10 Digital Marketing Skills They Don’t Teach You in School

If digital marketing skills they is on your radar, this short guide cuts through the noise. Here is what is worth knowing, and how to put it to work today.

Key Takeaways

• 10 Digital Marketing Skills They Don’t Teach You in School The real skills that you need to grow a business online aren't being taught in cl...
• If you want to truly succeed online, becoming an expert in any one of these areas can lead to a lucrative freelance career or help you becom...
• Written by Ben Huber Last Updated: April 29, 2024 Reviewed by Jeff Proctor Home Jobs Freelance Some of the links on DollarSprout point to pr...

10 Digital Marketing Skills They Don’t Teach You in School

The real skills that you need to grow a business online aren't being taught in classrooms. If you want to truly succeed online, becoming an expert in any one of these areas can lead to a lucrative freelance career or help you become the most irreplaceable member of your marketing team.

Written by Ben Huber Last Updated: April 29, 2024 Reviewed by Jeff Proctor

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It wasn’t until I was neck-deep into running a web-based small business that it became apparent our success was at least partially predicated on mastering at least one of several core digital marketing skills. Furthermore, mastering even one of these skills came second to realizing that our team needed at least a rudimentary understanding of all of them to effectively sell our digital product - personal finance content.

A nursing to marketing transplant, I had no formal education when it came to digital advertising, social media marketing, and influencership, the seemingly essential skills needed to drive traffic. But everywhere I looked to study these concepts, I found I wasn’t alone.

Even people with formal “marketing” degrees were scoffing (just look here, here, here to get an idea) at how poorly universities equip graduates with the hard skills they’ll need to help run a business. 

Facebook ads, webinar funnels, and truly effective social media marketing are not being taught in schools. Or if it is, it’s theory and principle versus actual implementation. After all, what university is going to lend you $500 , let alone $50,000 , in advertising spend to practice with. And yet, billion-dollar businesses rely on multi-million dollar per year ad spend to keep things afloat. 

The incongruency between formal education and needed business acumen creates an opportunity for self-taught, privately mentored, or enterprise-trained individuals to offer services that are truly essential to businesses , at their own cost point. 

If you’re one of a select group of people on the planet that can effectively scale six-figure ad campaigns, create high-converting funnels, or consistently rank at the top of Google for key search terms, your skillset cannot easily be replaced. You easily become the most key person in the room. 

With that in mind, here are ten essential digital marketing skills , which aren’t effectively being taught in school , that are crucial to virtually every modern business with an online presence. 

1. Web analytics

Big data powers some of the largest companies in the world. Even mom-and-pop shops will benefit from a clear understanding of what shoppers are doing when they visit their web properties.

Google Analytics has long been the premier tool for tracking visitors, how long they stay, and the types of products and pages consumers are most interested in. This sort of quantitative data can be used to make pivotal decisions about future product or content offerings that consumers are interested in.

Elite marketers can take things a step further by supplementing inferences gained by analyzing quantitative data with powerful deductions gained by analyzing qualitative data: how users behave and/or feel about the pages they’re visiting.

Expert marketers can bring big data to life, providing businesses with actionable steps they can take to improve website traffic, revenue, or certain KPIs. 

From automated A/B testing and heat mapping to session recording and feedback widgets, advanced tracking tools like Google Tag Manager, Crazy Egg, and Hotjar can be used to help businesses gain an understanding of what consumers are doing once they actually reach a webpage.

• Tools worth learning: Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Hotjar, Crazy Egg, Kissmetrics
• Courses worth taking: Google Analytics Academy

2. Social media marketing

Organic social media marketing has changed tremendously over the past several years. Gone are the days of chronologically sorted timeline/news feed distribution (say goodbye to the simple traffic heyday of Google+, Facebook, and Pinterest), in are the days of engagement-based distribution. 

Brands have caught on , hence the tacky call-to-actions asking consumers to interact with posts , but their implementation is frequently rocky at best. It’s all well and dandy to understand the types of content that typically perform well on social, but intimately understanding specific social platforms is what will get businesses results.

As such, it’s common to see brands establish a presence on several different platforms where their audience lives, but their inbound marketing success frequently lives and dies with their ability to master a specific social media outlet ( and then leverage that success into growth of the brand on different platforms.) 

If social is your thing, start by learning the fundamentals of a comprehensive marketing strategy. HubSpot Academy offers one such course.

Denise Dorman, an award-winning inbound marketer and Top 1% subject matter expert on LinkedIn, suggests familiarizing yourself with the tools that will actually move the needle for clients. She recommends Hootsuite, HubSpot, and Talkwalker as social listening tools that will help guide marketers into creating actionable items that clients can move on.

After mastering the fundamentals, start by working with your strengths. If you excel at seeing the big picture, work to create a holistic strategy for reaching your (or brands’) ideal client where they are.

Niche consulting services have arisen with nearly every large social platform. Becoming the go-to expert means setting your own rates and being selective about the clients you work with.

If you prefer to niche down because you see potential on a single platform, become the go-to consultant for that media source. 1-on-1 coaching, account consulting, knowledge courses, and asset creation are but a few of the numerous services you can offer. 

• Tools worth learning: Buffer, Buzzsumo, Hootsuite, Mention, Hubspot, Talkwalker 
• Courses worth taking: HubSpot Academy, TikTok Marketing Masterclass, Advanced Social Media Marketing for Picking Up Clients 

3. CRO

Conversion rate optimization , CRO for short , isn’t exactly a new science. But you won’t find digital CRO best practices in a textbook at your local university. Instead, you’ll find scattered literature in an array of entry-level marketing classes that talks in general terms about how improving conversion rates can impact a brand or business’s bottom line. And then they proceed to share very little abo

Final Thoughts

The bottom line: a little research on digital marketing skills they goes a long way. Compare your options, watch for seasonal offers, and never pay full price when a better deal is one click away.

Originally published at dollarsprout.com.