Published on May 29th, 2020 | by Olaila lee

Top 5 In-Demand Hard Skills in Marketing and Data in 2020

The outbreak of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has made a significant impact on almost every aspect of our lives. Most schools and colleges around the world are still not allowing the students on the campus. Most workplaces are also being operated with limited manpower. If you are also stuck at home due to the pandemic, perhaps you can use this time to upgrade certain skills.

If you are interested in digital marketing, this is a great time to improve your hard skills for the industry. Even though a lot of businesses are laying off their employees due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is safe to say that digital marketing will remain relevant in 2020 and the years to come. So, if you want to have a successful career in marketing, it is best to acquire these following skills that are currently in demand.

Content curation

Content has been one of the most effective tools for marketers in attracting, convincing and converting people into loyal customers over the years. However, the amount of digital information has increased exponentially in the past few years. So, digital marketers need the skill to curate content that can generate high click-through rates amidst the ocean of thousands of blogs, infographics, articles and more.

To develop this kind of skill, you need to stay active on social media feeds and online portals to research the different types of content that the most successful brands are developing. You can learn about the content that is generating the most number of “likes” and “shares” on various social media platforms. This knowledge can help you curate the content of similar value.

Lead nurturing

In today’s market, hard sales tactics and cold calls don’t deliver desired results for the businesses, lead nurturing does. In the B2B industry, lead nurturing through sales funnel is deemed as one of the essential skills for digital marketers. Needless to say, it is a great time to acquire this highly sought after skill if you want to succeed in the professional front.

You need to work on your communication efforts on listening to the needs of your prospects and provide them with information and answers that they need. As a professional, you will have to develop and maintain a good relationship with the prospects to turn them into loyal customers.

SEO specialisation

Anyone, who deals with digital marketing, knows how significant search engine optimisation (SEO) is to an online business. However, the trickiest part of SEO is that the algorithms dictating its functions keep changing from time to time. Having said that, SEO skills are still in-demand across various industries, and with proper SEO skills, you can certainly land a high-paying job at a reputed organisation.

One of the primary functions of SEO is to make sure that a particular web page appears among the top results for a particular keyword search on search engines like Google. So, you need to educate yourself about all the factors that influence the ranking of a webpage and how SEO can help improve them. Since the SEO requirements change with time, you need to have a good understanding of user intent as that remains significant to the search engine rankings all the time.

The expertise of handling marketing tools

To be a successful digital marketer, it is important that you know how to handle the different marketing tools available in the industry. People who are good at handling the essential marketing tools are more likely to land a job in today’s date. Here are a few marketing tools that you should focus on mastering:

Social media marketing tools

As a digital marketer, you will have to monitor various social media accounts and measure the effectiveness of your social media marketing strategies. While there are dedicated tools like Buffers and HootSuite, platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google have their very own built-in analytics.

SEO tools

While developing your SEO skills, you should also focus on improving your ability to handle SEO tools like MOZ, Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner, Open Site Explorer etc.

Image and design tools

Mastering good SEO skills and content curating skills won’t be enough to help you push your content to the readers. You will also need to work on the visual appeal of your blogs and websites. There are several tools like Adobe Photoshop, Canva, Piktochart, SlideShare, etc. where you can create visual content.

Apart from these tools, you may also need to take a look at the email marketing tools like the MailChimp, and productivity tools like Evernote and Google Alerts to boost your overall skillset.

UX design

User experience, more commonly known as user experience, is an essential tool to optimise the overall experience of the customer. Whether you realise r not, the UX design of a website has a significant impact on the buying habits and decision-making processes among the consumers. As a UX expert, you can provide behavioural knowledge to identify problems with apps, websites and tools that are causing the customers to drop out of the buying process.

There are several online courses available on UX design. You can take a look at Udemy or other online learning platforms to learn more about UX design. A proficient UX designer is in high demand as he/she can help the businesses streamline customer experience with UX optimised website, and direct the prospects through the sales funnel.

In conclusion

It may not be easier for you to develop such skills on your own. So, it will be better if you check out a few reliable digital marketing courses during the period of lockdown. Some of these courses are even available for free.

Tags: covid, design, lead, marketing, SEO, social media, tools

About the Author

Olaila lee is a content manager at a reputed firm in the Australia. She also offers reliable chicago referencing style to students through Myassignmenthelp.com. Ruth loves to play soccer during the weekends.