Digital Marketing has attained immense popularity in recent years and for all the good reasons!
Considering how much digital marketing has changed the way companies reach and market to their audiences, it is no more surprising that the demand for skilled digital marketing professionals has been rapidly growing as well.
This quick walk trough will give you a pretty clear idea about what exactly digital marketing is, why it is so essential for your business, and what are those highly valued skills you might need to have at your side.
Here is how it all breaks down:
1. Website Development
Every company today needs to be online because that’s where its consumers are. As much as 51% of the entire population already has access to the internet. The pandemic has only added to the increased importance of a business website. It’s no longer just a representation of the company but also a powerful medium for running the business.
The good news is that even in today’s booming global digital environment, nearly 50-60% of small businesses do not have a website. The bad news though is that the situation is rapidly changing. One in three people today look up a company online before buying any products and if you want to keep up with the competition you do need to make sure your website is up to par.
To create and maintain a functional yet attractive website for the business, you need to be updated with website building platforms, the various coding languages used, and have some flair for it too. It is one of the most in-demand digital marketing skills to have in today’s excessively digital world.
A beginner web developer in-house can easily cost you around $60,000 annually.
2. SEO
Search Engine Optimization is considered to be an unfading skill in digital marketing. Ranking your website on the top of search results will not only increase the incoming traffic but also boost your credibility.
SEO is an analytical field of technology that requires you to have at least a basic understanding of algorithms, know how search engines operate, and make creative decisions on how to link your content to search results.
According to statistics 93% of activities on the Internet are initiated through search engines.
75% of people don’t even bother to look at the second page of search results. It is hence no wonder that Search Engine Optimization itself is an 80 billion dollar industry.
SEO is an essential part of Digital Marketing and is a highly valuable skill. It is even more so because the trends in the SEO industry are evolving rapidly alongside constant algorithm updates and altered optimization tactics.
A beginner Search Engine Optimization Specialist in-house will most likely cost you around $45,000 annually.
3. Content Marketing
Today, search engine optimization alone is not enough to drive traffic to your website. The strategy of the past has now been replaced by strong demand for high-quality content.
Today’s customers will not take any action unless they are impressed by the content published by the company. Content marketers optimize to the highest quality content published by the company intending to deliver traffic to the various web properties of the organization. Unlike social media advertising, this is a form of free promotion.
As audiences become more aware, they want to see high-quality content promoted to them, and companies must keep their social media and on-page blog content relevant and edgy.
It is a very creative job adding a driving force to all your marketing endeavors and strategies. The content marketing specialist should be a people-driven person as he/she has to deal with many team members in order to implement the strategy.
An average in-house content marketing specialist will cost you around $52,000.
4. Paid Media Expertise
Paid media Specialists are responsible for driving traffic to your portal through online advertising on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Google. As a paid media expert, you need the best of both worlds – creative and analytical minds.
They need to quickly determine which platforms are most suitable for reaching their audiences and use their media buying skills to creatively optimize input for the best possible output.
Digital advertising is growing at an astronomic rate worldwide placing paid media experts in a favorable position. The digital advertising market in 2016 has marked about $190 billion in spending. The market has almost doubled in just four years to reach 330 billion U.S. dollars and is only expected to grow as the global market reaches 390 billion dollars in 2021. These numbers are still affected by the pandemic, so one can only imagine what would happen under ideal circumstances.
Paid media, which is one of the emerging job profiles in 2021, has become an even more important part of social media marketing, as the pandemic has prompted more people to spend most of their time online. Since social media keeps growing rapidly, its participation rate will only increase, simultaneously pushing the demand for social media marketing strategists upwards.
The fact that 60% of the marketing budget will be allocated to digital spending further illustrates the growing need for paid media experts.
A paid media specialist in-house may cost you around $66,000.
5. Google Ads and PPC (Pay Per Click )
While Organic Rankings of your website can bring advantages that will increase over time, it will take a while to bring you tangible results. Pay-per-click advertising, however, is an option that immediately gains relevant visibility.
Your business will definitely appear on top of search results, even though, you must pay per single click on the ad. The tricky thing though is that bidding more won’t guarantee your ad will show more because ad relevance and quality score are the factors that determine whether your ad should be shown in the best results.
Craftily leveraging your quality score and ad relevance to make the best out of Pay-Per-Click advertising is the real skill. In addition to balancing your advertising budget, you will need to research the keywords you want to target, the channels to use, and the ad format that best suits your ads.
You will also need to understand how to create a consistent experience for your target audiences. The better your quality score gets the lower will be your cost per click and the higher will be your profits.
PPC doesn’t only apply to search engines. Advertising on social media, mobile applications, various websites, and catalogs also requires this highly demanded digital marketing skill.
An in-house pay-per-click analyst may cost you around $44,000 per year.
6. Video Production and Marketing
Through the past decade, promotional video production has heavily shifted the focus of marketing strategists. Most companies started pushing video content because of its proven ability to quickly attract the attention of users.
And now, with such a rapid advance of smartphones, the youth engages with videos and motion graphics even more than ever. It is no longer just an entertainment medium, but a powerful promotion and lead generation tool, which is especially instrumental in social media marketing.
The onset of applications such as TikTok and/or features similar to Instagram reels has changed the way people perceive video content. A Hubspot study showed that 50% of consumers prefer video content over any other type of content. Therefore, marketing video production has become one of the most desired digital marketing skills in the past decade.
An average video producer can cost you about $57,000 annually.
7. Email-Marketing
Email is a form of marketing that all of us have used for years, but it still remains one of the most valuable marketing strategies.
Statistics show that the return on investment (ROI) for every dollar spent on email marketing is $42, which makes it more rewarding than any other form of marketing, whether it is digital marketing or other forms of marketing.
The convenience and adaptability of Email Marketing make it one of the highest-paid digital marketing skills. It can be used with equal success for engaging inactive customers, converting leads, building customer loyalty, and much more! You can send exclusive offers, event notifications, subscription article pieces, or other engaging content.
The average pay of an Email-Marketing Specialist annually is $55,000.
8. Marketing Automation
Marketing automation involves the technical and software part and is one of the heaviest sides of the wide digital marketing spectrum.
Marketing automation experts set up and optimize software to automate marketing activities. They identify potential customers and automate the process of lead conversion (turning them into sales). This is primarily done through website notifications (pop-up windows, push notifications) and follow-up content delivery such as email marketing, SMS marketing, and social media retargeting.
Marketing automation creates or reises awareness about your brand, establishes or boosts the sales funnel, increases and manages your user base. The more people recognize your brand, the more trust it and eventually buy from it. Most consumers won’t buy when they first visit a website, and that’s where marketing automation sines. It makes sure to keep you relevant in the minds of consumers, which ultimately leads to sales.
The median salary for an in-house marketing automation specialist would be about $61,000.
9. Analytics
Analytics is one of the most technical parts of digital marketing and arguably one of the most important parts of the marketing team. There is an abundance of data available today and it will be a shame if it is not analyzed and used for your benefit. The entire buying journey of a customer can be fully reflected in consumer data. So if you are a numbers person analytics might be the field you want to be in.
Analytics will let you determine whether the campaign succeeded or failed, what adjustments need to be made to your plan, and how to gain more audience for your business. It will help you optimize the sales funnel, streamline the marketing process, evaluate and/or discover new solutions.
Without analytics being an integral part of its development, today’s digital marketing would have nowhere to go. The ability to craftily use various tools to analyze data, discover trends, and turn them into actionable steps is very rare, whereas none of the modern companies serious about their business can survive without this skill.
Hiring an in-house data analyst can be as costly as $61,000 annually.
10. Copywriting
The copywriter job seems so easy if you have never done it. You may be thinking, it’s just writing a few words about the brand, right?
Wrong. Copywriting stands for much more than that – to say the least, you need to be capable of fully conveying the major value of the brand, its objective, and its Unique selling proposition (USP) in just a short statement or maybe even a few words. You effectively become the voice of the brand and have to work closely with the rest of the team to make sure the copy you produce is coherent with their vision.
Copywriters are in high demand because they’re the ones creating those catchy copies and jingles that make customers resonate with brands and keep a passive memory of them.
Apart from outstanding writing skills, a good copywriter needs to stay tuned for the latest brand success case studies, constantly analyze competitor copies, and come up with ways to do better.
An entry-level copywriter will cost you up to $53,000.
11. Design
It has been said that “A picture is worth a thousand words”. That’s why Graphic Design has become a key element in digital marketing, essential for any business striving to get a lasting positive impression. If you want to spread the word about your company and be remembered, the design surely comes first. This is just human nature, visually impressive content has always had far better chances of recollection.
Your design represents your company and builds your brand better than anything else. Since the first impression on the audience is so crucial, you surely need to take advantage of this. Create something that gives people the wow effect. Take the Apple logo as an example. You can’t see the mission, vision, or even the slogan, but you just see the Apple logo and you know it’s an Apple product. This is a perfect case of design speaking louder than words.
Graphis design is also one of the best ways to engage customers. Seasoned Graphic designers have their ways to discover what makes an image stand out enough to get shared.
If you do not include visual content in digital marketing, you will miss a huge opportunity for emotional communication. Even if you are not a designer, it is always helpful to understand the basics of design. All the digital marketing skills you have will give you little flexibility if you need to be dependant on a commissioned designer every now and then.
An entry-level in-house graphic designer may cost you around $46,000 per year.
Conclusion
In today’s highly connected world, small business owners can no longer underestimate the importance of marketing and digital marketing in particular. Every business needs to allocate quite a tangible budget for a competitive online presence. Given the wide spectrum of skills digital marketing requires our best advice for small business owners would be to contract a reliable small agency that can provide personalized attention to your business marketing needs.