The Top Traits of Highly Successful Digital Marketing Professionals
By: Ronda Payne
Digital marketing takes all kinds of forms and It’s a growing career field with diverse job opportunities. For those who choose to take on this exciting area of work, it’s important to know what can lead to career success.
Despite what mainstream entertainment shows us, the most successful people aren’t necessarily those who develop new products, create viral-worthy campaigns, identify ways to save their employer millions or develop the next Facebook add-on app. Often, the most successful are those who are dedicated to their jobs and know how to continue to grow within the field they’ve chosen while ensuring success for their employer(s). If you want to be successful in digital marketing, here are 8 tips:
1. You can embrace change
When you work in the digital marketing field, change is a constant. While change may not always be comfortable or welcome, individuals in these types of jobs must be able to acknowledge changes that are happening, accept them and get on with what needs to be done to keep ahead of the curves coming at them.
With continuous exposure to change, the process of identifying it and accepting it becomes quicker and easier. Therefore, there’s a case to be made that those who are successful in digital marketing may also be more successful in other areas of their lives simply because they can take change in stride more easily than others. More than just accepting it, these individuals may often seek out change and thrive in continuously changing conditions.
2. A willingness to keep learning.
Learning comes along with change in the digital marketing field. Because there is never a time when things are static, courses, workshops and colleague interaction become essential to keep up with those changes. For example, information learned in a two years ago will have gone through changes to the syllabus that defines it. Course instructors will have needed to stay on top of the changes in the digital marketing field to present the most current information. At the same time, these instructors accept that what they are teaching will soon need modifications too!
Another example is in the case of a . Students know that the tools they are learning about to create great user experiences will grow and change. They will need to continue their education. So, if they invest in , they will want to keep upgrading their knowledge to stay on top of the changes in the field.
3. Ability to prioritize in an instant.
While digital marketing isn’t a life-and-death occupation like being a surgeon or a firefighter, it can certainly be stressful due to the fact that it is deadline driven. Those deadlines need to be juggled and observed while it feels like the impossible has to happen. If you can look at a handful of competing deadlines and determine which order to add them to your already heavy workload, you’re going to do great in digital marketing.
4. You’re always up for a new challenge.
Being up for a new challenge falls in line with the fact that things in digital marketing are constantly changing and there are always competing deadlines. There is always going to be something new to learn and apply at the same time you’re being pulled in a million directions to deliver what’s expected. There will be new projects that require fast thinking and shifts to the workload. When you know new things are constantly coming at you – you know they won’t be easy – and you’re excited by that, you’re in the right job.
5. Motivated and able to keep your head in your work.
Some job-postings call this trait being a “self-starter.” When you work in digital marketing, you need to be able to identify what needs to be done and just do it. Sometimes that takes a range of planning tools like bullet journals or the priority matrix. It’s essential to keep moving forward on tasks even when they aren’t sexy or exciting. Sometimes, they’re just plain dull. When something is important, but not urgent and all the urgent tasks are done, you have to have the ability to get at the important things and complete them. Especially when you don’t feel like it.
6. Communication and teamwork abilities.
Sure, we just mentioned that you need to be a self-starter, but that doesn’t mean you work in a silo. Digital marketers are most often part of a larger team, so is very important. Marketing professionals need to be able to communicate to other team members effectively. It’s a job where a lot of the work is done alone, but the communication and bigger aspects of a project are coordinated by a team. Digital marketing doesn’t sit on its own island. It is included in the marketing plan for an organization and brings many people into the mix to better understand it, appreciate it and track it to make sure it’s working.
7. An interest in how marketing helps businesses grow and thrive.
While someone in digital marketing doesn’t need to have an interest in reading the financial pages of the online journals, they do need to have an interest in how marketing helps businesses be more successful. That is what the job is about – creating elements that ultimately position an organization in the right light to grow a following, improve brand-awareness, make more money or a variety of other goals. Taking an interest in the marketing activities that have led to business success for other organizations will be helpful in understanding how your role can do the same.
8. Management skills.
In a previous point, we mentioned the importance of prioritization, but management isn’t all about TIME management. It’s also about suppliers, projects, tools, people and other elements. Those in digital marketing must be able to look at all of the elements involved in their work and determine the best ways to use them effectively.
Not everyone who works in digital marketing has all of these traits, but if they did, they’d likely be pretty fabulous at their job! Consider which traits are your strong points and which ones you need to work on to help you become even more successful in your career.
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