It might be challenging to distinguish between a decent and a great digital marketer at times. While education, training, and certificates seem great on a CV, soft skills are also a crucial method to set oneself apart from the competition. And it’s important to keep in mind that soft skills are the most human of all talents at a time when there is a lot of speculation about how AI will affect marketers’ jobs, skill sets, and even careers.
Many essential traits for digital marketing are natural or developed over years of toil and experience rather than being learnt in a certain period of time. The following nine soft talents can help you advance in your career in digital marketing.
1. Intuition
It’s possible that you’re thinking, “OK, you either have intuition or you don’t.” But do not worry—great intuition may be developed with practice!
You won’t always have the information you require as a marketer. You frequently have to make judgments based on your intuition when you don’t have the data you need to back them up. You must trust your instincts in these circumstances; it doesn’t do you any good to be afraid of the unknown.
Your ‘intuition’ will be founded on actual information and experience if you have a thorough understanding of your clients and the business. If your ideas fall flat a few times, don’t panic; it happens. Instead, draw a lesson from your errors and remember that your intuition will become stronger with time.
2. Curiosity
For digital marketers, curiosity is a necessary ability, not just a “nice-to-have.”
Every digital marketer has to be curious, passionate, and hungry to learn more about cutting-edge marketing strategies, tools, and tactics since the field of marketing is always evolving.
For instance, you would no longer be regarded as bright in this industry if you were an SEO master in 2018 but haven’t learnt anything new since then. Your understanding will be dated. Whether you handle social media or are a content marketer, the same rules apply.
You might follow your preferred online marketing newspapers using an aggregator AI tool like Feedly (shown below) to remain up to speed on all the most recent marketing news and trends.
3. Social & Communication Skills
People are social creatures. This implies that in addition to speech, we may interact with one another in a variety of ways. We can communicate nonverbally through gestures, body language, and how we look. Being emotionally knowledgeable will enable you to control your own responses and emotions while also being aware of other people.
Without strong social and communication skills, working in a digital marketing team might be disastrous. To achieve the team’s overall objectives, it is crucial that all members, from content marketing to social media, lead generation, product marketing, and design, collaborate.
For you and your business, working alone without effective communication with others won’t produce the greatest outcomes.
4. Persuasion
Since marketing is all about convincing consumers to purchase a product, it stands to reason that excellent marketers possess a wealth of persuasive communication skills. You may align yourself with executive aims through persuasion while maintaining your commitment to what you believe is best for the company.
Consider that you are creating a project brief for your team. Kevin Reid, Senior Training Consultant, offers some successful strategies for persuading team members to agree with your proposal:
Get their attention right away by starting with a startling statistic or a perplexing narrative.
Engage your audience in conversation by hearing what they have to say and looking at them with attention.
Use pauses to lend emphasis to your presentation and to leave room for questions or remarks. A decent rule of thumb is to wait for two seconds after delivering a key point.
Nobody hates to be deceived, so be sure you can stand by what you say and respond to inquiries about it. Be true and honest.
Finish strong – Keep in mind that the final thing you mention in your pitch is likely to be the first thing they will recall.
Remember that marketing is about experimenting, and not everything you do will succeed the first time, so don’t give up if your persuasive approaches fail. Make sure your arguments are logical and not only based on your emotions when you try to persuade people.
