Marketing, as we all have witnessed has changed in the course of recent years as the

consequence of disruptive technologies and a contrasting change in consumer behaviour.

This change continues to grow at a rate never experienced by the industry and as the role of
marketer evolves day by day not many have been able to keep up with this Digital
transformation. According to a recent report from The Economist and Business Intelligence
Unit, 'The Rise of the Marketer' over 80% of marketing executives expressed the need to
rebuild their marketing strategies that are in line with the present digital landscape to better
bolster business objectives. A further 29% stated earnest change in their skills was required.
While the IT industry and cyber security have been familiar with the term “Skill Gap”,
marketers are now on board for the same.
This blog finds 8 ways by which your organisation can fill the Digital Marketing skill Gap.

Let’s first understand … what is a “Digital Marketing Skill Gap”?

“A Digital Marketing skill gap is the difference between the skills required to conduct
an effective online marketing campaign and the actual skills possessed by a marketer."
- Harvard Business Review, New York Times

HOW TO FILL THE DIGITAL MARKETING SKILL GAP

WILLINGNESS TO INVEST
Considering that a Digital marketing requires investment to run a campaign just like the
traditional marketing does, it calls for the willingness of upper hierarchy to address the need
of the present times. While marketers see its potential and believe that social media is central
to the overall marketing strategy, without buy in from top management, digital marketing will
not deliver results because it was never invested in to enable it to.
EVALUATING THE MARKETING TEAM’S SKILLS
The Digital ecosystem is ever developing and with New Features, Platforms and Changed
Algorithms, you first have to understand the levels of skills required to be incorporated in
your marketing system to identify where the skill gaps are. Once you evaluate what skills and
capabilities are lacking in your organisation you can define and prioritise which capability
you have to up skill or outsource.
A recent study by SkilledUp found a critical deficiency in 90% digital marketers and
difficulty in hiring content marketers or marketers lacking skills to implement content
marketing strategies. Other areas that required skilled individuals are SEO, Email Marketing,
Social marketing, analytics and digital media monitoring.
UPSKILL
To be the best game player in the digital space you must consider the skills that a digital
marketer needs to succeed in an always-on, connected world. This dynamic market
environment requires a marketer to be more agile and responsive to the changing
circumstances. If you are not providing essential trainings to your staff now and then, you are
actually neglecting the value of training in terms of how it can drastically improve the
marketing output.
OUTSOURCE IF YOU CANT UPSKILL
When you use the right people, outsourcing can be an effective way of managing short term
requirements and long term upskilling that may be more cost effective than hiring that talent
internally. Having and training existing talent in house will enable you to work better with
outsourced talent, digital has to be driven internally or it will never bring results.

FORGET 9-5, THINK 24/7

Technology has empowered day in and day out connectivity obscuring the lines between
work and personal life and for each moment there are connected consumers who expect a
brands to be online when they are. You as a marketer need to be super connected, responsive
and contactable out of typical working hours to engage with your consumers. Remember that
social media is in Cyber space not office space or office hours!
After more than 10 years in marketing industry, this world have seen the growth of digital marketing
first-hand and there’s really only one thing we can say for certain: if you don’t keep up you’ll get left
behind. 

Join us for a free demo today

Chatbots

We’ll continue to see intelligent chatbots like Siri and Alexa who can perform simple tasks and pull
information.
As the software improves, we’ll see artificial intelligence and human characteristics used to improve
the quality of information provided. We may also see chatbots that are able to learn a user’s
preferences and utilize those preferences when providing information.
Machines will keep getting smarter and new technology will increase productivity among businesses.
Remote workers and virtual tours will allow businesses to connect with consumers and employees all
over the world.

Video content

We’ll see even more brands begin to utilize video content as VR and a ugmented r eality becom e
more mainstream.

With the ability to share video content easily on social media through platforms like Snapchat or
Facebook Live, brands are looking for new, innovative ways to capture an audience’s attention
through video.

Social e commerce

Different social media sites have enabled advertisers to sell directly on their
platforms. Facebook and Pinterest, in particular, have introduced “Buy Now” features. This is a
fantastic opportunity to reach your target audience and increase conversions. It’s a win-win
situation since social media users can now buy products without even leaving the app, allowing for
a great user experience. Without question, more social platforms will follow suit this 2016.

This is a fantastic opportunity to reach your target audience and increase conversions. It’s a win-
win situation since social media users can now buy products without even leaving the app,
allowing for a great user experience. Without question, more social platforms will follow suit this
2016.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise if buy buttons become very prominent in advertising campaigns by
this year’s holiday season.

Videos will continue to dominate.

Avoid theses 5 Seo Mistakes in 2017

5 tips to win in search 2017 and beyond

5 SEO Strategies for Ecommerce

Organic search is a valuable source of traffic for any e-commerce website as well as one that’s far
too frequently neglected. From poor quality content to site architecture that reduces visibility, many
online retailers make strong mistakes that compromise their ability to rank for competitive
keywords, drive traffic, and attract new customers.

Would you like to rank your newly set up website? Although seo for ecommerce might seem more
complicated than that for a static, content driven website, it’s far less difficult than you might
imagine.

Mentioned below are 5 simple yet highly effectively SEO strategies for ecommerce business owners.
If you’d like to generate more web traffic, sell more products, and earn more revenue add one two
or all six strategies to your seo efforts.

USE GENERIC, HIGH TRAFFIC KEYWORDS FOR PRODUCT CATEGORIES

Product keywords can be grouped in to several different categories. There are specific product
keywords such as the colour or type of the product or a model name and generic keywords that
describes a broad class of products.

For example “IPhone 7-Black” will be a specific product keyword whereas “mobile phones” will be a
generic keyword. To achieve maximum search visibility you should structure your store around both
keywords.

Product keywords are covered using product pages. Generic keywords on the other hand are best
targeted using categories. Before you start building your website it is important that you plan an
architecture that uses generic search keywords as product categories.

The generic keywords receives the greatest search volume it makes sense to serve as a product
category keyword since it will funnel users to products that they are interested in

An effective Ecommerce website uses category pages a funnel for two purposes

1. For directing internal searchers to the product they are looking for
2. For attracting external searchers to help them discover relevant products.

DEAL WITH DUPLICATE CONTENT

Since most of the ecommerce websites have innumerable pages, duplicate content comes as a
common problem. Product descriptions can appear on product pages, categories, and archive and in
many other spaces, making it hard for Google to detect the original source of the content in your
website.

Without knowing which page owns each piece of content, Google can struggle to work out how and
where to place your website on search listing.
To fix this problem, first establish the source of any content that’s used across a variety of pages on
your website using canonical tags.

Second, make sure your content really is original. Many ecommerce websites end up using product
descriptions from other suppliers and manufacturers, resulting in identical content appearing across
different online retailers.

When you aim to rank number one in search, this duplicate content can be a major barrier. Original
content really do matter. Instead of using the manufacturers description get creative and create our
own keyword optimized content. Once you are able to outrank e-commerce giants you will be
thankful you did.

FIND HIGH TRAFFIC UNDER UTILIZED WORDS

When a competitor’s product categories match the top keywords in the Google Adword keyword
tool, it can be difficult to outrank them. However, many ecommerce retailers ignore high traffic
keywords giving you a distinct advantage.

These hidden keywords are often product variations or sub categories that are big enough to
generate thousands of pounds every month in a sale but too small for a giant retailer to prioritize.

This keyword is a great SEO opportunity not because it attracts more searches and have obvious
commercial intent but because other merchants have failed to target it.

Most generic category keywords haven’t gone unnoticed by other merchants but the few that have
are perfect target for your initial SEO efforts.

OPTIMISE FOR THE FASTEST POSSIBLE LOAD TIME

Google has been transparent about the fact that it uses website loading time as a ranking factor. So,
if your website takes time to load don’t expect to be ranked higher in the search listings.

Although it may not seem to be directly related to SEO activities, any effort you make to speed up
your site performance will pay dividend in search visibility. Google PageSpeed tool is a great place to
start your optimisation efforts.

There are short term costs associated with optimising for speed from hiring a developer to the cost
of potential downtime. However the long term benefits both in search engine optimisation and
conversions are more than worth the small investment.

DOUBLE CHECK THE ON PAGE OPTIMISATION

Not all ecommerce platforms are configured for on page SEO. Making it important that you set up
your on page content, title tags, images and other content correctly

Star by ensuring that your primary target keyword is in your page title. If it’s a category page: makes
sure its title includes the generic keyword. Or a page dedicated to one product, include the product
name, Variation and model number.
Your secondary target keywords for example – the product name variations and generic, keyword-
should be used though out the on page content. Use secondary keywords in H1, H2, and H3 tags
with long tail keywords throughout the product description, FAQ’S and other body Content.

Finally make sure your videos and images are optimised effectively. Use relevant Image alt tags and
filenames to maximise your visibility in Google image search and consider adding captions to any
product demo video as they will increase visibility in Google video search.

ON Page SEO is particularly important for driving traffic from long-tail keywords. Since so few
ecommerce merchants put any efforts into optimising for the long tail, great content should be all it
takes for your ecommerce website to pop onto the first page for valuable keywords.