According to a study conducted by Target Internet in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), digital marketing abilities have stagnated or decreased throughout the epidemic.
Unlike many other areas, where digital skills were accelerated by the epidemic, the bulk of digital marketing abilities stalled or deteriorated between 2020 and 2021, according to their analysis. This reduction has affected virtually all industries and career levels, with analytics & data skills declining the greatest, followed by content marketing and social media.
According to earlier data from CIM’s recent ‘Impact of Marketing 3’ research, six out of ten (60 percent) marketers who were furloughed used the time to focus on personal development, with their focus moving to upskilling in areas like brand, copywriting, and strategy. This is corroborated by today’s data, which reveal that ‘general marketing’ was the only discipline to improve considerably over the previous 18 months, with a 7 percent improvement.
There are a lot of marketing opportunities available right now in all regions, but there aren’t enough applicants with the proper skill sets. This implies that marketers must be even more conscious of where they spend their professional development efforts while not losing sight of the vital digital marketing skills that have long been a part of marketing.
“The results of this year’s benchmark help us obtain a better grasp of the health of UK marketers’ digital abilities, presenting us with a great chance to upskill the sector,” stated Daniel Rowles, CEO of Target Internet, in response to the study’s findings. Individuals who have been invested in and allowed to develop their talents will stand out from the crowd and attract superior talent in the long term.”
In the last version of the research, it was discovered that agency marketers were substantially more sophisticated in their use of digital marketing strategies than the industry as a whole. While agencies’ abilities deteriorated in a similar fashion to many other industries, they outperformed the industry average, with nearly a quarter (24%) of their workers in the top two quintiles – one of the biggest concentrations of scores of any company. This can also indicate a transition from in-house marketing teams to outsourcing by 2020, with 50% of agencies reporting increased income in CIM’s CMO50 report, necessitating the need to up-skill workers to match demand.
While there are several problems and a clear change in attention to wider marketing skillsets, this cannot be at the expense of digital competencies. Marketing teams must strike a balance that allows them to function efficiently while still addressing the demands of their clients and the goals of their organization.
The risk of being left behind must be emphasized on the basis that technology does not wait, and while the necessity to maintain upskilling in order to simply stay still was evident prior to the epidemic, the worry today is that the skills gap will only widen and become unmanageable. Employers must invest in their marketing teams’ ongoing growth.
