7 Essential Soft Skills for Digital Marketers You Must Have.

The importance of soft skills in digital marketing is usually underestimated when it should also be a priority. Now, I am not saying that technical or hard skills are not important because it is practically impossible to succeed as a digital marketer if you don’t know what you are doing. What I am saying is that although technical skills can make you a great digital marketer, it is not enough to give you an advantage over other great digital marketers out there. Anybody can learn the needed technical skills, but it takes more to have the essential soft skills for digital marketers because those are more innate. However, they can be cultivated if you can identify the essential soft skills for digital marketers you need. In this article, we will be looking at some of them:

Here are 7 essential soft skills every digital marketer must seek to have:

Communication Skills

There are two ways to look at this; the majority of what you will be doing as a digital marketer is communication in one form or the other. I mean, how would you describe digital marketing to a layman? It is simply marketing goods and services to potential customers online. And marketing is basically communication. So, you see why great communication skill is indispensable if you want to thrive as a digital marketer. You need to know the best way to engage the target audience to get them to listen to you. 

On the other hand, digital marketers will need to collaborate with other members of the team, including Copywriters or Content Writers, Designers, Social Media Managers and so on. And if they cannot work with others, it will affect the campaign. They will also be in constant communication with customers and will need to communicate their thoughts in a way that is clear and inoffensive to anybody. 

Adaptability

The pitch of the digital marketer is the digital world and the digital world is ever-evolving. What was acceptable six months ago might not be acceptable now; not with the different online marketing platforms constantly changing their policies and updating their algorithm. So, a digital marketer cannot afford to be rigid; you need to be able to quickly do away with long-held beliefs and move with what works now.

Also, as a digital marketer; you will have to work for different clients across different fields with different target audiences. And we all know that the language of the target audience of brand A might be completely different from that of brand B for several reasons. This is why digital marketers need to adapt to any and every field, even if it is an unfamiliar one. 

Curiosity 

Like I mentioned earlier, the digital world is always evolving, therefore, you cannot afford to be satisfied with your present knowledge. If you don’t want to become irrelevant, you will need to develop a thirst for knowledge; that is, constantly searching for new updates and tips to discharge your responsibility better. A digital marketer without adequate curiosity or thirst for knowledge will soon become redundant.

Multitasking

You are likely going to be working on several projects at the same time; you need to learn to multitask in order to maximise time and offer excellence on all the projects. You cannot do well as a digital marketer if you are easily overwhelmed. I would recommend carrying your team along by delegating where you should and also automating some of the processes.

Persuasion Skills

This is quite similar to communication skills but being persuasive takes it a little further. Everybody communicates but not everybody knows how to communicate to sell. And this is something you have to do as a marketer. So, it is only expected that you develop persuasive skills to sell your clients’ products or services.

Tenacity 

You are going to be doing a lot of experimentation as a marketer; some of what you assume might work won’t work and some of what you think won’t work might just work. You are dealing with humans, remember, and if there is one thing we know about humans, it is that we are unpredictable. So, you cannot always predict marketing results. It, therefore, becomes necessary to be tenacious. You can’t let failure beat you up and make you give up. Keep learning and keep trying.

Creativity 

Of course, creativity is one of the essential soft skills for digital marketers. Creativity is important because you have to be creative when coming up with copies and designs. Even if your organisation has Copywriters and Designers to do that, you should be able to identify what’s good and collaborate with them creatively.

To wrap up, now that you know the soft skills to cultivate as a digital marketer, you can also improve on your technical skills by taking a course in digital marketing at Big Field Digital Academy. Let us know if you found this article helpful!