How to overcome your digital marketing skills gap

The world is changing quickly and technology is constantly improving and challenging our usual behaviours and ways of communicating. For marketers, it could sometimes feel impossible to keep up with the trends and constantly tailor the marketing initiatives to match the current environment. 

Do you keep up with the changes and have the up-to-date knowledge required to succeed as a digital marketer?

These basic tips could be helpful if you want to overcome your digital marketing knowledge gap and stay up-to-date:

List the areas where you lack knowledge

There are no shortcuts to getting skilled (in anything really). Write down the things you need to know more about to improve as a marketer. For example, do you know the terminology? What is SEO, PPC and Vlogging? This A-Z page is a good source if you want to improve you digital vocabulary. If you want to learn more about SEO, Moz is a great source to read and follow.

Be curious, learn and stay up-to-date

When you have listed the things you need to understand better— find the answers and become the expert!

Google and subscribe to blogs that focus on topics you want to learn more about. You can also sign up for online webinars and get certified via online trainings. Many of those trainings are even free of charge.

If you find it difficult to find good online sources to rely on, here are a few to get you started:

• HubSpot blog – inbound tips and marketing ideas. 
• Harvard Business Review blog – articles on innovation, marketing, technology and more.
• TEDTalks – recorded seminars on various accurate subjects.
• Marketing charts – interesting stats.
• Searchmetrics and MoZ blog – SEO insights and updates. 
• VSCO and Ello – art and visual inspiration.
• Content Marketing Institute – content strategy, research and ’How-To’
• Shopify – A blog about ecommerce marketing. ​

Also, go to Learn and The Onlinifification Hub.

Be critical

As always—be sceptical and find out why things work in a certain way and why you should use them. Keep in mind that new initiatives should support your business strategy.

Learn by doing—test and evaluate

Apply new ideas on your business. Start small and evaluate before you scale up – or bin the idea if it proves not to be working. A good marketer must not be afraid of trying new things, but she must also carefully analyse the result and adapt based on the result.

Here at Zooma, only a small group started business blogging. Later on, when the blog attracted visitors, and our colleagues got new insights, we scaled up to challenge all Zoomers to become frequent content creators in their specific areas of expertise. In this way everyone is encouraged to stay up-to-date and we all improve our knowledge and way of working on a daily basis. To top it, we attract even more consumers of our content. 

Start networking

Surround yourself with knowledgeable people and don’t hesitate to ask them for advice. Follow the people you get inspired by on LinkedIn, Twitter, their pods, blogs and other offsite touch points. Engage and share your thoughts with them. After all, it’s by interacting with other (more knowledgeable) people we learn most things in life.

I have compiled these tips in a presentation for you if you want to overcome your digital marketing knowledge gap and stay up-to-date.

Feel free to download the presentation in PowerPoint format below.

Useful tips on how to overcome your digital marketing skills gap:

Want to know more? Through our digitalisation guide: what, why, when and how to use it you'll find much more to read!