From the intricacies of crafting the right paid ad content or hitting a viral trend to knowing how to get the right keywords in the right places, everyone knows that to be a successful digital marketer your technical skills need to be on point.
But did you know that beyond those technical skills, there is a whole other set of skills that will contribute to a successful marketing career? Often known as soft skills, they include things like good time management and being able to communicate well with a range of people.
Six key soft skills for digital marketers
Here are some of the most important soft skills for digital marketers. Of course it helps to have all these skills naturally. But for the most part, they can be improved or even learned from scratch so don’t panic if you don’t feel like you have all of them right now.
Ability to juggle multiple projects at different stages – If you run your own digital marketing business or work for an agency, then you will probably have several clients at once all of whom will have different marketing needs and schedules. So it’s important to be able to keep track of multiple projects at different stages. You’ll need good organisation skills and the ability to navigate a project management system or spreadsheet with speed to keep track of each project.
Time management – Working to deadlines is an important part of digital marketing, especially when it comes to running specific campaigns aligned with a product launch or event. So if your time management skills aren’t great, you might find it a struggle. You’ll need to practice meeting deadlines and planning the stages of a project to keep things ticking along. And never underestimate how long things might take (it’s always longer than you think!).
The ability to keep calm under pressure – Website down? Locked out of an Ads account? Post gone viral on social media for all the wrong reasons? These are the kind of things that strike fear into a digital marketer! They are all certain to happen at one point or another though. And that’s where being calm under pressure comes in as a key skill. If you know that you tend to panic at the first sign of disaster then it could be good to practice some mindfulness or calming techniques to help you get through it.
Communication – Communication is vital at all stages of a digital marketing strategy. From writing an initial brief to communicating the results of a campaign, communication, both verbal and written, is a key skill. In many cases you’ll need to communicate complicated information in a way that makes sense to a client who won’t have the same level of knowledge, so the ability to interpret information clearly and simply is important. Being able to communicate diplomatically is also vital, especially when dealing with clients – for example explaining why your client should (or maybe shouldn’t) be jumping on the latest social media bandwagon or why that random post they made wasn’t such a good idea.
Attention to detail – Noticing details can be the difference between a great marketing campaign and an ok one. As a digital marketer your job is to notice the details that other people might miss like the spelling mistake, the fonts not quite matching or the best time to post on each platform. Some people are naturally better at noticing details than others – they are the ones who point out misplaced apostrophes in shop signs! But with a bit of practice you can train your eye to notice these things quickly and know how to fix them.
Wanting to learn – One thing’s for sure – there’s always something new to be learning in digital marketing, whether it’s a pesky change to the Google algorithm or a new social media platform. So a sense of curiosity and a desire to keep learning are definitely something that a digital marketer needs!
If you are keen to keep learning, then we’ve got plenty of courses to help you. Choose from one of our short courses to expand your knowledge in Ads or a specific social media platform, or dive into our Diploma in Digital Marketing for an all round skill set.
