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Top Skills for Digital Marketing

Digital marketing has become an integral part of any business. In our increasingly digital world, the concept of marketing has to keep evolving to help brands stay relevant, connect with their audiences, and drive growth.

So, what are the key skills you need to get your foot in the door of this dynamic, high-demand field?

User-based design

In the past, marketing was focused mainly on the product. Campaigns highlighted the product’s features and quality, based on the belief that a good product would simply sell itself. The message was simple: “This is our amazing product, and here’s what it does. Who’s interested?”

Conversely, user-based design revolves around the customer, also known as the user. This approach aims to understand the customer’s needs, desires, emotions, and behaviors to create a product that’s aligned with their values and identity.

The importance of UX

UX (user experience) is a key component of user-based design. 

If you’ve ever visited a confusing website that’s difficult to navigate, you’ll know how quickly users leave to find an easier alternative.

Intuitive design revolves around the user’s needs, preferences, and behaviors to create a positive experience and increase brand interaction. 

Customer analysis

And how do you get to know your audience so well?

It all comes down to customer analysis. By gathering data from various sources (website interactions, purchase history, social media, surveys, etc.), it’s possible to track and analyze customer needs, preferences, and behaviors.

Customer analysis comprises many different methods, including strategic segmentation, the customer lifecycle, RFM models, measuring marketing results, and creating predictive models to optimize marketing strategies.

What strategies? Let’s take a look.

Inbound marketing and SEO

Inbound marketing is a strategy used to attract potential customers to your website by creating valuable content.

For example, imagine a user types this into Google: “white pants what shoes.” (Yes, it sounds a bit clunky, but that’s how people search — remember, we have the data.)

One of the first results that pops up is a blog post titled 15 Shoes To Wear With White Pants. The user smiles and clicks the link.

They read the article (or, in most cases, they scroll, look at the photos, and maybe skim over a few sentences. A pair of white sneakers catches their eye. They click the link and find themselves on a page where they can buy the same shoes they saw in the article. They click “buy.”

That’s inbound marketing. It’s completely focused on the user: it was the user who made the search and found quality content (the blog) that not only answered their question, but also offered a solution: buy new shoes.

What about SEO?

SEO (search engine optimization) is a combination of strategies and actions that aim to make a webpage appear among the first results on a search engine.

In other words, when the user did the search on Google, the blog post about the shoes didn’t just happen to pop up near the top of the search results. It did so because of SEO.

SEO is considered “organic” because it naturally improves a webpage’s ranking in search results — without having to pay for advertising.

There is a wide range of SEO strategies, from keyword research, content structure, and links to loading speed, linkbuilding, authority, and many more.

Digital advertising and SEM

Unlike SEO, digital advertising and SEM (search engine marketing) are paid ways to promote a brand or product.

While SEO works to get a webpage to the top of search results organically, SEM pursues the same goal through paid placement.

For example, when our user searched for shoes on Google, they also saw some boxes under the word “Sponsored” on the results page. Each box contained a picture of a pair of shoes, a title, the price, and the brand. If the user decides to click, they will be taken directly to the purchase page.

Digital advertising also includes a variety of channels beyond SEM, including social media ads, influencer collaborations, display ads, and video marketing. 

Push vs. pull

If you only remember one thing from this article, make it this.

Inbound marketing is a way of pulling users toward you when they’re looking for information, products, or services related to your business.

On the other hand, digital advertising is a way to push your message or product toward a user when they’re not actively looking for it at that moment.

A well-designed marketing plan should incorporate both strategies to achieve the best results.

Earning a master’s degree in digital marketing 

Of course, these are only a few of the key skills you need to succeed in digital marketing.

MIU’s Master’s in Digital Marketing explores many additional areas, blending theoretical knowledge and analytical skills with practical implementation and cutting-edge tools. The program is designed to pave your path into the professional world.
To learn more, check out the study plan to see all you can learn with this U.S. master’s degree.