12 Essential Soft Skills for Digital Marketers

When it comes to marketing, there are many different things that go on behind the scenes. As such, there are certain soft skills that digital marketers will need to possess in order to be able to pull off the ultimate marketing campaign. Whether you’re already a marketer who is looking to up their game, or if you’re wanting to pursue a career in the field, here are some of the most essential skills that you will need to have. You can teach yourself some of these skills, but a few of them require no training at all to acquire. Here are 12 essential soft skills for digital marketers, whether you can teach yourself some of them or not:

1. Having intuition

Intuition is something that’s paramount to marketing, no matter what area of marketing you work in. You might think that you either have intuition or you don’t, but this isn’t actually the case. When it comes to marketing, not every piece of data is available to you, which can be detrimental when it comes to making important decisions about campaigns to run or tactics to use. 

You need to find some information that will support your decisions, but that’s not always forthcoming. As such, you can’t fear the unknown. Use your intuition and gut feelings about your strategies and campaigns, especially if you have a good understanding of a client, their customers and their business. There will be times when your decisions don’t pull off, and that’s ok. It can fall down to trial and error in some cases. Simply learn from the experience and apply that to future cases where intuition is needed.

2. Possessing social & communication skills

This is an imperative skill to possess as a marketer, for a number of reasons. Firstly, you will be required to liaise with clients, either via email or over the phone. You will also need to clearly communicate with other marketers, making it clear of your requests and intentions. As well as this, there might be instances where you’re required to write or produce content for informational or advertising purposes. 

In addition, you could be required to manage social media accounts. As such, you need to be coherent when it comes to posting things online. Followers need to to understand what you have shared with them. Where this might seem simple, posting on social media for marketing purposes is a little more complex than you might have otherwise thought. There’s a formula to it. 

Not only do you need to get your point across, but you need to be helpful and persuasive, as well as ensure that a ‘call to action’ (CTA) is included for good measure. This is the same for any content piece, whether it be long-form, short-form, macro or micro. You will be expected to have good, solid social and communication skills if you’re looking to up your game in the marketing industry.

3. Feelings of curiosity

Being curious is a good quality to have when it comes to marketing. This is because, sometimes, you have to play “detective”, so to speak. There are some instances where things will happen unexpectedly and/or mysteriously, and it’s your job to go away and look into it. This requires some level of curiosity. 

You need to be proactive when it comes to looking into results that are unexpected or unexplained. Leave no stone unturned and think outside of the box. Be curious about things, don’t just pass it off as an anomaly or something that will “right itself”, because nine times out of ten, this isn’t actually the case.

4. Being organised

Being organised is key to being a good marketer. Not only do you need to develop campaigns, from start to finish, but you also need to monitor the results, write content, publish content and meet several deadlines. When it comes to marketing, it’s very rare that you will be assigned only to one client. It’s a juggling act between multiple customers, and they each need to receive the same level of customer care and service. Make sure you’re organised in order to make it far easier to deliver great results to all of your clients. It also means that you’ll be able to enjoy some of your own free time, ensuring you have annual leave booked when needed, without having to worry about falling behind or forgetting to do something before you clock off for a break.

5. Taking an interest in analytics

Analytics are important when it comes to the marketing industry. In fact, a lot of the work marketers do hinge on analytical data. You need to look at everything from the amount of traffic a site is getting to bounce rates. This, in turn, harms you with all of the information you need to be able to carry out the best possible work and provide excellent customer service to your clients. 

Without knowing the analytical side of things, you’ll find that you’re producing content with little-to-no-value, because no one will read it, for example. Analytics are also involved when it comes to keywords and phrases. Look into search volumes of words and phrases to ensure you’re producing relevant, valuable content that someone is actually searching for. The need to be analytical does, arguably, come hand-in-hand with being curious.

6. Listening to every side

As we’ve already touched upon, much of marketing involves doing some detective work, so you need to make sure that you’re open-minded. This means listening to all sides of the story. You need to look at what your software is saying, but you also need to listen to what your client is saying. 

If your client says that they’re not receiving the leads or sales they used to get, and your resources are saying otherwise, then you need to look into where the discrepancy lies. You can’t just turn around to your client and say “well, my software is saying different, so you’re wrong”. 

You need to look into the issue and you need to listen to every side of the problem. Talk things through with your managers and other marketers, seeking advice or a second opinion. Look at the tools you’re using; are they up-to-date? What methods are you using? Triple-check every aspect of your data and your work and take everything into account. This, coupled with curiosity, will ensure your problem is solved.

7. Having the power of persuasion

Marketing is all about advertising businesses and making sure that they get as much exposure as possible. Some of that involves having some persuasion skills. Persuasion is paramount when it comes to sales and advertising. You need to be enticing people in, urging them to click on websites, articles and social media postings. Therefore, you need to have the art of persuasion when it comes to marketing and pulling off your campaign seamlessly, with the best possible results.

8. Being confident when it comes to using technology

Marketing involves using a wealth of different pieces of technology. It also requires some understanding of technology in order to enable you to make sure you’re using it to its full potential. From working on your state-of-the-art laptop to navigating around Google Analytics, there are multiple things you’ll be required to do, and various pieces of technology that you’ll need to be able to use, so being confident with that side of things is important in the world of marketing and pulling off a stellar campaign.

9. Not shying away from difficult conversations

Marketing can bring with it some difficult conversations to have. Whether you don’t agree with the way a colleague has gone about something or if you need to explain some negative results to a client, you need to be cool, calm and collected when it comes to making sure you’re facing the challenging conversations and situations head on. 

Don’t think too deeply into something and, most importantly, never take it personally. Whether you’ve already developed this particular skill, or if you’re looking at gaining the relevant experience to be able to acquire those skills, it’s something you will have to face at some point or another in the marketing industry.

10. Ensuring easy adaptability

As we’ve already touched upon, marketing is a turbulent industry. It’s extremely fluid where multiple aspects are in constant flux, so making sure that you can adapt to different, ever-changing aspects of the marketing industry is key. In addition to changing algorithms that can throw your campaigns off track, you might find that your employer brings in new software or time management programmes that you will need to learn how to operate. You can’t stay in your ways if the world around you is changing, and marketing is just that – ever-changing. As such, make sure you can adapt to any situation or change seamlessly and with the utmost professionalism.

11. The ability to multitask

Multitasking is an important skill to have in marketing. This is usually because we deal with numerous different clients all at the same time, and each client will work in a different industry or sector and, therefore, will have different requirements and expectations. You need to make sure that you can efficiently multitask in order to get as many jobs done as possible. However, there is an art to multitasking. It can be easy to become overwhelmed and to forget about things. But that being said, you should couple this with the other skill we have mentioned – being organised. If you’re organised and have a to-do list laid out at the start of every day, you’ll be able to multitask expertly.

12. Having some level of creativity

Marketing isn’t just about enticing people in and being able to talk-the-talk, so to speak. You need to be creative in the industry. This is because, no matter what your speciality might be in the business, you will be required to create content and distribute it in some form. From designing a website and formatting website pages to writing prose and choosing images to go alongside your content, marketing is full of creative people who are responsible for keeping operations running smoothly, often behind the scenes. 

Kumo is a specialist digital marketing agency with over two decades of experience in the industry. We have SEO, PPC, content writing and website design services available, enabling us to propel your business into the spotlight and set you apart from your competitors. If you would like further information about how we can help you today, get in touch with a member of our professional team – we’re always pleased to hear from you.