6 digital marketing skills every brand needs to invest in to ensure successful strategies

Digital marketing moves at a rapid pace, with new technologies and trending strategies seemingly appearing overnight. This makes it crucial for brands to keep up, which means having the right talent on your team.

But which digital marketing skills should you be investing in right now? If budget is a key factor and you’re aiming to future-proof your marketing operations, you need to know which skill sets to focus on.

Here, we’ll run through the most critical digital marketing skills every brand needs for strategy and campaign success.

1: Data analytics and interpretation

Today’s online marketing decisions are driven by data. While storytelling, creative skills and an understanding of consumer psychology are all vital for marketing success, campaigns and strategies still need to be based on cold, hard facts. If you want to maintain a competitive edge, you simply can’t afford to run campaigns based on assumptions or ‘gut feelings’ about your target audience.

Brands these days are able to generate enormous volumes of data, from their websites, social media platforms, customer interactions and eCommerce reports. But this data is worthless unless you know how to analyse and interpret it, and use these findings as the backbone for smarter, highly targeted campaigns in the future.

So, you should be looking to hire professionals with a high level of data literacy. This means people who are able to:

• Leverage tools such as Google Analytics and CRM platform reporting functions
• Spot trends, patterns and potential opportunities in data
• Use data to take effective action, rather than just collecting it – this means knowing which information really matters, looking beyond vanity metrics
• Develop strategies based on a solid statistical foundation
• Use data responsibly, in line with GDPR and other data protection laws.

2: AI literacy and prompt engineering for marketing

AI has transformed digital marketing, and the pace of change is only speeding up. This means brands simply can’t afford to be left behind – now is the time to invest in AI marketing skills.

While it may depend how you leverage AI tools within your brand – whether it’s content creation, personalisation, automation or improving campaign efficiency – there are certain skills you should be looking for.

This includes:

• Knowing how to create effective prompts for generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Jasper and others, while maintaining brand tone and keeping quality high in content and creative assets
• Identifying opportunities to automate tasks and processes, to free up time to focus on higher-value marketing work
• Using AI for predictive analysis, ad copy testing, audience research and campaign analysis
• Understanding AI ethics (such as bias, transparency and copyright concerns).

3: Strategic content creation (beyond traditional formats)

To engage what are often fragmented audiences, marketers need to go beyond traditional or standard blogs and social posts.

Content creation needs to be multi-format and audience-focused, with storytelling that adapts to platform-specific behaviours and preferences. For example, you need to create content specifically for TikTok, rather than roll out the same content across all channels.

A great marketer working within content creation will be experimenting with formats, including podcasts, interactive content, live streaming and even AR/VR experiences. They’ll be able to blend strategy with creativity, to create high quality work that really resonates with a specific target audience.

4: Customer experience (CX) design and optimisation

Marketing doesn’t stop at simply winning customers – it also needs to work hard to retain them, build loyalty and nurture brand advocacy. And with consumer expectations rising all the time, investing in CX design is more important than ever.

Journey mapping is a key skill in this area, where the entire customer experience is both analysed in detail and considered from a holistic point of view. Marketers need to develop personalisation strategies across key digital touchpoints, from emails to app interactions. They can also leverage customer feedback to inform future content and campaigns.

5: Performance marketing and ROI analysis

With marketing campaigns for large brands often being allocated eye-watering budgets, it’s understandable that CFOs and CMOs want to see clear proof of return.

To demonstrate ROI and keep campaigns on track, brands should be looking for marketers with strong analytical and financial acumen – not just creative ability. Key skills include:

• Setting up accurate tracking frameworks such as Urchin Tracking Modules (UTMs) and attribution models
• Understanding how to calculate ROI across multi-channel campaigns
• Managing budget allocation based on channel performance

6: Adaptability and continuous learning

As we’ve already discussed, digital marketing tools, techniques and technologies move really, really fast – and so do consumer behaviours. It isn’t an industry where you can sit still or rest on your laurels.

Marketers need to be adaptable to keep pace with platform changes, and ready to test out new ideas and pivot to new strategies at short notice.

Brands should be investing in continuous learning and upskilling, using everything from online courses to industry networking opportunities. This will help to build a team that is well grounded in solid digital marketing skills, but also ready to embrace whatever the future may bring.