Learning the technical aspects of digital marketing has been one of the most gratifying journeys of my career. It has fundamentally changed the way I see the Web and has opened numerous opportunities for creativity and growth. If you have any interest in diving into the technical world, don’t’ wait, Jump!
If you are an opportunity seeker, you will find that the demand for technical marketing skills opens up doors that you didn’t even know existed. If you are an ambitious marketer ready to brand yourself as a growth hacker, technical skills are essential. If you are even the least bit curious about how the “magic” of the Web works, a splash into technical waters will remove the constraints of fear and expose new opportunity for creativity. In all cases, learning about Web technologies and how to apply them is likely the best investment you can make into your digital career.
Where to Start
This is the series I wish I could have read five years ago. It is intended for those, like myself, who are interested in growing a career in digital marketing and want to build an indispensable skill set. The series highlights many of the most valuable technical skills for digital marketing and offers a clear path to learning these skills with minimal time-consuming detours. It includes real use cases and also describes the more conceptual, “higher level” benefits from learning these skills.
This series consists of four posts. Choose a link and enjoy your journey!
Learn JavaScript, HTML and CSS
How the technologies that create the look, feel and experience of the web are used in experience optimization, analytics data collection, email marketing, and Google Apps.
Learn Programming and Database Analysis
How the big systems like Facebook and Google work, how your CMS creates dynamic web pages and how to think like a database.
Learn how to use Web API’s and Scrape Websites
How to access data from websites and Web API’s, how to read the data, and how to make it useful. Connect all the things!
How to Learn and Where to Find Help
How to read documentation, code repositories, and forums, what to do when you get stuck and where to find help.
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Can technical skills earn you an extra $10k a year?
I believe so. There are a ton of college graduates with marketing, communications or business degrees. And for the longest time, the curriculum for these majors lagged far behind the technology. Though these gen X/Y/Z’ers are familiar with the digital environment, few are able to take full advantage of the digital environment, let alone recognize opportunities. If you want to be a growth hacker, digital analyst or just upgrade your digital marketing resume, technical marketing skills are a key differentiator in a wide open market.
Beyond an actionable skillset, the demonstrated ability to learn technical skills is a valuable characteristic in itself. Those who can and do learn, prove their self-motivation, ability to learn and be flexible. From my observations, the people that are driven to learn generally move farther, faster than those who are just good at their job. You cannot learn experience but you can learn skills.
Finally, Jamie Stevens makes a great point about the need for generalists. Not only can these people handle marketing strategies end to end but they can also see the big picture and communicate across a broad spectrum of stakeholders. This glue is indispensable in organizations of any size.