Essential Skills in a Digital Marketing Specialist

Digital Marketing Specialist, Defined

Who is a Digital Marketing Specialist, anyway? A Digital Marketing Specialist is a professional who works in tandem with a company’s marketing department to form a brand image, identify the target market demographics, and create and maintain an Internet marketing campaign for the digital-based medium. This includes email, websites, display advertising, social media, and mobile phones. If it’s part of the digital medium, it falls into this professional’s wheelhouse.

So what kind of Digital Marketing professional do you need? That’s easy…

You Need A Well-Rounded Specialist

Since not every business has an entire Digital Marketing department or team, the Digital Marketing Specialist needs to be able to join an already existing marketing team and actively contribute to its success. Consider them like a utility player on a baseball team, going where needed, and seamlessly becoming part of the team, adapting to its way of doing things and aiding in its mission, which in this case is all about branding, marketing, and increasing customer engagement.

In order to be this kind of adaptive professional, the specialist needs to have a solid grasp on a respectable number of different skills and talents. A well-rounded specialist is someone who has the ability to keep current with all of the new schools of thought, innovations, and trends, then implement them where it makes sense. The world of marketing is a constantly evolving one, especially when it turns out that the so-called “tried and true” methods aren’t as successful as originally believed, and are dropped in favor of the latest. 

It can be hard to know what will work and what won’t, and trial and error play a big part in determining this. But it’s the specialist who says, “Alright this isn’t working, and we need to stop now, even though we’ve sunk time and resources into it.”

So what skills specifically should be weighed heavily in picking a Digital Marketing Specialist? Read on and as you do, take notice that many of them actually interconnect and overlap.

Communication

For starters, a Digital Marketing Specialist needs to have a good grasp on communication skills. This means written and verbal communication, as well as the ability to read non-verbal cues. In the first case, written communication skills are essential for creating and/or editing content, having enough empathetic skill to know what is the most persuasive, audience-friendly text.
The specialist needs good verbal and non-verbal communication skills in order to smoothly integrate with other departments and work better with others. The Digital Marketing Specialist will need to clearly communicate his or her ideas to other team members, some of who may not be thrilled to have an “outsider” telling them what to do or having them try something they’re not familiar or comfortable with.
So to sum this part up, the ideal Digital Marketing Specialist knows the audience and how to speak with them, and within the company knows how to play well with others.

Project Management

Next comes project management, which is actually an umbrella term for a whole set of skills, including negotiation, time management, risk management, planning, leadership, and personal organization. A good Data Marketing Specialist needs to be able to delegate, plan, schedule things realistically, juggle many projects at once, and not step on anyone’s toes in the process. Add to this the ability to predict what can go wrong and offer solutions and contingencies, and you pretty much have the makings of a Digital Marketing Specialist rock star.

Professional Expertise

Thus far, we’ve only dealt with what can be considered people skills and disciplines. But if that’s all a Digital Marketing Specialist needed in order to succeed, then anyone could do it. In addition to all of the things mentioned previously, the best candidate also needs to know the nuts and bolts of Digital Marketing.
The ideal person for the position needs to have a solid grasp on concepts and functions such as inbound marketing, web analytics, social media marketing, and paid marketing. Digital Marketing Specialists need to have a solid grasp of topics like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).
If this sounds like a lot for a Digital Marketing Specialist to have under their belt, that’s because it is. In this increasingly digital world, this position’s importance is only growing. A company can’t simply pull a random individual who happens to get along with people and knows how to use social media, send emails, etc., and expect them to deliver results. A business that’s serious about dominating the digital marketing scene needs a qualified individual.
This brings us to the importance of certification…

Why Certification Matters

Having a certified Digital Marketing Specialist is a tremendous advantage for any company seeking to strengthen their digital and online presence. A professional who has earned certification has proven that they have the ability to learn and advance as well as the perseverance to work and study in order to earn that certification. This is especially true of professionals who have multiple certifications in various areas of expertise.

Employees who habitually study for certification demonstrate a desire to continue growing and expanding their knowledge base and skill set, making them even more valuable. There’s always a new method of doing something or a new way of thinking. Certification is the way to keep one’s education and skill set fresh and current. Thus, when a business hires a certified professional, they are getting someone who has verifiable proof that they know the subjects at hand and have received the right training. 

Learning Digital Marketing

Maybe your business wants to train someone internally in order to be groomed to become a Digital Marketing Specialist. Or maybe you’re working for a business and want to expand your skill set, making yourself more marketable. Whatever the case, Simplilearn offers a Digital Marketing Specialist Masters Program. The program presents you with five courses, over 20 projects, and MimicPro simulations, and gives you the tools you need to become a complete digital marketer.

Once the program is complete, you gain that all-important masters certificate, the stamp of approval that says that you’ve arrived, and the sky’s the limit. A Digital Marketing Specialist can earn an average of $125K annually. Add to that the fact that for the last year or so there’s been an increased demand for such professionals, it becomes obvious that this is a smart move. Make it today!