Before you send off that resume, find out what the job entails and which skills are required to see if this position’s a good fit for you.
Are you a digital marketer looking to take your skills to the next level?
Wondering if you have what it takes to become a successful digital strategist?
Since this field is fairly new and growing rapidly, many people are tempted to branch out into this role, but some are unsure of what it really entails.
Luckily, with the help of this guide, you’ll score a sneak peek into the position to see if it’s a career path worth pursuing.
We’ll also dive into the exact skills employers are looking for and the average salary of a strategist to give you a well-rounded picture of the role.
You should know exactly what you’re getting yourself into so let’s start with the basics.
What Does a Digital Strategist Actually Do?
While the title Digital Strategist seems straightforward, the job isn’t as simple as it sounds.
After all, coming up with digital strategies is just one small facet of the position.
A solid digital strategist will take an unbiased look at a company to identify all opportunities for growth, and potential roadblocks preventing the business from reaching its revenue goals.
This includes a company’s workforce, operations, and product/service offerings.
They’ll also monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to see if the data they collect can provide more insight into what’s really going on.
From there, digital strategists create a plan-of-action including a list of targets to reach. They’ll then execute, monitor, and track the campaign’s performance to see which adjustments, if any, need to be made.
And these tweaks can be spread across several different departments, including social media, marketing, customer service, website design, etc.
Another side of this role is helping brands make a better connection with their customers.
With this, you may see process updates and changes in key touch point areas, such as adding more or less, to make the customer’s experience smoother and to facilitate a faster checkout process, both online and in-person.
Digital strategist may also recommend shifts in the content strategy to help guide customers in this same way.
All this would depend on each business and the specific challenges it is and will be facing.
To give you a better idea of your potential day-to-day tasks, here are some of the primary roles of a digital strategist:
- Establish marketing, sales, and growth targets and create plans to reach them.
- Understand each team member’s role in the organization to identify strengths and gaps in skill set.
- Review and analyze the buyer’s journey from start to finish to gauge the customer’s experience.
- Sift through website data for key insight, such as which traffic sources are driving the most engagement and which ones need work; or why customers keep abandoning their shopping cart before completing a purchase.
- Create a cohesive brand voice and ensure it’s consistent across sales brochures, website content, and social media posts.
- Understand the sales process and pitch to create a smoother, more intuitive system.
- Test ads on different marketing mediums to see which resonate best with your audience.
- Ensure best practices are followed on all digital marketing platforms.
- Set up systems and processes that can be replicated at a moment’s notice.
If those challenges sound exciting to you, keep reading to see if this role lines up with your experience and skills.
13 Requirements You’ll Need to Become a Digital Strategist
If a day in the life of a digital strategist sounds like it would be you happy place, you’ll want to show employers you’re the right candidate for the position.
Here are the top skills and requirements employers are looking for when they hire digital strategists:
- Bachelor’s degree in marketing, advertising, or another relevant field is preferred
- As is a minimum of 3+ years as a digital marketing manager
- Experience with CRM’s, SEO, and SEM
- Proficiency in Google Analytics and other tracking metrics, such as social media analytics, to drive web traffic and increase conversions
- Ability to identify and focus on actionable metrics instead of vanity ones
- Experience with web design, specifically UI and UX
- Exceptional project management skills, including proficiency with PM tools
- Ability to uncover holes and areas of improvement in the sales process to generate more revenue
- Experience split testing content
- Understanding pay per click strategies to execute high-converting campaigns
- Lead generation and management
- Social media management experience
- Ability to set up marketing automation
And since a digital strategist must be able to work with and adapt to a variety of different departments and teams, you’ll need to feel comfortable managing people and holding them accountable too.
With all those duties and responsibilities, you’re probably wondering…
Is a Digital Strategist Job Stressful?
This answer is not as straightforward either and depends on how you react to certain situations.
If you have an analytical thinking style, enjoy working on many different tasks each day, and you’re someone who loves to solve problems and dive deep into KPIs, this role may be ideal.
But that’s only if you can manage juggling multiple hats since a digital strategist looks at several areas of the business and makes tweaks to each one simultaneously.
By doing this, the best strategist is able to deliver results fast.
But for some people, just the mere thought of all this work and strategizing sounds overwhelming.
Instead of waking up feeling energized by a list of problems to fix each day, they may wake up dreading their huge to-do list.
So if that’s the case for you, a digital strategist role may not be the right fit.
The good news is if you’re in the latter group, the average annual salary for a digital strategist is around C$55,421.
So if you’re ready to land your digital strategist job, you’ll want to start by knowing where to look for open positions.
Find a Digital Strategist Job Today
While the role of digital strategist may be fairly new, it’s only growing in demand.
So if the day-to-day tasks and challenges interest you, now’s the time to strike and get in on the ground floor.
You’ll rack up experience before others start to notice what an awesome job it is for the right type of person — and then increase your competition for said position.
Don’t waste your time on typical job board sites and bookmark those which specifically list marketing and digital strategist jobs, like Fresh Gigs.
Since a digital strategist position can be done remotely, you can search all of Canada for the position of your dreams without packing up your life and relocating for the career you want.
For a list of current job openings as a digital strategist, check out this page next!