20 Digital Marketing Skills for Travel Marketers in 2024

Let’s face it: digital marketing isn’t exactly an easy profession. From continuously changing market trends to ever-increasing demands for results, it’s a high-pressure position.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, as the pros of being a digital marketing expert far outweigh the obvious cons. From freedom and flexibility through remote work to financial benefits, a digital marketing career is worth looking into.

While this list contains 20 top skills, it’s almost impossible to be great at them all. In the marketing world we call people with all these skill sets unicorns — aka, they don’t exist.

That said, it doesn’t hurt to try to improve your understanding of the marketing world and level up your skills simultaneously. So, let’s dive into the best digital marketing skills for travel marketers.

PS: If you’re a website owner trying to decide on the ideal marketing agency for you, this list can also come in handy.

The Top 20 Skills Every Digital Marketer Needs

From understanding link building to knowing how to find the best keywords for the travel niche, digital marketers must have plenty of skills. So, without further ado, let’s get stuck in.

1. Good Communication Skills

Being able to communicate effectively is possibly one of the most essential skills every marketer should have. Some of the most important reasons why great communication is key include:

• Being able to ask clients key questions.
• Your ability to discuss campaign goals to identify an actionable plan.
• Being able to represent campaigns wins with the client.
• Your ability to relay client goals and tasks to your marketing team.

Above everything, though, good communication tends to create good relationships, which are often invaluable within digital marketing. From client recommendations to fostering a good work environment, it all starts with great relationships.

2. Writing and Editing Skills

Content marketing is still a good aspect of SEO and digital marketing. So, being able to write and edit high-quality content is imperative in the marketing world.

From paid ads and landing pages to blog posts and emails, having a good grasp of language is a fantastic skill to have. It will also help you understand the style, tone, and audience of each client so you can provide written content for your clients that you know aligns with their website.

3. Proficiency in Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

It should go without saying that a digital marketer should be good at search engine optimization (SEO). You’ll want to keep up to date with market trends when search engines have updates.

You’d be surprised as to how many digital marketing experts are still using SEO techniques from years ago that aren’t working as successfully today.

If you’re a website owner, make sure your marketer knows how to get your website to the top of the search engine results page (SERP). Also, be sure to ask them questions about new developments in the industry to test whether they are staying up to date and adjusting their marketing strategies accordingly.

Top Tip: Our SEO services are regularly adjusted and updated according to market changes.

4. Excellent Research Skills

Now, you get soft and hard skills in marketing, but one of the soft skills that every marketer should have is amazing research skills. From researching competitors, the SERPs, and client industries, you need to understand the ins and outs of your client first and foremost.

Some of the important aspects of research you need to know include:

• Advanced search methods to improve your research results
• Data extraction
• Data analysis
• Source checking and critical thinking
• Ethical awareness

5. Understands Design

Unfortunately, this is one of those skills that you either have or you don’t, depending on if you have an artistic eye or not. That said, there are certain ways in which you can improve your understanding of design.

An extremely important digital marketing skill includes understanding search intent and your client’s target audience. So, if you can visit a website and understand what can be improved from a user point of view, that’s one way you can understand design.

6. Understands Google Analytics (GA4)

Data analytics is a crucial part of any marketing campaign, so knowing how to use Google Analytics 4 is a must. From knowing how to extract data to adding Google tags for tracking, it’s an invaluable tool that you simply need to know how to use.

It’s a powerful marketing analytics tool to help you understand your client’s audience, successful marketing campaigns, and content that’s performing well for their website. Simply put, it’s an essential tool for any overarching digital marketing strategy.

7. Can Easily Navigate Google Search Console (GSC)

Much like GA4, Google Search Console is yet another tool that you need to know the ins and outs of. GSC is primarily used for tracking the performance of a website, but it’s also a powerful tool for optimising content and tracking keywords and web pages.

You’ll also use GSC to understand the indexing profile of a website, which is imperative to understanding how and why a website is performing the way it is. Lastly, it will help you discover if a website needs a speed improvement to help with its user-friendliness.

8. Knows the Ins and Outs of Paid Advertising (PPC)

Most SEOs specialise in a specific field, like on-page SEO, link building, or paid advertising. While it’s rare you’ll find a successful digital marketer with in-depth knowledge of all the aspects of SEO, it’s still good to know how PPC works.

PPC can be a great source of income for many marketers, especially if you know how to work Google ads. It’s definitely one of the hard digital marketing skills to master, but it’s a great aspect of SEO to have basic knowledge of, at the very least.

9. Has Fantastic Personal Branding

If you can’t brand yourself, then how can clients trust you as a marketer? This is a tough truth to hear, but it’s something every marketer needs to know.

Even freelance marketers need to have some personal branding. This can be as simple as a regular LinkedIn post to showcase your industry expertise or case studies of client success stories.

Obviously larger companies have a better chance to raise brand awareness, but even freelancers can start seeing the benefits of personal branding.

Top Tip: Check out our case studies for some examples of how we showcase our brand’s expertise.

10. Understands Social Media Marketing (SMM)

The impact of social media platforms on SEO cannot be understated, and knowing how to do SMM is imperative in today’s market. Some of the next generation are even using social media platforms as search engines, which just shows how important they are becoming for a successful marketing campaign.

From connecting a social media platform to a client website to creating regular social media posts, SMM has become an essential skill that almost every marketer needs to have.

11. Has Experience Working With Various Social Media Platforms

Branching off the above point, knowing the different platforms and their needs is another great skill to have. For example, an Instagram Reel has very different needs from a Carousel post on Facebook.

Knowing these differing needs and how to execute them can prove vital for any social marketing expert.

12. Good at Networking

A marketer with good networking skills will not only land clients easier, but they’ll also create long-lasting relationships with people who can help them. Not everyone is a marketing unicorn, so having connections with people who can complete tasks you aren’t an expert at can prove priceless.

It can also help you prioritise clients, as you can outsource people to complete tasks that don’t warrant your time.

13. Can Work With WordPress

While there are plenty of web building and hosting companies out there, WordPress is arguably the most used and important in marketing. As such, you need to know how to use this platform.

Here are some of the key things you need to know about WordPress:

• The plugins to install are based on your client’s website.
• How to post content without adding dirty code.
• How to manage optin campaigns.
• How to optimise the design to maximise customer experience.

14. Can Work With Email Marketing and Newsletters

Email marketing is still a fantastic way for companies to ensure client retention and improve customer loyalty. This makes emailing an essential skill to have under your belt, as it’s one of the most effective marketing campaigns.

If you need more convincing, Startupbonsai ran a test and found that email is 40x more likely to result in customer retention than social media. In other words, knowing email marketing is a must, from setting up email campaigns, performing split testing, creating list separations, and analysing performance.

15. Has Good Time Management Skills

As a digital marketer, you’ll need to have excellent time management skills. You’ll most likely be juggling work for several clients, so being able to prioritise tasks and stay on top of everything will be essential.

You’ll need to do all this while keeping clients happy and preventing yourself from burning out. In other words, procrastination is a marketer’s Achilles heel.

16. Knows How to Work With Excel and/or Google Sheets

One of the many tools a digital marketer will regularly use includes Excel or Google Sheets. From website audits to keyword research, sheets are a great place to store all the necessary data in one place.

To avoid spending too much time setting up your spreadsheets, it’s best to have a good understanding of Google Sheets automation and filtering techniques.

17. Can Employ Marketing Automation Tools

From email automations with Klaviyo or Mailchimp to WordPress automation plugins like OptinMonster and calendar setups with Calendly, knowing how to operate these tools can be crucial.

Every client will be different and have different tools they use, but they work in a fairly similar way. As such, knowing how to get the most out of each type of tool will prove to be a very beneficial skill.

18. Understand HTML and CSS

While this falls more into the world of web dev, it doesn’t hurt to know the basics of HTML and CSS. While HTML is primarily used to create web pages, CSS dictates the style and layout of these pages.

You don’t need to know how to code. But knowing how each impacts a website can help you identify key flaws in a website’s makeup – which can prove invaluable to a digital marketer.

19. Can Do Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

In its simplest terms, CRO is being able to identify key areas of improvement on a website that can help increase results. From wanting to improve web traffic to getting visitors to click on a specific button, CRO is all about improving the percentage of users performing a desired action.

This is where your technical skills and strategic planning need to coincide with your industry knowledge.

20. Is a Creative Problem Solver

Last but certainly not least, you need to be a creative problem solver. SEO tactics don’t always work, and being able to find creative solutions is imperative.

You’ll need to be able to take emerging trends and apply them to your industry in unique ways that match your client’s website and its needs. This is a skill that you can hone and improve as you gain experience, but it’s also something you need to have a knack for from the start.

Top Digital Marketing Tools Every Travel Marketer Should Use

Before sending you on your way, here are some of the top digital marketing tools you should look to use.

Design Tools

• Canva — Image and video editing
• Adobe Creative Suite — Image and video editing
• Visme — Logo, image, and video design
• Web Developer Chrome Extension — identifying webpage improvement opportunities

SEO Tools

• Ahrefs — Keyword research, website performance, and competitor analysis
• SEMrush — Keyword research, website performance, and competitor analysis
• Moz — Keyword research, website performance, and competitor analysis
• GSC and GA4 — In-depth real-time data on the client’s website
• SurferSEO — Content creation and optimisation
• Grammarly — Content writing and editing

Social Media Marketing Tools

• Hootsuite — All-in-one social media management system
• HubSpot — All-in-one social media management system
• Bitly — All-in-one social media management system

Email Marketing Tools

• Klaviyo — Email management system
• Mailchimp — Email management system
• ConvertKit — Creator marketing platform

Wrapping Up on the Skills Digital Marketing Professionals Need

Just like that, you now know about all the skills you need to make it as a digital marketing expert. Just remember it’s almost impossible to attain all of the skills at a high enough level to call yourself an expert, so it’s best to hone in on the ones that pique your interest the most.

As for business owners, you can use this list of skills to help identify the best marketer for your company. You can use the skills listed above to help you identify what your company needs and which marketing agency offers the best services in that particular skill.