Understanding digital marketing and data analytics
Digital marketing has become a key discipline and investment area for many organizations, especially in the last decade as more people consume information digitally via their mobile phones. Digital marketing is such a dynamic space, and it’s especially interesting to see its evolution and development, particularly in data and data analytics. Instead of making decisions purely from intuition and anecdotes by the marketing department, today, due to the availability of data and data analytics tools, marketers are better equipped with the ability to generate insights, helping them make better informed decisions that take into consideration the customers’ behaviour and intent signals.
The latest HubSpot Blog’s Marketing Strategy Survey results highlights that digital marketing as a domain will continue to grow in the next year. This is important to know and keep in mind, not just for existing marketers and organizations, but most importantly for those who plan to shape or shift a digital marketing career. Let’s explore how digital marketing and data analytics can be utilized by those interested in developing a career in this field.
Importance of Digital Marketing
There are, for sure, many definitions of digital marketing. Still, the one we will share with you here is the one by HubSpot that refers to digital (or online) marketing as “all marketing efforts that occur on the internet”.
Organizations today use search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect and communicate with existing and potential customers. Briefly, these are some of the benefits that organizations or individuals can gain from digital marketing:
- Global reach – Geographic boundaries constrain traditional marketing, but since digital marketing occurs online, the potential customer base is increased worldwide.
- Local reach – Local SEO and locally targeted marketing can be beneficial for any organization interested in attracting more customers. Digital marketing can afford that reach.
- Lower cost – Even though some digital marketing efforts can be expensive, compared to other solutions to reach the potential audience, it offers cost-effective possibilities.
- Increased engagement – Digital marketing is intended to be very engaging, allowing everyone to use digital marketing to generate more exciting posts, raise brand awareness and sales and build a community.
Knowing about these and other benefits can be helpful for any woman entrepreneur and any woman who works or plans to work in marketing. By utilizing these benefits, any marketing strategy or goal can be optimized.
Importance of Data and Data Analytic in Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is measurable. And data analytics is getting meaningful insights from data and, based on that, making decisions. Knowing this, we’ll point out three key reasons why data and analytics are essential for digital marketing:
- Customer satisfaction – The gathered data from different sources (websites, chats, applications, social media, stores etc.) and, after that, analyzed data, can help organizations to understand their customers, how they engage and behave and what actions they take. Based on this, organizations can improve their products and services and satisfy customers’ needs.
- Increased Return on Investment (ROI) – Data analytics can help organizations connect with customers and build relationships. That can reflect in measurable efforts or, in other words, better ROI. According to one article in Forbes, analytics has helped 44% of organizations to gain new customers and generate better ROI.
- Competitive advantage – The data you collect about your competitors and the market helps you stay updated about the market, take real-time actions, make changes in your campaigns according to the market sentiments and be prepared for upcoming challenges.
Benefits of a Career in Digital Marketing
Now the most important part – knowing about the importance of digital marketing and data analytics, how anyone interested in contributing to an organization towards the benefits mentioned above can focus on a career in this field?
A marketing degree can help anyone secure the desired position (and pay). But for a career in digital marketing, there are many other cases where people with no particular educational qualifications or just a certificate pursued after a short-term digital marketing course can succeed if they have passion and dedication.
For those once, here are some tips they can use to start a journey in digital marketing. As mentioned, one tip is to enrol in a paid online digital marketing course. In that way, the needed practical knowledge can be gained. Suppose it is challenging to identify those courses. Another option is to buy a digital marketing book or read blogs that can help learn digital marketing and keep anyone updated on the latest happenings in online marketing. LinkedIn or YouTube is the place to be for those who want to explore resources on social platforms. Following digital marketing influencers on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram is also an option to enrich the knowledge about the industry. Remember that there are plenty of podcasts on this topic where the learning can start and continue. Another great approach is the webinars, after which the PPTs can be available and helpful for learning.
We mentioned the skills several times. While working in digital marketing, you can gain technical knowledge and learn new skills. Some of those skills are:
- Data Visualization: Presenting numbers found in data in a usable and meaningful way.
- Critical Thinking: Ability to interpret information and understand the data.
- Communication: Ability to present the data in a form people can comprehend.
- Technical Skills: Proficiency with programming languages designed for big data.
- Entrepreneurial Skills: Understanding different kinds of businesses and industries, especially those that will work for a marketing agency.
Many findings lead to the information that there are great rewards in digital marketing jobs, followed by good salary packages. Another benefit that is frequently emphasized is the flexible workplace and schedule, as well as an energetic and enthusiastic work culture.
Final Words
To obtain the skills for a career in digital marketing and data analytics and to earn the needed certificate, follow certified training programs that She Loves Data offers, supported by its partners. These types of certified programs can prepare you for a career in many jobs, including digital marketing manager, search engine optimiser and search engine marketing specialist – SEO and SEMs, social media marketer, content marketer, email marketer, and related jobs like automation expert, content creator for AR- VR and web developer.
If you’re looking for a foundational program to upskill yourself in the area of digital marketing, look no further. You may pre-register yourself for the She Loves Data digital certification program, SLDxDigital, right here: https://bit.ly/SLDxDigitalPreReg
