How to Develop Digital Marketing Skills [+Samples]

It doesn’t matter if you are an entry-level or senior-level applicant or if you apply for a traditional or online job. To get employed, you need to prove to potential employers that you have a strong skill set.

The same rule applies if you are planning to become a digital marketer - to succeed in this position, you must have solid digital skills.

But what skills are needed for digital marketing? In this article, you’ll learn about the necessary digital marketing skills to land a job and jump-start your career and will find out how to acquire them quickly and easily!

But before you dive into what digital marketing skills are, the first step might be to read about jobs of the future 2025.

What Are Digital Marketing Skills?

Needless to say, skills play a vital role in the job search process. Your digital marketing skills resume section is what attracts the most of the recruiter’s attention. But how do you define skills?

Here are the core points you need to know.

• The term “skills” applies to certain abilities, qualification, knowledge, or competencies one needs to perform a particular task.
• Any skills can be acquired through study, experiences, and life.
• There are different types of skills, namely, soft and hard ones.
• The level of skills can be measured (typically by tests).
• All jobs require job seekers to possess certain skills.

Hard Skills for Digital Marketer

The term “hard skills” (or technical skills) encompasses a range of job-specific skills that are relevant to a specific position and seniority level.

Every vacancy in digital marketing will require a unique set of hard skills. But, generally, here are some key digital marketing skills for resume you may want to have in your job application:

• content creation/editing/management;
• HTML, Javascript, and CSS;
• paid advertising (e.g., Facebook, Google Ads, Instagram, etc.);
• SEO;
• site audits;
• SEO software (e.g., Google Analytics, Ahrefs, Moz, etc.);
• keyword research;
• email marketing software;
• office software;
• A/B testing and analysis;
• social media marketing.

Soft Skills You Need to Have

Unlike technical (or hard) skills, the soft ones are general characteristics that are relevant to personality traits rather than your professional level or the position you occupy. These are the skills that employers and recruiters want to see in every employee regardless of their work experience or position.

The most commonly required soft skills for digital marketing are:

• creative thinking;
• adaptability;
• innovation;
• communication skills;
• attention to detail;
• leadership;
• collaboration;
• time management skills;
• listening;
• problem-solving;
• critical thinking;
• multitasking;
• analytical skills;
• comfort with technology.

The list can go on as each employer defines what personal traits of its employers are valued most.

Top Digital Marketing Skills

Although there are plenty of different soft and hard skills that recruiting firms and employers are seeking in candidates, most of them are secondary. Yet, it is possible to define several top digital marketing skills without which you simply can’t do.

Check out the following must-have skills:

1. content creation;
2. SEO and SEM;
3. data analysis;
4. knowledge of various software;
5. understanding of automation.

All these skills are needed to ensure a seamless and stress-free workflow and, at the same time, guarantee that you will be able to perform your duties well. Now, let us look at each of these top skills closer.

Content Creation

These days, content plays a huge role in every business’s overall marketing strategy, so, as a digital marketer, you should be extremely proficient with it. This skill implies being able to identify content trends, build plans, create content, edit it, and so on. Besides, you should be well familiar with different types of content, including the following:

• social media publications;
• blog posts;
• product descriptions;
• landing pages;
• emails;
• chatbots;
• paid ads.

SEO and SEM

The two top skills to learn (if you haven’t yet) are SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing).

We all know that search engines play a huge role in our everyday lives. Consumers use them to search for information, products, and services, and a good digital marketer must know how to use this to their benefit. It is also vital that you constantly keep an eye on trends.

Data Analysis

Data analysis is one of the most important digital marketing technical skills that every specialist should possess. While researching trends and building or implementing marketing strategies is important, it is data analysis that enables marketers to evaluate the outcomes and tweak their campaigns to get even better results. 

Therefore, if you are wondering what digital marketing key skills you should acquire in the first place, data analysis should be among them.

Knowledge of Various Software

One more of the most vital digital marketer skills is knowledge of various software.

In their job, digital marketers rely on diverse tools a lot. These tools can include the following:

• SEO software (e.g., Google Analytics, Ahrefs, Moz);
• email marketing software;
• office software.

Being proficient with all these tools makes you look good in the eyes of the recruiter; moreover, it helps you do your job better and easier.

Understanding of Automation

It may not be one of the obvious essential digital marketing skills, but the understanding of automation is vital in this job. Marketing automation is there to optimize and streamline all related operations. Thus, being able to recognize automation opportunities and use them are the keys to making your work less stressful and much more efficient.

Today, there are plenty of automation tools; you just need to start using them.

How to Improve Digital Marketing Skills

To get more interviews, you need to engage hiring managers, and showing off your key skills is one of the best ways to do it.

But what if you lack some of those digital marketing skills required to get hired? Luckily, there are plenty of ways to revamp your abilities quickly and fairly easily. Here are a few effective tips to acquire the needed digital marketing specialist skills or improve the ones you already have:

• study the available materials;
• take a course;
• learn from masterclasses, lessons, workshops, and you name it;
• get patient and allow plenty of time for practice.

Your resume matters! Upgrade it on resume writing services online or take a look on good resume examples to land an interview with ease.

Digital Marketing in the Workplace

The digital marketing skills list is mostly defined by the work environment one operates in.

What you need to know about a career in digital marketing is that it can be extremely flexible and allow you to work in many different ways. You can work for a large company, a small marketing agency, or even provide your services as an online specialist.

As for the job duties, they vary. Since the world of digital marketing is ever-changing, it’s hard to say what marketers do every day. However, some key duties include planning and running campaigns, promoting products or services, and generating leads.

How to Showcase Your Digital Marketing Skills

Want more tips on becoming a digital marketer?

To make a hiring manager want to employ you, you need to showcase your best skills and accomplishments in a resume. We’ve already told you about what skills to put on digital marketing resume; now, we’ll focus on how to put them there.

Digital Marketing Skills for Resume

The skills on a resume are usually indicated in a separate section in bullet points. If you are wondering what digital marketing skills to learn, here is a list of the top skills needed for digital marketing (both soft and hard ones) that will make your resume look flawless:

• search engine marketing;
• search engine optimization;
• attention to detail;
• communication skills;
• problem-solving;
• creative skills;
• copywriting & copyediting;
• pay-per-click advertising (PPC);
• email marketing;
• organizational skills;
• analytical skills;
• analytics tools (e.g., Amplitude);
• time management;
• CMS (e.g., WordPress);
• collaboration skills;
• conversion rate optimization (CRO);
• content creation & automation;
• accountability;
• integrated marketing communication;
• results orientation.

Digital Marketing Skills for the Job Interview

Although each hiring manager will first meticulously study your applications, one more opportunity to show the best of you to win the job comes when you land an interview. It is also another chance to highlight your skills.

So, what skills should digital marketers have for the job interview? First and foremost, you will need to emphasize your communication and other people skills. However, that’s not all.

During the interview, you will be asked different questions to identify your knowledge and abilities. Most often, these questions will relate to SEO and different marketing strategies (like inbound and outbound, among others).

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Sample Digital Marketing Resume Skills Section

If you are wondering how to be a digital marketer, it all starts with writing a resume. And our marketing resume writing service is here to tell you how to craft a winning resume!

Digital Marketing Skills in a Resume Skills Section

Here is an example of how digital marketers can shape their skills section on a resume.

Relevant Skills:

• detail-oriented;
• hardworking;
• strong written and verbal communication;
• skilled in planning and implementing effective digital marketing campaigns;
• search engine optimization (SEO);
• analytical skills;
• critical thinking skills;
• conversion rate optimization (CRO);
• pay-per-click advertising (PPC).

Digital Marketing Skills in a Resume Work Experience Section

Here’s how to mention your skills for digital marketing in the work experience section.

Marketing Coordinator

Jives Media

April 2013 - January 2017

• increased quarterly sales by 20% by conducting a competitive analysis;
• enhanced copywriters’ output by 15% by suggesting new SEO tools;
• collaborated with the content team to streamline content operations.

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