Digital Marketer

Working Schedule
 

• Digital Marketers may work full-time jobs at an agency or company, or on a part-time ad hoc basis for agencies or as a freelancer. Many part-time and freelance workers perform duties remotely from home or someplace other than their employers’ job site. Depending on employment conditions, hours may be highly flexible as long as targets and deadlines are met. In other words, some Digital Marketers choose their own hours and may be based anywhere in the world!

Typical Duties
 

• Work with clients, managers, sales teams, and developers as needed to decide on marketing strategies, directions, goals, and budgets
• Create customer avatars to better understand the psychology of potential eCommerce shoppers or audiences
• Decide upon different strategies for engaging Business-to-Business (B2C) versus Business-to-Customer (B2C) or other relationships
• Conduct market research into customer behavior and competitor products, services, and advertising
• Manage creative Social Media Marketing (SMM) campaigns for Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, TikTok, Reddit, and other platforms
• Use analytic tools to target audiences; create paid ads and sponsored content aimed those audiences
• Offer free content while building up audiences (as subscribers or follows) to cultivate a pool to which you can market paid items (merchandise, courses, services, etc.)
• Partner with online influencers who can incorporate reviews of your goods or services into their own content
• Perform content marketing actions such as creating downloadable lead magnet material for website visitors in exchange for their email address
• Create blogs, articles, and other content that can be found online via Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Craft email marketing flowcharts for automated, timed campaigns
• Draft emails that address customers, or potential customers, at their specific point along the customer journey (from first encounter awareness phase until they decide to place an item in their shopping cart for purchase)
• Send follow-up emails for abandoned carts, as well as post-purchase messages that build the relationship and offer promotional discounts
• Buy Pay-per-click (PPC) ads that appear in search results and boost brand visibility 
• Enhance passive website revenue by including affiliate marketing links or banner ads that redirect traffic to sites like Amazon (which provide commissions on items sold)
• Devise creative online ad campaigns or fundraising ventures that utilize an effective combination of visual elements, engaging copywriting, and video clips as applicable 

Additional Responsibilities

• Optimize websites using Google Search Console tools
• Use plugin tools such as Yoast to assist with optimizing content for better discoverability
• Manage public relations by making it easy to post reviews, share content, and address concerns quickly and authentically 

Soft Skills

• Ability to work independently
• Able to generate ‘outside the box’ ideas
• Analytical 
• Creative and artistic 
• Effective communication skills, including active listening 
• Informed social and cultural awareness 
• Inquisitive 
• Keen organizational skills
• Persuasive 
• Resourceful
• Skills for coordinating activities
• Solid research skills
• Sound judgment and decision-making
• Teamwork
• Understanding of human motivational factors 

Technical Skills

• General familiarity with computers (PC or Apple)
• Microsoft Office, Google apps, Macintosh software
• Google Search Console 
• Website-building tools (Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org, Squarespace, Weebly, Shopify, GoDaddy, Wix)
• Web hosting sites (Dreamhost, Bluehost, HostGator)
• Email marketing software (Constant Contact, Drip, SendinBlue)
• Collaboration tools (Slack, Trello, Flowdock, Monday)
• Analytical tools for social media and other sharing platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, TikTok, and Reddit
• Affiliate marketing programs such as Amazon Associates, Clickbank, and many more

• Digital Marketer; Overall knowledge of all digital marketing that needs to be implemented. Includes monitoring and analyzing the outcomes of the different campaigns. 
• SEO marketer: Helps optimize your content so that search engines (like Google) likes to show the website as a top result for searches of a certain keyword. 
• SEM marketer: Devises an advertising strategy that will bring a website to the top of both organic and paid search engines. Manages and tests their different marketing campaigns, using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and doing keyword research. (i.e. Instagram, Facebook, Google advertising)
• Copywriting & Content Marketer: Responsible for the planning, creating and sharing of valuable content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customer into repeat buyers. 
• Email Marketer: Designs and writes email content. Creates and segments email lists. Nurtures leads and drives sales using compelling email. 
• Social Media Marketer: Works on the overall social media strategies for a business or organization. Top platforms include: Facebook, Twitter, youTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Periscope, Tik Tok, Instagram. For more information, go to /career/social-media-specialist. 

• Companies, both big and small
• Higher education institutions
• Governmental agencies
• Nonprofits 
• Military recruitment 
• Agencies
• Freelance

Digital Marketers are responsible for helping customers reach their goals, which are usually related to increasing sales of a product or service or boosting awareness of a cause. To do this most efficiently and cost-effectively, workers need to understand potential customers’ or users’ psychology and behavior. This requires in-depth research and keen insights. They must also know about competitor products and services, marketing strategies, and gaps or deficiencies that can be exploited. 
 
After Digital Marketers know details about all of these variables, they must then work with customers to explore the best digital avenues for advertising. This demands an understanding of all the options, all the latest tech breakthroughs, and insights into current trend efficacy and investment returns. A lot can ride on one gamble, meaning the job can be stressful and one’s reputation put on the line! 

When Digital Marketers don’t do their homework, campaigns can go wrong quickly if a brand’s marketing concept simply confuses people. Take International House of Pancake’s acronym IHOP, which they changed to IHOb on Twitter to generate buzz. To keep the mystery going, IHOP intentionally replaced the letter ‘p’ with ‘b’ in their replies to other Tweets. Alas, the campaign—meant to let customers know that they were serving burgers—fell flat as a pancake.   
 
Other campaigns can come across as ‘tone deaf’ or insensitive to a particular group. Such missteps can go viral overnight, causing a backlash that impacts sales. Many edgy brands will openly clap-back or troll another brand for their mistakes, turning their competitor’s problem into an effective ad campaign for themselves. In the aftermath, customers are left taking sides and creating memes to mock the brand they least root for. Social media user behavior is not always predictable, but if brand campaigns don’t take occasional risks and are too bland, they lose out to edgier ideas floated by competitors.
 
Other trends include the rise in Artificial Intelligence, which predicts behavior by scanning Big Data for patterns. Companies are turning increasingly to smarter chatbots that can answer questions and prompt users to take certain actions. Modern customers have grown used to personalized experiences and do not appreciate generic advertising. They want tailored suggestions across multiple channels, whether it's a Netflix movie recommendation or a Facebook ad for a shirt with a slogan that magically seems to know their birth month. 
 
Influencer marketing is a hot new tactic for personalization, as audiences can view a product or service demonstrated by someone they feel they have an established connection with. Essentially, the idea is that of a ‘trusted friend’ vouching for a ‘new friend.’ For instance, a user may have come to trust a YouTuber whose videos they subscribe to. So, they might be more apt to buy based on that influencer’s recommendation than a generic paid celebrity endorsement. 

Many Digital Marketers grew up with the Internet and mobile technology and were comfortable using it as kids. They may have seen the ‘bigger picture’ early on, how social media platforms capture users then convert them into assets—massive pools of potential customers that third-party businesses access and sell to. 
 
While the average social media user is peripherally aware of their status as a commodity, many are fascinated by the concept and dive into the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of how technology can enable organizations to influence user thinking and actions. But Digital Marketers are not only interested in the nexus of technology and psychology. They were also likely to have been highly creative kids, interested in graphic design and visual arts, persuasive writing, screenwriting, or even public speaking! They may have enjoyed serving in critical roles that help others get publicity or attention while they remain quietly in the background.