Top Essential Digital Skills To Learn In 2023
A digital transformation occurred worldwide during the pandemic, with everything going digital. As we transition into this new, digital reality, we become accustomed to seeing our coworkers with their cats and children, not having to wear any pants until noon, and being anywhere but the office. This transformation has influenced how we interact with the world and has definitely touched the lives of specialists in the digital sphere. Efficient use of digital marketing is now crucial for businesses across the globe, and the tendency is only growing. We’ve made a list of the best digital skills to learn in 2023 that can add value to your projects and enrich your professional life.
What are digital skills?
Digital skills signify a vast knowledge related to the use of digital devices. It could be anything from research skills to video editing and design.
Here are a few statistics to give you an understanding of how digital marketing is developing:
- 63% of businesses started spending more on marketing activities in 2021
- The niche is expected to grow, reaching $786.2 billion in 2026
The statistic suggests that businesses are getting more involved in digital marketing and believe in its power, which creates numerous opportunities on the market and requires a specific set of knowledge and experience. Staying on top of the game requires even more effort but opens many doors for professional development.
Digital Skills To Learn In 2023
The digital marketing niche is expected to grow, allowing you to gain more valuable skills that can prove helpful in future marketing campaigns. As you can see below, the demand for digital channels varies. We will cover a digital skills list that covers essential marketing channels.
Content marketing
Content is a key element in gaining a loyal audience and building a long-lasting relationship with it. By offering continuous value, you cover the needs of your targeted audience. That’s why knowing how to create relevant, engaging, and SEO-friendly content should be a key focus for any digital marketing specialist
While the quality and value of the content should be a priority, it is also important to remember that content also serves as a marketing tool and needs to bring results. Search engine optimization will help your content stay competitive in search engines and bring real value to your audience. For this purpose, you can use specialized tools like the SE Ranking content marketing platform.
It determines who the top competitors are in SERPs, analyzes their content, and gives hints for content optimization.
Content marketing aims to deliver continuous value, and to do that, it is crucial to set up a strategy. This requires knowledge of SEO, research, and data analytics skills to understand how to develop a content plan and distribute it among different channels.
Data Analysis
The performance of any business can hardly bring results without data. When talking about marketing, data analysis implies learning everything about customer needs to understand how to approach both the product and digital activities. Marketing analysts find out how to enhance marketing efforts and improve overall efficiency.
This requires knowledge about collecting information from customers and analyzing sales reports and competitors. Besides, you need to present your findings to stakeholders through visuals for presentations. As analysis is the first step in any marketing activity, it influences the outcome of every campaign. If you take it seriously, you can be sure that your efforts will not go to waste.
SEO
Search engine optimization is among the top digital skills to learn in 2023. The ultimate goal of SEO is to improve website traffic and drive organic sales.
Even though there isn’t a specific set of skills that every specialist needs, SEO professionals are united by a data-driven, result-based mindset and a list of hard digital skills. It includes keyword research, competitor research, technical audit, link building, content creation skills, etc.
The must-haves are content creation along with basic technical knowledge. Understanding coding implications will ease communication with developers and make life easier, letting the specialist rely more on cold hard data. The soft skills include critical thinking, flexibility, prioritization, and project management.
Paid Search Advertising (PPC)
Simply put, it is the first search result you see when you type in any request that says ‘ad’ above it. In paid search advertising, the publisher gets paid by the advertiser every time a user clicks on an ad.
The most important hard skills for marketing specialists in paid search advertising include expertise in programs such as Google Ads and Ads Editor. Having this knowledge will help you build an efficient marketing strategy and create and analyze campaigns that bring the most results. PPC is a great way to tell the world about a business’s product or service, as it targets a specific audience and shows the website among the first search results.
Advertising can bring quick and sufficient results, yet it requires knowledge to set it up. Poorly made ad campaigns can result in losses, which is why paid advertising is on the list of digital skills that are important to learn.
Video Editing & Production
The digital world is moving towards video format on all platforms. The Wyzowl study suggests that 86% of marketing specialists use videos to connect with their audience. The popularity of video content started rising after the audience’s interest increased, and digital marketing professionals used it to boost engagement.
Video editing and production are among the best skills to learn. Even basic video production and editing experience will help you deliver the content your project needs. For this, you need to follow the latest trends, analyze competitors, and find working solutions that correspond to your goals. For instance, you need to understand what kind of video format to choose depending on the platform, your audience, and the messages you want to convey.
Design and Visual marketing
As technology turned into instant access to the internet from anywhere, anytime, customers’ behaviour changed. Businesses had to adapt and adopt short, engaging visual content that catches the customer’s attention and sets the business aside from its competitors. Visual marketing is a powerful tool that can boost conversion rates and attract more interest in the business. It can include videos, graphics, memes, presentations, and any other content that carries a visual message — anything that evokes emotions.
Applications such as Creatopy, Canva, and Venngage will help you engage customers with visuals — they have numerous templates and help to adapt to the brand’s identity. Besides, you need to constantly boost your visual experience skills, looking after trends and analyzing what works best for other similar brands.
Email Marketing
Email marketing has been in the game for a while. Businesses use this tool to build a connection with the audience through email, sending special offers, promotion letters, product launches, and other valuable information. This method has proven to drive more traffic to the website and engage customers, leading them to make purchases.
To use email marketing, you need to have an excellent theoretical basis in marketing, understand how to speak to the audience, and create email funnels. Knowing the customer journey will help you connect with customers and create a funnel that will bring results. If you’re a part of a small team, most likely, you’ll be asked to write emails. Larger teams usually have dedicated email marketers who work along with the copywriter and designer.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is how the brand presents itself on social media. Nowadays, it is one of the most effective techniques for brands to build meaningful connections and keep in touch with the audience on a daily basis, strengthening loyalty and increasing sales.
SMM is a unique and powerful tool, as it intersects with significant areas for marketing: customer data, connection, and interaction. The goal of the SMM depends on what the project needs, but it can greatly help with sales and brand awareness.
For the efficient involvement of social channels in marketing, you need to learn how to analyze competitors, create action plans for the development on various platforms, post content according to the plan, and analyze the overall social media page and strategy performance.
Soft Skills in Marketing to Learn for a Successful Career
Several years ago, you often heard that soft skills could not be taught. Yet, the latest research suggests that you can learn these skills, in the same manner, you approach learning hard skills. With the proper environment and dedication, it is easy to master the digital marketing skills necessary to succeed.
Prioritization
Prioritization is the key to managing time and staying aligned with the dynamic landscape of marketing. It requires you to thoughtfully plan your work, define priorities for yourself or the team, and re-prioritize goals if needed.
Presentation
The ability to present yourself can be crucial in landing projects and winning over clients’ hearts. When you have a solid portfolio, well-developed communication skills, and the ability to convey your strengths to potential clients, you have a higher chance of finding your dream projects.
Project Management
When you enter a digital marketing field, you will need to juggle several tasks or even projects at once. Project management expertise lets you coordinate the resources you have to make the most of your time and efforts.
Flexibility and adaptation
Digital marketing is an ever-changing field — it requires you to stay on top of all the latest trends and be ready to apply new approaches. The better you adapt to various situations and outcomes, the better you will be at creating profitable strategies.
Intuition
Even if you use all the data analytics tools available, there are still some things you cannot predict or be sure of in marketing. When there is no sufficient information, but you need to make a decision, intuition comes into play. If you have deep expertise, you can develop intuition and rely on your inner knowledge.
Wrapping up
Digital marketing has turned into quite a demanding field that requires a diverse set of knowledge and experience. At the same time, it opens the doors to many exciting partnerships and interesting projects. In a field full of opportunities, you can stay on top of your marketing game by knowing which digital skills to learn.
If you’re looking to develop any of the skills discussed in this article, check out these courses in marketing— you can learn anything from design to social media and obtain digital skills in demand.
