Digital transformation also involves changing people’s attitudes, including those involved in Digital Marketing. The key to the problem is, therefore, “becoming digital,” that is, being able to master the possibilities that the new communication channels make available to those involved in marketing; not only that: the digital society has its styles, its meeting points, its language.
In practice, it is a question of assimilating the typical modalities of the new paradigm and developing in that specific direction everything that has been capitalized over time – not to adapt it but to revisit it, rediscover it, and give it back strength. So let’s see precisely what particular skills we have to find in ourselves (we list five, but it is already a lot if we can identify one or two with which to identify ourselves) and perfect them to face this transition period better.
Passion For Writing
Even if in Digital Marketing there is an increasing tendency to use multimedia content, the written text is still of fundamental importance when we think of emails, websites, blogs, and even advertising. In the digital world, information is more than abundant, meaning that, to be heard, what we say must be relevant, logical, understandable, and concise (at least in contexts where it is highly advisable). When preparing in-depth analysis on a specific theme, a lot of material can also be proposed, but the equation “more quantity = more quality” has to be demonstrated: in fact, it is useless to produce redundant texts, not very smooth, convoluted or without a clear guiding thread.
The more complex the text, the more it must be organized (better: engineered) well, including the premise, exposition, and conclusion – and it must be possible for the reader to have a complete idea of what he will be able to find from the beginning; in practice, the writing must be structured and in a certain way “navigable”: you have to understand what it is, be aware of the “rationales” and be able to skip some parts to go directly to the detail that interests you without missing out on something important.
The question is quite different when it is necessary to be short at all costs (advertising slogans, email titles, form headers ) or, in any case, clear but concise (website, landing page); here, it is necessary to weigh the words with the sling bar and remember an old trick of journalists: to write an article and then make a reduced version of it by half, to verify that what must be communicated is still all there and that no important detail is missing, then repeat it the same procedure until you have obtained the shortest text ever that is still understandable and effective.
Love Of Numbers
Digital means “numeric,” and this adjective is mainly used because the information is encoded through binary numbers; in computer science, everything is reduced to numerical entities, even that which does not express quantity: texts are characters to which “hexadecimal” numbers correspond, just like images or sounds. The information is “packaged” and transmitted from one place to another on the networks like wagons on which the origin and destination addresses are written (in numerical form).
There are many advantages compared to analog systems (those of the past). Still, at least two should be mentioned: network routing is enormously more efficient, and the capacity of the transmission channels is maximized. However, in this post, we do not want to talk so much about the numerical nature of what is digital as about the fact that new technologies produce large amounts of information, and often, to understand their meaning, it is necessary to analyze the data through statistical tools – I which are based on mathematics.
The micro and macro phenomena that we are interested in studying can be summarized in the form of tables and graphs from which we can derive a series of valuable indicators for understanding the performance of a process, the success of a campaign, the relationship between costs and benefits, the return on investment, in which areas (and in what percentage) we spend the budget, and so on.
Data guide decisions (and consequent actions) in every area of modern companies, so even in Digital Marketing, information (and the use made of it) is fundamental as it allows for the concrete expression of three imperative verbs: optimize, manage and personalize – and if the first two are obvious enough (as is evident from the previous paragraph) the third is closely linked to the effectiveness of communication: in modern marketing, the message must not only be relevant and understandable, but it must also meet the specific needs and preferences of each one; what allows you to adapt each proposal (and how it is presented) to the individual characteristics of each, is contained precisely in the profiling data that we have collected and analyzed for each contact.
“Playing” with numbers also allows you to understand how to improve the contents so that they are more easily identified and indexed by search engines ( SEO techniques, Search Engine Optimization), how to modify the titles and texts of the emails to increase OR and CTR (respectively Open Rate and Click-Through Rate, the percentages of messages opened and those in which the recipient clicked on a link), or how to best manage an advertising campaign carried out through Google AdWords. With spreadsheets and charts in hand, we will have objective feedback in the face of every activity and initiative, and, with this evidence, we will not only be able to justify the expenses and quantify the benefits for the company but also focus our efforts on what works best and stop wasting resources in unproductive areas.
Ability To Communicate In The Digital World
There is a specific correlation between knowing how to communicate effectively and the success of Digital Marketing initiatives since it is basically “only” about using communication to make your offer known, attract those interested, involve them through contextual proposals and personalized, transforming them into a customer and therefore maintaining a constant, active and shared dialogue with these people to build loyalty to the brand and encourage further purchases.
Everything passes through communication on digital channels, therefore through a series of interfaces and contact points ranging from social media to online advertising, from the company website to apps, from emails to SMS, from YouTube to personalized remarketing; in practice, those who are good communicators will undoubtedly be successful in Digital Marketing, since the secret of those who know how to interest people is fundamentally the (often innate) ability to understand their needs and to address them keeping in mind those desires or needs.
Digital Marketing And Creativity
Digital marketing requires you to choose a product or service to promote and talk about it in a unique (i.e., non-repetitive) way about 150 times a year (assuming you make three social media posts weekly). But then, how can we always be original? The answer is not simple, but we can certainly suggest that marketers should be able to observe the object to be advertised from perspectives that others fail to grasp – in other words: imagination and creativity are required.
Undoubtedly these qualities are innate, but they can be developed with training and the right mental state: motivation, enthusiasm, a sense of humor, and a stimulating work environment are of great help, given that creativity, play, learning, and fun are four aspects of the same reality. The game is above all experimentation, whose motivational spring is in fun as an antidote to boredom and satisfaction of curiosity; finally, once “the senses are refined,” reality can be manipulated by twisting it and turning it until new aspects appear to be discovered. All this can only happen in a psychologically favorable context: no child plays when he is afraid or is in a problematic situation, and no creative person can do something good if he is under pressure or experiences a conflict.
Rational Time Management
The Internet (and everything that goes around it) is not only an indispensable work tool for those involved in marketing, but it is also a constant source of distractions (and waste of time ); as well as the telephone and email: impossible to do without them but (at times) also impossible to work if you are constantly interrupted by something or someone. If we can’t afford a secretary, we must learn to manage our time better and avoid taking our work home, perhaps on weekends.
Undoubtedly, email is a tool that tends to be abused (and we are not referring only to spam ): in business realities, for example, many tend to copy an infinite number of people (perhaps because they consider it a duty or a courtesy). Still, the reality is that you end up clogging up the inboxes of several users with messages that are, after all, not important. To get by, the best solution must probably be found at an organizational level (perhaps even through appropriate training initiatives). You can use the mail client filters that automatically move incoming messages to specific folders; the aim is to leave evidence only that requires immediate attention.
Also Read: Metaverse: How It Affects The Future Of E-Commerce