3 Essential Skills Every Digital Marketer Should Know Only your current knowledge is not sufficient, you have to stay relevant to provide online marketing services to your clients

Let's go back to the year 1994, a major turning point in the history of the digital arena. Netscape, the first successful mass-market browser was released. In the next 2 years that followed, the number of people using the internet increased from 16 million to 70 million. Seeing the immense scope that the internet brought with itself, search engines like Yahoo! and Google, and social media platforms like Orkut and Facebook started entering the digital space. All these new entrants brought about a huge transformation in the digital field, each coming up with better services and experience for the user. It wouldn't be farfetched to say that the digital platform came into power thereafter. This digital platform then went on to become a goldmine for marketers.

Digital has always been a volatile platform, evolving based on what a user needs and wants to experience. This evolution means that digital marketing companies can turn obsolete if they don't evolve with the changing needs and demands of the digital platform. It also means that digital marketers have to be on their toes to stay updated in this industry. The skills that made them digital marketing experts earlier, may not be enough to help them succeed in this field anymore. Thanks to the ever-changing consumer behaviour, the digital space always has new things to teach us. It plays on dynamic user-experience, thus making it difficult for digital marketers to settle into their comfort zones.

Since you now know that only your current knowledge is not sufficient, you have to stay relevant to ensure you continue providing online marketing services to your clients, you must be wondering what are the skills that a digital marketer should possess in the current market scenario. Well, it is pretty simple. Remember the 3 words - Create, Analyse and Nurture, simply acronymized to CAN. All the important skills that you are required to possess can easily fit into these three words, thus making it easy for you to remember and practice with conviction. What are those skills you ask? Well, here is a quick listicle compiled for your reference.

1. Content Marketing - The public is hungry for good content. If you can create good content, you can win their hearts. If you can win their hearts, you have understood the audience and their tastes. You just need to figure out what your target audience is looking for and how you can reach out to them on online media. Working as a content specialist/strategist, independently or for a content marketing agency in India, you need to ensure that your content is to-the-point, engaging and SEO-friendly. Don't forget to make use of all the available formats for variety including blogs, infographics, videos and newsletters.

2. Data Analytics - Well, yes! How can you even think about analytics not making it to this listicle? Both would be so incomplete without the pinch of data analytics - this list and your digital marketing career. With the humongous amount of unstructured data being created in the digital space, you need skills to understand and analyze that data. This will help you in assessing the performance of digital marketing campaigns, controlling the costs being spent per result, evaluating what new strategies to deploy based on user-interaction and selecting the optimal digital media for campaigns. Most companies are still struggling with this vital aspect. If you have the skill, and if you can make sense out of the data, you are most welcome as a part of this industry.

Also, it is pretty obvious by now, but just to iterate, this skill will help you master the art of Analysing - the second word of the three word Rule.

1. Email Marketing - Unless you don't nurture your leads/audience, all the efforts spent in creating quality content and analyzing data to strategize is useless. Emails are the best way to stay connected with your user. You can keep them engaged by sending across personalized communication based on their actions. If you were to check the number of agencies using email marketing services optimally in the market now, you would be surprised to find that this number is almost negligible. Agencies are still struggling to fully implement such campaigns, thus losing out on a very effective drip marketing strategy to nurture leads and improve conversion rates.

Well, that's what forms the bucket of CAN - Create content, Analyse Data, and Nurture the User. These skills are eternal; they will never fade out. The ways might change, the tools may differ, but these three skills will always be sought after by digital marketing companies across the world. A digital marketer who can master these skills will never be at risk of becoming outdated in the digital space. If you are a budding digital marketer, all that I have to say in-closing, is, "Yes, you CAN!"