From A Digital Marketer to Another
I was recently approached by a friend who wanted to switch her career from traditional marketing to digital marketing. She wondered, is it really that different? While it took her a while to get a whole picture of the digital marketing channels, it really was the difference in the ideal marketer’s traits that she found may pose to be a challenge. Online Marketers are in fact one of the most meticulous creatures on earth. Let me show you why I say this.
Flexibility & Planning
The digital space is always changing and as an online marketer, you’d need to continuously learn as well as unlearn things to be able to adapt. What could be a bizarre idea today might turn out to be the next big thing before the year ends. The challenge isn’t so much about adapting but how to do it the smart way. In other words, it’s about adapting with direction and coming up with short term plans on how best to adapt.
A good charted out plan can pilot Digi-marketers onto the correct path and help them recognize and achieve their goals and objectives. A well-constructed Social Media Marketing calendar could help determine the objective of each post, when to post and budget allocations per se. Nevertheless, with the ever changing landscape, digital marketers would need to be ready to change their plans on the spot and perhaps several times throughout the course of a campaign.
Analyzing
In digital marketing, no plan is ever perfect. There will always be room for improvement. A good digital marketer knows this well and is never daunted by short term failures. It really all comes down to regular data analysis for each and every project. The fastest and most precise way to identify whether a strategy works or not is from the results and apparently, results does not need to be measured at the very end of the campaign, but in intervals. The truly effective digital marketer is not afraid to fail, but instead effectively learn from each and every slip to develop better strategies.
Problem Solving
Even though a digital marketing campaign may have been well-planned, double-checked and adjusted a few times, most likely it will be adjusted a few more times throughout the campaign lifetime. A slight change in the industry could easily render campaigns haywire. For instance, a simple algorithm update by search engines may cause a huge website traffic drop overnight. It’s then the digital marketer’s job to combine tools, technique and skills gathered from experience to take immediate action in order to minimize potential damage.
Finally, of all the traits a digital marketer should have to succeed, one the most essential is the ability to continuously learn. Contrary to beliefs, I would think digital marketing has really just started now and is far from saturation. The era of big data has really just begun and it’s a matter of keeping your strategies fresh and effective. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before the Internet of Things is truly born.
