Editor’s note: Josh R Jackson is a contributing editor at BestMarketingDegrees.org. To celebrate the launch of our New Digital Fundamentals Certification, Josh joins us this month to discuss the skillsets that marketers need to master the fundamentals of digital marketing.
To call ourselves digital marketers, it has become imperative to master the fundamentals of digital marketing. Today, marketers inhabit an educational universe that’s expanding at a rate of 7 new bachelor’s programs every year - but in this competitive educational marketplace, jobs are increasingly based on skills rather than degrees. And despite their growth, marketing degree programs are struggling to teach every skillset we need to legitimately claim we’ve mastered the digital fundamentals.
To be sure we’ve mastered these preliminary areas of a comprehensive digital marketing education, we need both knowledge and skills. We need to know the history and evolution of digital marketing. We need to know the ins and outs of the kinds of online media used for content promotion (like blog posts, white papers, videos, infographics, and press releases), and we need practice placing them in appropriate media moments.
These basic components of a digital marketing campaign allow us to execute marketing strategies with the care, precision, and digital mastery that today’s jobs consistently demand. That’s why we’ve laid out the 5 skillsets necessary to truly master the fundamentals of digital marketing: to help you prepare for the next step in your marketing career, and secure it in a solid foundation. Let's dive in!
1. Digital Advertising
Although email marketing is often considered the staple of every digital marketer’s playbook (see skillset #4), it’s really just a single play with multiple options. A competent digital marketer knows how to assemble a binder of playbooks, each of which might include a list of relevant search engine marketing tools that complement each other. At the same time, masters of digital fundamentals know where they can strategically place ads that reinforce email messaging, and they understand the importance of participating in complex, growing trends like affiliate marketing and programmatic ads.
A quick Google search of these terms and their definitions will show it is no easy task to comprehend these relatively new outreach methods, much less harness them skillfully. But masters of digital fundamentals can balance these skillsets in order to solidify a brand’s place among the rank and file of similar brands competing for the top spot on search engine result pages.
2. Social Marketing
With literally hundreds of social media platforms developing since the late 1990s, social media marketing is essential for conducting digital business successfully. Competent digital marketers know that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube get our feet in the door. But a master of the digital fundamentals also knows that their brand needs to harness the staying power of more permanent visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, at the same time making ample use of more ephemeral visual platforms like Snapchat, Periscope, and other live streaming services.
In more recent years, LinkedIn has become one of the most authoritative platforms to hatch a professional digital marketing strategy, especially because its social network has the capacity to connect disparate people with shared interests for the express purpose of doing business. And of course, blogging platforms like Tumblr and WordPress always help raise a business’s profile on Google and other search engines. While the skillsets for each of these platforms overlap, masters of digital fundamentals know when and where to use each one to its full potential.
3. Mobile Marketing
Mobile is the fastest-growing marketing skillset on this list, and it is quickly becoming the biggest and best way to spread a message. The core tools and terminology that surround the discipline grow as fast as the research and development, and so does the number of mobile marketing programs. The competent marketer knows they need to optimize their site for mobile users in order to make brand content easily accessible. But a master of digital fundamentals will know that the most popular content medium for mobile is the mobile application, while mobile video and location-based advertising have continued to grow in both popularity and opportunity for expansion. They will know how to do their homework and apply research to place messages at the most opportune moments. They will also know that because two out of every three Americans (and counting) own a smartphone, digital marketers need to exercise each of these skills in order to move forward boldly.
4. Email Marketing
As alluded to in the first skillset, email is one of the most fundamental skillsets to exercise in any digital marketing strategy. Running a direct email marketing campaign is perhaps the most essential skill necessary for executing such a strategy effectively. Competent digital marketers know that outbound campaigns like this can be easily automated, and masters of digital fundamentals know that learning automation tools can be difficult to use without expert training. They also know that the same can be said for learning the practice of small batch email marketing, which includes research, list building, targeting, message drafting, and tailoring to specific audiences with special kinds of content. They know that both learning and practicing all of these approaches is essential to mastering email marketing, and that when push comes to shove, email marketing campaigns can mean the difference between virality and obscurity.
5. The Marketing Funnel
As the structure that surrounds our foundation, the marketing funnel wraps all the digital fundamentals into one package. A competent digital marketer knows they need to direct people down their funnel for conversions. But a master of digital fundamentals knows that certain parts of the funnel are better for certain types of content than others. Assuming they need to market a mobile application, masters of the digital fundamentals might plan a digital advertising and email marketing campaign for the top of their funnel to increase brand awareness, a social marketing campaign with video for the middle of their funnel to pique interest, and a mobile marketing campaign at the bottom of their funnel to set up a free trial that leads to loyalty and a sale.
Above all: a true digital marketer knows that the more they practice these skillsets in conjunction, the more confident they’ll be when they say
they’ve mastered the digital fundamentals. Everything else comes with experience; experience comes by knowing the basics and applying them in everything you do. So what are you waiting for? Get started today!