciting to be in such a dynamic profession, the sheer range of upskilling options can be daunting. Should you sharpen your writing skills? Or would a search engine optimization (SEO) certification give your resume the pizzazz it needs? Should you leverage new blog platforms or abandon text altogether in favor of video? Is automation the future? If so, how can you be a part of it?
To help you navigate these and other dilemmas, here are some insights into the skills and qualifications digital marketing leaders are looking for, broken down by specialization.
Email marketing careers
Despite all the innovations in social media, automation and advertising technology (aka adtech), email remains one of the cornerstones of digital marketing. Companies look for empathetic email marketing specialists who can put themselves in their subscribers’ minds and craft personalized and compelling campaigns.
The most sought-after candidates for email marketing roles think as profoundly about numbers as they do about words, tracking key performance indicators to better understand the successes and shortcomings of their campaigns.
3 tips for an email marketing career:
Social media careers
To thrive as a social media specialist, you’ll need to develop certain soft skills. Marketing leaders seek people with a collaborative mindset who can work with everyone from software engineers to celebrities.
Organizational and time management skills are another must since you’ll be responsible for calendar planning and content workflows. Are you flexible enough to coach on-camera talent in the morning and report to leadership on monthly metrics in the afternoon? Sufficiently agile to engage in real-time opportunities for raising brand awareness based on trending topics? If so, you’re well on your way to success in social media.
3 tips for a social media career:
Are you looking to start a career in digital marketing? See this post on how to succeed at finding entry-level digital marketing jobs.
Marketing automation careers
If you’re not sure whether you’re a techie with a creative side or a creative with tech skills, marketing automation could be your spiritual home. Using one side of your brain, you’ll roll out campaigns via customer relationship management (CRM) software and use data analytics to measure their success. Using the other, you’ll come up with big, bold ideas for engaging your audience.
To develop your career in marketing automation, stay abreast of the latest technology and look for opportunities to work on unique campaign ideas where risk-taking is encouraged.
3 tips for a marketing automation career:
What are some of the hottest hiring areas in marketing this year? Check out this infographic to find out.
SEO careers
How do organizations stay ahead of search trends and Google’s algorithm updates? Hiring SEO managers is one way, of course, but leaders are also looking for copywriters, content strategists and other digital marketers who can craft the perfect meta description and conduct their own keyword research.
SEO specialists need to go much deeper, leveraging microdata markups, keyword clustering and other advanced strategies to help company websites feature prominently in search results.
3 tips for an SEO career:
This is just a sampling of the trends and tools making waves in the digital marketing world. For more insights into the skills digital marketing leaders are looking for — and what they’re prepared to pay for them — take a look at the Robert Half Salary Guide.
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