A digital marketing specialist, also known as a digital marketer, is a professional who is in charge of promoting a brand online using all accessible digital marketing platforms.
These professionals create, develop, and manage online marketing strategies across a variety of platforms, including organic search, paid search, display advertising, email and social media. They collaborate with a company’s marketing team to determine a target market, develop a brand image and manage an online presence.
In the past twenty years, the concept of digital marketing has taken over traditional marketing. Digital marketing offers a form of a unique opportunity for a two-way interchange between brands and their customers. Whereby, both parties can contribute while adding value not just to a business, but also to the customer.
Digital Marketing specialists can specialise in certain areas, such as:
- Search Engine Marketing (includes SEO and PPC advertising)
- Website Marketing
- Display Advertising
- Social Media Marketing
- Content Marketing and Campaigns
- Affiliate Marketing
- Video Marketing
- Email marketing
Furthermore, most digital marketing specialist jobs are in-house positions, thus making the role very demanding with an opportunity to advance.
Digital Marketing Specialist Responsibilities
A digital marketing specialist’s responsibilities range from executing digital strategies to producing copy or content to establishing campaigns. As a digital marketer, you have so much to offer. A detailed list of the duties of a digital marketing professional is provided below:
Ad Copywriting & Content Creation
Although some companies may hire in-house writers or freelance writers, digital marketing specialists are, however, expected to perform ad copywriting and content creation to support their online marketing campaigns.
Design and Carry out Digital Marketing Campaigns
Digital marketing professionals create and implement digital strategies for an organisation. They also create, plan and execute digital marketing campaigns across numerous channels and platforms. A digital marketer helps a company raise awareness about their brand, goods and services b employing organic search campaigns, paid advertising, email marketing, social media, and other platforms.
Related Article: How to Become a Digital Marketing Consultant
Manages Websites and Content Publishing
Digital marketing professionals manage their company’s websites and provide content to assist marketing initiatives. Technical website optimizations can also be performed by a digital marketing professional by modifying HTML or CSS code.
Manage and Optimise Marketing Campaigns
Digital marketers are required to track and optimise the success of marketing campaigns over time. They also employ data analytics software solutions such as Google Analytics to better understand how web traffic is produced. Furthermore, they discover the finest prospects to promote corporate goals such as growing brand recognition or conversions. They also apply visual design expertise in conjunction with conversion rate optimization (CRO) technologies to increase landing page performance and generate conversions.
Other Duties Include:
- Research advertising trends
- Research competitors’ pricing and products
- Implement email marketing campaigns
- Measure digital traffic
- Monitor social media
- Report on the growth and analytics of campaigns to stakeholders
- Scale campaigns to maximize ROI
- Monitor project status and budget
- Conduct market research to inform campaigns
- Brainstorm and implement experiments and conversion tests
What is the workplace of a Digital Marketing Specialist like?
Digital marketing professionals may work for an agency, in-house, or create their own business. They can also work as digital sales executives, internet marketing professionals, SEO marketing specialists, or digital marketing directors, among other things.
What is the Average Salary of a Digital Marketing Specialist?
The average annual salary of a digital marketing specialist in the U.S is $61,902. However, some cities pay higher average salaries than the national average annual salary. For example, in New York, NY, the average salary is $75,304 per year; in San Diego, CA, the average salary is $72,274 per year; Irvine, CA pays an average salary of $70,419 per year; Chicago, IL, pays an average salary of $66,621 per year, while the average annual salary of Denver, CO is $65,447 per year.
Similarly, in the UK, the average annual salary of a digital marketing specialist is £32,500 per year or £16.67 per hour. Entry-level positions start at £28,000 per year while most experienced workers make up to £45,000 per year.
Relatively, the average annual salary of a digital marketing specialist in Canada is $57,500 per year or $29.49 per hour. Entry-level positions start at $48,373 per year, while most experienced workers make up to $72,738 per year.
Top Digital Marketing Specialist’s Soft Skills
Here are the top eight important skills of a Digital Marketer:
- Pay-per-click Advertising (PPC) – Digital marketers are required to produce lucrative PPC campaigns across many ad networks, such as Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and Paid social advertising.
- Search engine optimization (SEO) – Digital marketing experts must have an in-depth understanding of SEO as well as the capacity to build and manage organic search campaigns.
- Data analysis – This is used by digital marketing experts to assess, evaluate, and report on campaign performance. Analytics expertise is required for producing accurate insights and making data-driven marketing decisions.
- Email Marketing – Digital marketers create email marketing campaigns and then support them with newsletters and lead nurturing emails that keep prospects engaged until they are ready to buy.
- Social Media Marketing – Digital marketing specialists are expected to be experts in growing high-quality followers and building engagement across the four main social channels: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
- Digital PR – Digital PR is a type of marketing that focuses on creating and expanding an online presence through the development of high-quality backlinks, news releases, guest posting, and other activities that raise the status and brand visibility online.
- Website content management systems (CMS) – To fulfil their website administration and content publishing responsibilities, digital marketing specialists should be experts in website content management systems – especially WordPress, the CMS used by nearly a third of all websites.
- Content Marketing – Digital marketing professionals should be knowledgeable about the process of material marketing and how to develop content that is memorable, shareable, and valuable, as well as content that generates actual engagement from interested audiences.
Education Requirement for a Digital Marketing Specialist
Digital Marketing Specialists should have a bachelor’s degree or an associate degree or diploma in Marketing, Business, English or other related courses.
Although, most organisations may not concern themselves with the course of study; however, such candidates should possess a digital marketing certification or relevant experience.