Single Blog

To increase traffic, brand exposure, and sales, companies of all sizes are increasing their investments in digital marketing.

Why? Because digital channels, particularly when powered by artificial intelligence, provide unparalleled benefits, like global reach, sophisticated targeting, tailored experiences, and potent insights.

According to a Statista poll, chief marketing officers in the United States raised their spending on digital ads by 7.9% during the same 12-month period, while traditional advertising budgets decreased by 0.6%.

There is a high need for qualified managers of digital marketing due to the increased emphasis on digital, and wages are increasing in line with this demand. According to a recent Aspire and DMI job market research, senior marketing managers in the UK can command wages as high as £75,000, while marketing managers in the US can make up to $105,000.

This blog will guide you through the essential skills required to establish a prosperous and fulfilling career in the field of digital marketing management, if you’re interested in the role but unsure of where to begin.

In this blog, we will cover:

• What is a digital marketing manager?
• What does a digital marketing manager do?
• What are the tasks of a digital marketing manager?
• 8 skills you need to become a digital marketing manager

Planning, carrying out, and supervising online marketing plans to advertise a business’s goods or services is a critical function of a digital marketing manager.

To interact with target consumers and create lasting relationships, they use a variety of digital platforms, such as websites, email, social media, and search engines.

Enhancing the company’s online visibility, increasing traffic to important web sites, and producing quality leads that promote business expansion are at the heart of their duties.

To maintain the company’s competitiveness in the digital sphere, a digital marketing manager’s duties include supervising data analysis, controlling spending, and regularly testing and refining campaigns.

They oversee knowledgeable teams of experts in crucial domains including email marketing, PPC, social media, SEO, and content marketing, making sure that all initiatives complement overarching corporate objectives.

In order to develop coherent strategies, digital marketing managers need to collaborate extensively with other departments such as sales and product and have a broad, cross-functional understanding of the many channels involved.

It’s also critical to stay on top of developments. In order to maintain a cutting-edge strategy and improve techniques, a successful digital marketing manager stays up to date with new trends and technologies.

A digital marketing manager’s job is fast-paced and multifaceted, and they frequently have to juggle multiple duties in a single day. Among their most frequent duties are the following:

Organizing and carrying out digital marketing strategies using important platforms like PPC, SEO, email, and social media.

In order to guide strategy, campaign performance is tracked and analyzed using tools such as Google Analytics.

maximizing return on investment by allocating and managing advertising expenditures across paid platforms.

working together to create interesting content with authors, designers, and other team members.

making landing pages and websites more user-friendly and SEO-friendly.

enhancing organic visibility through keyword research and the use of SEO best practices.

managing social media profiles and assessing results to determine the best platforms and content.

monitoring and reporting to stakeholders on important performance metrics, including website traffic, conversion rates, and return on investment.

Now that you understand the position and day-to-day duties, let’s explore the fundamental abilities needed to be a successful manager of digital marketing.

A digital marketing manager needs to be a great leader because this is a senior-level position. This entails leading and inspiring a group of people to achieve organizational objectives. You must become proficient in coaching and mentoring methods and hone your problem-solving skills if you want to succeed.

However, leadership encompasses more than just managing staff; it also includes managing marketing campaigns. Effectively managing and allocating resources, communicating with internal and external stakeholders, including through digital PR platforms, and comprehending consumer behavior and the customer journey are all necessary.

Developing and implementing a digital marketing plan is a crucial duty in addition to leadership. This calls for investigating digital strategies and marketing tactics to spur growth as well as evaluating analytics to inform long-term decisions.

Resources that can help you improve your leadership and strategy:

PDF: An All-Inclusive Manual for Digital Marketing Strategy A comprehensive manual to assist you in creating a digital marketing plan that propels company expansion.

An interactive template to assist you in organizing, planning, and carrying out your campaigns and strategic initiatives is the Digital Marketing Strategy Action Plan Template.

Five Digital Leadership Skills to Help You Grow in Your Career Become a digital leader by mastering these five key competencies.

A key component of many marketing campaigns, content is a potent tool for meaningfully interacting with clients and prospects.

For this reason, a manager of digital marketing needs to be well-versed in content marketing. Even though the position might not directly include authoring the material, it should be directed by clearly defined consumer personas and have an attention-grabbing call to action.

Additionally, content must be customized for every platform. Email content, for instance, can be longer and include more in-depth details on a product or an update, while social media messages must be brief and interesting to grab readers’ attention right away.

A digital marketing manager must oversee and guide the strategic approach to content development that is necessary for this.

Resources that can help you improve your content marketing abilities:

2024 Content Marketing: The Complete Guide Get the basics of content marketing, understand its importance, and learn how to create a strategy from the ground up.

Create a Content Marketing Strategy in 10 Easy Steps: Learn how to create a content marketing strategy that works and produces results.

How to Produce and Share Outstanding Content through Content Marketing Discover how to create content that benefits your audience and fulfills a certain need.

You’ve probably observed in marketing that businesses from a variety of sectors are incorporating AI into their digital strategy in an effort to increase efficiency and boost productivity.

Consider CRM systems that schedule and segment emails or offer chatbot responses as examples of how many platforms are already using AI for automation and personalization.

Furthermore, there are stand-alone AI solutions made for certain purposes, such as trend forecasting, audience analysis, keyword research, customer journey mapping, and content production and research.

Aspiring managers of digital marketing must have knowledge and experience with AI given its enormous potential and the growing need for specialists in the industry.

Learning how to use popular AI tools is crucial, whether you’re using ChatGPT to master prompts, Midjourney to generate graphics, or Claude to confirm the accuracy of text.

“The number of marketing professionals including AI on their resumes has increased by 221%. In a recent DMI podcast, Terry Payne, Global Managing Director at Aspire Recruitment, advises listeningers to “upskill now and stay ahead of the curve.”

Resources to help you improve your AI abilities:

The Greatest AI Marketing Examples Examine the ways in which AI can be used in digital advertising, marketing automation, social media, and general digital marketing tactics.

Using Google AI Overviews to Get Ready for AI Search Learn how artificial intelligence is changing the search industry with Lindsey Schrant of Neil Patel Digital.

A Quick Guide to Your Digital Marketing Strategy with ChatGPT To assist in directing the main phases of your digital marketing strategy, download this beginning pack of ChatGPT prompts.

Large volumes of data are gathered and stored by businesses through a variety of marketing channels, but not all data is created equal.

Knowing which data is important and how to evaluate it to produce useful insights that guide data-driven decisions are essential skills for managers of digital marketing.

Customer behavior data, for instance, can be used to pinpoint areas where the customer journey is lacking. Let’s say a landing page for an Instagram campaign has a low conversion rate. This would suggest that the user experience is being hampered by the landing page’s messaging not matching the Instagram ad.

Digital marketing managers can identify areas for development and identify successful components that can be used in subsequent campaigns by evaluating data.

To maintain compliance and protect consumer privacy, it’s also critical to stay current on data protection rules and regulations when processing client data.

Resources to help you improve your abilities in data analysis:

Marketing Analytics: Definition and Significance Discover the various kinds of marketing analytics and how to apply them to enhance your company’s operations.

GA4 Best Practices: Learn how to configure Google Analytics 4 to monitor and use the most important data.

Proficiency in search engine optimization is crucial since it guarantees that a company can be found online.

To attain high search engine ranks, a digital marketing manager needs to be knowledgeable with search marketing techniques like Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Additionally, since younger consumers are increasingly using platforms like TikTok as search engines, it’s critical to incorporate these social networks into your search marketing plan.
To match search intent with pertinent keywords and key phrases, digital marketing managers also need to know what their target audience is looking for. This knowledge enables the creation of sponsored programs that target a certain audience with tailored messaging.

To do this, a number of essential ideas, resources, and tactics must be combined in order to make sure that every component of search marketing functions as a whole, bringing in targeted traffic that eventually turns into sales.

Important factors to think about in search marketing are:

Principles of paid search and SEO

Creation of Demand

Reporting and analytics

Visualization of data

Integration of AI

Resources that can help you improve your search engine marketing abilities:

What Search Marketing Is and Why It Matters to Marketers Return to the fundamentals by learning the importance of search, the essential elements involved, and the efficient use of search marketing.

Use the SEO Keyword Research Toolkit to turn your keyword research into insightful content.

Tracker for Paid Media Campaigns To simplify performance evaluation, download this tracker, which will compile all of your paid media campaign data into a single view.

Email is still an effective tool for increasing awareness and engagement with both current and new clients, even if it is one of the more traditional marketing strategies.

“Email is the best channel if you want to own your audience and consistently influence them,” stated SparkToro founder Rand Fishkin during a DMI webinar.

Digital marketing managers may now establish targeted consumer segments based on demographics, interests, or historical behavior thanks to the sophistication of email systems brought about by AI breakthroughs.

This makes it possible to create information that is extremely tailored and relevant, which raises open and click-through rates.

The fact that email marketing depends on first-party data is an additional benefit. This indicates that people have voluntarily given marketers access to their personal data, which they may use to target and connect with potential clients (as long as they stay within privacy guidelines).

“Email is how you capture the middle of the funnel because it has been successful long-term and isn’t controlled by any third-party platform that could take it away from you,” Fishkin goes on to say.

Useful tools to improve your email marketing abilities:

Dashboard for Email Marketing Campaign Outcomes Get this user-friendly dashboard-style tool to monitor and compare the outcomes of your email campaigns.

Eight Best Practices and Strategies for Email Campaign Management Learn eight email campaign management techniques that will help you get the most out of your investment.

Developing and Expanding Your Email Marketing List Learn how to create a high-quality email marketing list and get practical examples.

With more than 5 billion users globally, social media provides an unmatched global reach.

Diverse audiences are served by social media networks. For example, LinkedIn functions as a professional network that mostly targets business-to-business (B2B) users, whereas TikTok appeals to a younger population.

Marketing teams can create content that appeals to particular demographics and utilize paid advertising to target the proper audience with tailored messaging thanks to this diversity.

Digital marketing managers can use social media to boost brand visibility, promote goods and services, and build interaction. Effective tactics consist of:

Social listening: Track discussions with Google Alerts and Social Mention to determine audience sentiment and find untapped opportunities.

Retargeting ads are a way to reach those who have already connected with the brand or visited the website.

Customer service: To respond to consumer questions and complaints, many businesses use social media sites like Facebook and X.

Market research: To learn about rivals, track trends, and get consumer input, use surveys or polls.

Since user-generated content (UGC) is seen as more genuine than company-generated content, it is highly prized.

Influencer marketing: When a campaign is in line with the brand’s values, collaborating with influencers on networks like Instagram and TikTok may be quite successful.

Use Facebook’s and Instagram’s shopping functions to make it possible for customers to make purchases straight from social media.

Crisis Management: To handle client concerns and safeguard the reputation of your company, use social media to provide real-time updates during a crisis.

Social media is an essential marketing tool, but in order to fully leverage its capabilities and connect with the appropriate consumers, a clear approach is essential.

Resources that can help you improve your social media marketing abilities:

How to Develop the Greatest Social Media Plan That Increases ROI and Brand Recognition Discover how to create a successful social media plan.

The Complete Manual for Social Media Administration Discover the “what,” “why,” and “how-to” of social media management.

To effectively handle and survive a social media crisis, download the DMI Guide to Social Media Crises.

How to Develop and Expand Your Email Marketing List Learn how to create a quality email marketing list with practical examples and insights.

50% of people claim that a brand’s website design affects how they perceive it, citing a Top Design Firms survey.

This emphasizes how important user experience (UX) and website design are. However, it’s not just about the site’s appearance; it’s also about how consumers interact with it overall.

It’s crucial for a digital marketing manager to look at the website from the viewpoint of the client and pose important queries like:

Are users able to locate the information they require with ease?

Is the branding and messaging consistent when coming via various channels?

Does the client journey have any interruptions, such as excessive calls to action or obtrusive pop-up advertisements?

Is it easy for people to find answers to their queries or questions?

How quickly do the pages on the website load?

Does the website have mobile device optimization?

The customer journey is constantly changing, thus it’s critical to evaluate and refresh the site’s user experience on a regular basis. Additionally, keeping brand colors and designs consistent across all platforms helps consumers recognize and follow the brand.

Resources to help you improve your website design and user experience:

The Value of User Experience in Marketing To find out more about the function of UX in marketing, listen to this podcast.

Writing for User Experience (UX): A Useful Guide Explore the realm of UX writing using real-world examples and industry best practices.

The mutually beneficial relationship between marketing and UX design Learn how marketing and UX design collaborate to produce remarkable user-centric experiences that yield remarkable outcomes.

A profession in digital marketing management is intriguing because of its dynamic and diversified role. You will have the opportunity to oversee and direct projects using a variety of marketing channels, each of which calls for a unique set of skills.

Don’t undervalue the significance of soft skills like flexibility, communication, and problem-solving, even though the previously listed technical and practical abilities are crucial. Employers strongly value these attributes, which can help you stand out in interviews and on your resume.

Recall that in the always changing world of digital marketing, ongoing education and training are essential. Keep abreast with developments and trends, and make an investment in yourself by consistently improving your abilities.

Obtaining an industry-recognized certification is one of the fastest and most efficient ways to progress in the digital marketing sector. From using AI to improve your campaigns to cultivating critical soft skills, DMI’s Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing will provide you the tools you need to succeed in the field. By developing your skills in email marketing, social media, SEO, content marketing, and display and video advertising, you will be able to design and implement effective campaigns in any sector. Begin your adventure now!