5 Reasons You Need To Upskill Your Digital Marketing Team
Guest post by Alisha Christina Clarkson
Digital content has become the primary advertising vehicle in the 21st century. This in turn has had an impact on how buyers make purchasing decisions. This ranges from an increasing number of adverts on social media to more customers now researching their chosen products before buying.
At the core of this cultural shift are digital marketers. Unfortunately, the field of digital marketing isn’t exempted from the skill shortage and capability gap. 90% of marketing directors across the US and UK have been scrambling to outsource crucial expertise, with many opting to retain an agency or expert freelancers, or establish an embedded agency-within model.
Still not convinced? Here are five reasons why upskilling your digital marketing team is a top priority.
Boosting morale
Studies show a clear relationship between the availability of training programs and overall workplace productivity. Offering upskilling programs, like online courses or seminars, to your digital marketing team doesn’t just improve their skills but also encourages your employees to see growth within your organization. Even employers can find work motivation in the presence of upskilling opportunities that tap into one’s innate desire for self-development.
The same is true for micro businesses. Smaller teams may see the positive effects of training programs sooner, which boosts overall morale and keeps everyone happy and productive.
Adapting to new eras
The technological advancements of today’s society allude to a higher working standard. Being an expert in a single specialty, like social media design or data analysis, is no longer enough. Harnessing crucial business skills in the tech era is necessary to quickly adapt to the changes inside an industry and survive. This often includes a background in data and technical skills, as well as skills gained from additional seminars or workshops.
While hard skills show experience, soft skills indicate one’s ability to collaborate with others, from team members to third-hand suppliers. Soft skills can also improve one’s ability to understand the target market and the corresponding effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns. For micro businesses, this kind of training for technological skills and tools can boost efficiency and may even net immediate results. Otherwise, upskilling teamwork and transparency through team building exercises and assessment tools, like DISC, also improve a marketer’s ability to collaborate with others during a campaign.
Staying ahead of industry trends
Digital marketing is a fast-growing industry. One must always be ready to respond to new trends to stay ahead of the competition. An example of a recent trend is the one where consumers no longer rely on “search engines.” This means marketers must advertise on different platforms beyond websites or applications to cater to new consumers like the TikTok generation.
Upskilling on data analytics or social media marketing beforehand means that digital marketers may be able to predict this shift and immediately formulate an effective campaign. Staying ahead of trends is even more crucial for solopreneurs, who need to maximize resources and tools in order to make waves in a crowded market. Without these skills, marketers and entrepreneurs could be playing catch-up as competitors embrace TikTok or other high-traffic platforms.
Improving recruitment
When you upskill your digital marketing team, you create a branding and organizational culture that values growth. This is highly appealing to today’s market of job seekers. There is a global worker shortage accompanying the skills shortage. However, channeling efforts towards upskilling your team encourages more competent workers to join your organization and nurture their skills in-house. For individual projects and solopreneurs, this is also a great incentive for hiring freelancers to help out.
Maximizing potential
An employee could already be great at SEO or graphic design, but their capabilities don’t have to stop there. When you upskill your team, you can tap into their true potential because everything is a positive development. This shows us that upskilling is an investment that employees make for themselves and employers make for employees.
The continuously updated skill set will also allow your business to remain competitive with its marketing. This means that, by maximizing your digital marketing skills, you can maximize the potential of your business’ sales and reach even while keeping the budget and quantity of workers to a minimum.
Leap of the Week
The field of digital marketing includes continuous growth, and that’s why it isn’t too late to start learning today. Start with simple online workshops that target practical skills, like SEO optimization or data analysis, which will become the standard for the next decades in the industry. As you continue to upskill, your business can stay relevant in the market for years to come.
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Written by Alisha Christina Clarkson
Exclusive for leapzonestrategies.com
Photo by fauxels.