10 Most Essential Digital Marketing Skills You Need For Success in 2024

If you’re looking for high-income skills, digital marketing is an excellent career choice.

Want to learn the essential digital marketing skills to grow your income and build your brand?  You’re in the right place.

The global digital marketing market reached a value of nearly $303 billion in 2020 and it is estimated to reach a value of around $805 billion by 2026. (Source: Expert Market Research)

Almost every offline business wants to get into online marketing to promote its products and reach more customers.

There’s HUGE scope for digital marketing in the future. That’s why it’s essential to learn and master important digital marketing skills to help other businesses succeed.

So let’s talk about the skills required for digital marketing in 2024.

10 Must-Have Digital Marketing Skills to Earn More In 2024

1. Email Marketing 

Email marketing is the most effective way to reach customers.

Why? Because everyone reads email. In fact, email ROI is an impressive $40 for every $1 spent.

Email marketing allows you to send HIGHLY targeted messages to a ton of people at once.

It’s also an affordable way to reach your target audience. With email marketing, you can segment your email lists so that you only send messages to those who are interested in what you have to offer.

Above all, it allows you to track your email newsletters and campaigns so that you can see how many people opened your emails and how many people clicked on the links in your emails.

If you’re not learning this essential digital marketing skill to promote your business, you’re missing out on a powerful tool that can help you get better results. 

Best blogs to follow to learn email marketing:

• GetResponse blog
• Litmus blog
• MarketingProfs

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of improving the visibility of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs). 

SEO is the BEST way to increase traffic, organic visibility, and sales to any business or website. If you’re good at SEO, you can literally earn thousands of dollars every month.

Did you know that 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine?

Also, 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google search, Google Images, and Google Maps.

That’s why SEO is one of the essential digital marketing skills to learn and practice as a marketer.

SEO involves both on-page and off-page techniques. On-page techniques include optimizing website content for keywords, while off-page techniques include link building and social media engagement. Having SEO skills is a must.

That being said, it is important to remember that SEO is a long-term strategy, and results are not always immediate. So if you’re planning to offer SEO services or improve your own search traffic, prepare for a long-term game. 

A few more important SEO elements include

• Keyword research
• Website audits
• Optimizing website content by adding relevant keywords
• Improving site structure, and more

Best blogs to follow to learn SEO:

• Search Engine Journal
• Semrush Blog
• BloggersPassion

3. Video Marketing

Video marketing is on the rise.

In fact, video marketing platforms like YouTube has more than 2.6 billion monthly active users across the world.

Video marketing allows you to showcase your products or services in a way that is engaging and visually appealing. It also gives you the opportunity to reach a wider audience across the world.

Besides that, videos can help you easily build trust with potential customers and promote your brand or business. 

As a digital marketer, if you want to promote a business through word-of-mouth advertising, video marketing is an essential skill to learn as videos can be easily shared online.

Best blogs to follow to learn video marketing:

• Biteable Blog
• HubSpot

Read: YouTube Statistics Marketers Can’t Afford to Ignore in 2024

4. Social Network Marketing

Social media marketing is not just about posting random stuff on Instagram or Facebook.

You should learn how to;

• Create engagement with users
• Write persuasive social media posts
• Create appealing visuals
• Use ads
• Analyze the reach of your social media posts and more

You also need to learn how algorithms work on various social media networks like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc – so you can learn how to generate better user engagement.

Best blogs to follow to learn social network marketing:

• Social Media Examiner
• Buffer blog
• HubSpot

5. Writing 

Writing is one of the most important digital marketing skills that can be difficult to master. 

For many people, the toughest part of writing is getting started. Most people just stare at their laptops or PC monitors. The key to getting better at writing is to practice A LOT.

Yes, developing strong writing skills takes time and practice. 

Fortunately, there are a ton of resources available to help YOU improve your writing skills, including books, online courses, and software programs. With a little effort, anyone can learn to write well.

That being said, here are a few essential writing tips that you can try.

• Firstly, come up with an idea or topic to write about. You can use keyword tools or platforms like Quora to come up with topics.
• Once you have a general idea of what you want to say, start freewriting. Freewriting is when you write down whatever comes to mind without stopping to edit or revise. 
• Researching the topic also helps a lot. Find out top-ranking websites for the topic you want to write about. Create an outline and start freewriting. 
• Once you’re done with the writing part, you can start proofreading your content to fix grammar issues. You can use tools like Grammarly to edit your writing.
• Read the content marketing blogs to learn to create engaging and interactive content.

If you’re still finding it hard to master writing skills, you can try an AI writing assistant like Jasper AI.

It offers a wide range of copywriting templates to create better content.

Have a look at the templates it offers;

Read our Jasper AI review to find more about its features and tutorial. 

Jasper basically offers the following two pricing plans.

1. The Creator plan starts at $39 per month and it is suitable for those who want to create short-form content such as descriptions, headlines, social media captions, etc.
2. The Teams plan starts at $99 per month and it is perfect for everyone who wants to create long-form content including product reviews, blog posts, case studies, stories, and more.

You can always try Jasper 7 days of free trial without any worry.

Apart from these two plans, Jasper also offers a Business plan that offers custom pricing based on your content needs where you can create unlimited content. 

Best blogs to follow to learn writing or copywriting:

• Copyblogger
• Copyhackers

6. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

“A website without conversion rate optimization is like a car with no wheels – it will take you nowhere.” – Jeremy Abel

Most online businesses live or die based on their conversion rates.

No matter how much traffic you get, if your website visitors don’t convert – you’ll fail miserably.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is one of the digital marketing key skills. It is the practice of improving the percentage of visitors to a website who take an action such as buying a product, following on Twitter, or subscribing to a newsletter.

CRO is essential for any online business. If you want to focus on improving the sales and conversions of a website or business – you need to master conversion rate optimization skills.

Some of the most effective CRO techniques include:

• Creating compelling content
• Simplifying the checkout process
• Offering customer incentives to increase sales
• Showing social proof for better conversions and the list goes on

Here are some of the important things in CRO:

By constantly testing and experimenting with different approaches, businesses can gradually improve their conversion rates. To succeed at CRO, you need to constantly try new things, analyze your competitors and be creative.

Best blogs to follow to learn conversion rate optimization:

• Crazy Egg
• HubSpot

7. Blogging

Hands down, blogging skills are essential to succeed as a digital marketer. 

Did you know that 66% of businesses spend around $1000 to $2000 per month for content creation?

Blogging is an excellent digital marketing skill to learn. Why? Because most small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) manage blogs.

So if you’re good at blogging, you’ll have an added advantage. 

If you don’t have one yet, start a blog today. Having your blog helps you with so many things including;

• Writing
• Networking
• Basic coding skills such as CSS, HTML, etc
• Promotion, and so on

Best blogs to follow to learn blogging:

• BloggersPassion
• Problogger
• Authority Hacker

In case you’re looking for a budget-friendly option to start your own blog, try Bluehost.

Bluehost costs just $23 per year and offers excellent hosting features including a free domain. Here’s a quick tutorial for launching a blog with Bluehost.

To get started, click on this link to visit Bluehost.

Once you’re on the Bluehost website, visit their pricing plans.

Here’s what it looks like;

As you can see above, Bluehost offers the following four pricing plans in shared hosting.

1. Basic: This is the cheapest hosting plan from Bluehost which costs you just $1.99 per month. With this plan, you’ll get the following features.

2. Choice Plus: This plan offers unlimited site hosting and costs you $3.49 per month where you’ll get the following features.

• Install 3 sites
• 40 GB of storage space
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Free SSL
• Free domain or 1 year
• Unlimited emails with unlimited storage
• 1 Spam Experts

3. Online Store: This is the BEST shared hosting plan from Bluehost which costs you $6.99 per month where you’ll get the following things.

• Install 3 sites
• 40 GB of storage space
• Unmetered bandwidth
• Free SSL
• Free domain or 1 year
• Unlimited emails with unlimited storage
• 1 SpamExperts
• 1 free domain privacy
• Free backup from CodeGuard

4. Pro plan is for those who have high traffic which costs you $8.99 per month where you get 5 websites to install and 100 GB storage.

If you’re on a tight budget, go with their Basic plan which costs just $23.88 for 1 year with a free domain.

Have a look;

So there you go. That’s how you can use Bluehost to start your own website for just $23 a year.

8. Teamwork Skills

The ability to work effectively with others is an important digital marketing skill. 

As a digital marketer, you’ll often work with a team, clients, and business owners. That’s why you MUST need teamwork skills.

There are a ton of reasons to build teamwork skills including:

• Firstly, when people work together towards a common goal, they can share their individual expertise and brainstorm ideas more effectively than if they were working alone. 
• Secondly, team members can support and motivate each other, which can lead to better performance and productivity. 
• Finally, working in a team can help to develop new skills as team members learn from each other.

Best blogs to follow to learn teamwork skills:

• Trello Teamwork blog
• BlueJeans blog by Verizon

9. Paid Ads

Most businesses are dependent on paid ads to grow their sales, build their audience, collect leads, etc. That’s why you need digital marketing knowledge in paid ads. 

People and businesses spend money on different paid ads including:

• Google and Bing ads
• Instagram ads
• Twitter ads
• Facebook ads
• LinkedIn ads 
• Quora ads and more

Find out how the ads work on major platforms so you can learn the art of capturing people’s attention with paid ads.

There are a wide range of benefits of paid advertising including;

• Paid ads are a guaranteed way to reach a new audience 
• They help you instantly get more traffic to your website, app, or product
• Helps with brand promotion 
• Consistent leads if your ads are highly-effective
• You can test with paid ads to quickly identify the needs of your target audience

Best blogs to learn paid advertising:

• HubSpot
• WordStream
• Sprout Social

10. Personal Branding

There are literally millions of people out there who’re offering various digital marketing services.

What sets you apart from them? Personal branding.

Undoubtedly, personal branding is one of the digital marketing key skills.

If you want to succeed as an online marketer, you need to build a brand for yourself. 

Make sure to use platforms like LinkedIn, Medium, and Quora to create helpful content to build your brand online. These 3 platforms are essential for all marketers to build an audience from scratch.

You can also build your personal branding through social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and personal websites.

What’s the primary goal of personal branding? It is to make a long-lasting impression and stand out from the competition. That’s why it’s important to be strategic and think about what kind of image you want to create as a digital marketer.

Ask yourself questions like;

• What kind of branding do you want to build?
• What do you want people to remember about you? 
• How can you stay unique from others?

Answering these questions can help you create a personal brand that is unique and authentic in the long run. 

Best blogs to learn paid advertising:

• Thinkific
• Influencer Marketing Hub
• Entrepreneur.com 

FAQs

Here are some of the frequently asked questions about skills required for digital marketing.

Few More Resources:

• 15 Most Famous Digital Marketing Quotes
• 18 Top Digital Marketing Blogs to Follow in 2024
• Top 20 Digital Marketing Tools Everyone Should Be Using
• Types of Digital Marketing to Learn & Master in 2024
• 30+ Digital Marketing Statistics for 2024
• Best Digital Marketing Tips That Will Work for ALL Businesses in 2024
• Top Benefits of Digital Marketing for Small Businesses

Final Thoughts

Whether you want to build a strong resume, make a living online, or work for a startup – you need to learn and master important digital marketing skills.

Digital marketing is growing rapidly in India and worldwide and the demand for experienced marketers is HUGE. So this is the right time to learn and develop new skills to grow your brand and boost your income.

Did you like our guide on digital marketing knowledge? What digital marketing skills do you want to learn and master? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.