The modern digital marketer’s repertoire of skills is quite different from what it used to be back in the early days of web marketing. While it is important for you to take numerous digital marketing courses to become good at your job and expand your marketing skills, you might be a bit surprised to find out that nowadays the best marketers are also acquiring some basic IT skills to boot. Why? Because for one, clients want industry experts that can provide a wide range of services, and two, the more complementary skills you have, the higher the chances that you’ll score those high-paying clients.
Yes, the world of digital marketing is evolving and adopting various processes from other industries, such as IT, and even though you don’t have to be the Jack of all trades, it certainly pays to broaden your skillset over time. That’s why today we’ll be taking a look at some of the best IT skills that you should consider adding to your arsenal to become a better, more sought-after digital marketer. And hey, if you have your own digital agency, having your employees master these skills can help take your brand forward as a whole.
Expanding Your Skills With Web Development
Web development is all the rage nowadays, simply because every company needs a website, and every brand expects at least one of their marketing experts to take care of simple site upkeep, touch-ups, and front-end and back-end tasks. Needless to say, you want to be that employee whether you’re working in a marketing department or if you’re in a dedicated marketing agency. In fact, learning the basics of web design can help push your career forward and make you more marketable (pun intended) to industry leaders and notable brands.
While we will talk about WordPress in a moment, it’s important to first note the two coding languages used in from-the-ground-up web development – CSS and HTML. Now, you don’t have to rebrand yourself as a coding expert, but taking some IT courses to learn these coding languages can definitely help acquire and retain high-paying clients that want an all-in-one solution from their marketers.
By learning CSS and HTML basics, you will be able to manage websites for your clients and take care of basic site design issues, front-end optimization, blogs, and much more – all of which you can charge a hefty sum for.
Leveraging WordPress for Content Management
Unlike the specific coding languages that are geared more towards IT experts, WordPress was envisioned as an easy-to-use CMS platform that anyone can leverage to build a website quickly and manage their online presentation with ease. So naturally, you shouldn’t expect WordPress training to take up too much of your time, but you can expect it to produce some great rewards once you learn how to create and manage websites on the platform.
Whether you’re trying to monetize your own WordPress blog, or if a client needs someone to manage their website, there is no denying that learning the basics of this intuitive platform will be worth your while. WordPress even allows you to create a free practice site where you can test your skills and master them over time so that you can deliver an amazing service to your clients.
Understanding Cybersecurity Best Practices
Global enterprises have dedicated cyber security teams, so if you’re working for a giant in your industry, you won’t have to worry about website security and protecting a company’s data center. However, if you don’t have a cyber security department in your company or your digital agency, then finding and taking some of the best IT courses may be worth your while, especially if you want to provide a better overall service to your clients. While this doesn’t mean that you have to specialize in cyber security, it does mean that you should learn the best practices.
Start with cyber security basics like avoiding and preventing phishing attacks, and then move on to creating stronger passwords, domain security, data encryption, performing backups, and the like. You can even learn how to use network monitoring tools to help identify cyber threats for your clients and help keep their websites safe from attacks.
Acquiring Essential Design Skills
Typically, a digital agency will have a dedicated design team, but whether you’re flying solo or if you’re working in one such agency, it’s a good idea to acquire some basic graphic and web design skills to help improve your marketing processes. This is also a good way for you to facilitate better cross-department collaboration between other marketers in your agency and their colleagues from the design team.
By understanding the processes and tasks involved in web and graphic design, and by acquiring practical knowledge in the field, you can even improve productivity and take care of some menial tasks yourself instead of rushing the material back to the designers for a touch-up. Imagine being able to fix a graphic on a moment’s notice on your computer and send it to a client immediately instead of waiting for the designers to get around to it – all that power, right there in your hands.
Analyzing Key Industry Data
Finally, being able to collect and collate relevant data and organize it all into meaningful reports is one of the best ways to elevate your value as an industry professional and deliver a more well-rounded service to your clients. Companies are nowadays expecting marketing professionals to act on verified industry data instead of their gut feeling, but it’s no longer enough for you to simply keep track of the trends – you also need to analyze key metrics and internal data.
Of course, you don’t have to do this manually, as you can simply combine AI with big data analytics and shorten the process while analyzing vast amounts of industry information. It’s a small investment for a big long-term payoff.
Wrapping up
Acquiring skills from the IT sector and weaving them into your marketing arsenal is not imperative, but it can give you a competitive advantage. Consider adding one or more of these skills into your repertoire, and watch as you become more desirable, profitable, and sought after in the digital marketing world.
