A digital skills gap

Steve Hemsley’s special report on training (“Success built on foundation of basic skills”, MW 9 July), made some interesting points about the need for fundamental skills for marketers, particularly in digital.

In my experience, brands are wasting a chunk of their investment in digital because their marketers are without some level of training. Projects that should be straightforward and have a fast turnaround, end up taking twice as much time. This is especially true for something more complicated than your average site, such as e-commerce.

For a digital agency it’s a delight to work with marketers who not only understand what e-commerce is but also, understand the various ROI activities, such as multi-variant testing, checkout optimisation and landing pages. The basics need to be second nature to the marketer (particularly if they’re responsible for an e-commerce site). We wouldn’t expect them to know everything we know, but if they’re in a position that’s responsible for delivering revenues to the business, they need to know what they’re doing and how to brief their agency.

Now more than ever, we have to demonstrate an ROI for everything we do. But if we’re using up time coaching clients, then something somewhere has got to give.

Fadi Shuman
Co-founder
Pod1