Done properly, digital campaigning requires a diverse set of skills. That’s why building the right team is essential. From websites and email to design and data, a lot of responsibilities fall under the “digital” heading.
Some skills your campaign may have in-house and others you’ll need to hire outside support, but if you’re looking to add to your own capabilities, here’s a look at the most helpful skills you can develop quickly – and resources for learning them.
Email Marketing
There’s more to email than simply hitting send. Learning how to write, design, send, and measure emails that drive action will pay dividends throughout your campaign. Fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and event turnout are all aided with effective email marketing.
Resources
- Online Training: How to Raise Your Campaign’s First $1,000 Online (BestPracticeDigital.com)
- Email Marketing Guide for Successful Campaigns (Mailchimp.com)
Social Media Marketing
Similarly, with social media, there’s a lot that goes into doing it effectively for a campaign. Social media marketing relies on creating, sharing, and promoting marketing messages and content that get results for your campaign.
Resources
- Online Training: Social Media Marketing for Campaigns (BestPracticeDigital.com)
- Online Training: Social Media Marketing Course (HubSpot.com)
Clip, Trim, and Caption Videos
For digital marketing, your video editing capabilities don’t need to extend beyond clipping, trimming, and captioning videos. The more authentic and under-produced your videos are, the more widely they’ll be shared on social media channels.
Resources
- Tutorial: How to Edit Videos with Kapwing (Kapwing.com)
- YouTube Channel: Primal Video (YouTube.com)
Edit WordPress Settings & Install Plugins
Most campaign websites are built on WordPress, a free, open-source platform. Familiarize yourself with how to edit basic settings within the software, such as adding pages to navigation, to better customize your website.
Plugins are another easy – and often, free – way to add new functionality to your website, like integrating with your email marketing platform or creating surveys.
Resources
- Website: WPBeginner.com
- Website: WordPress.com
Social Graphic Design
Graphic design is another valuable skill to help create content for social media. It’s also another capability that you can add easily to your toolbox. The vast majority of your social media graphics involve adding words to images.
Resources
- Tutorials: Canva.com
Data Manipulation With Excel
Personalization is a core strength of digital marketing. Being able to create segments for your email and text listing is as straightforward as learning a few functions within Excel or Google Sheets like pivot tables and text to columns.
Resources
- Tutorial: How to Create a Pivot Table in Excel (HubSpot.com)
- Guide: Text to Columns (Excel-Easy.com)
These are important skills to develop professionally as digital marketing takes over more and more of how campaigns are run. Even if you’re not using these day-to-day and have staff and partners to do these tasks for you, you’ll become a better manager with an appreciation of how they work.
