So you’ve decided you want to work in digital marketing. After all, it’s one of the fastest growing industries, it’s young, vibrant and fun and has great earning potential. It’s also one of the industries where people from all degree disciplines get jobs.

Once you understand exactly what skills you need it will be far easier to tailor your CV and your interview answers.

Do you have the skills to be successful in a digital marketing role? Let’s find out…

1. Are You Analytical?
All decisions are based on data in a digital marketer’s role. It will be your job to analyse the data, look for patterns and look for clues as to what the next move should be. Demonstrating that you have a naturally analytical and logical brain will be a huge tick for you.

2. Do You Have Strong Attention To Detail?
Ever heard the saying that the devil is in the detail? Well it couldn’t be more true for digital marketing. Whether you are working in search engine optimisation or pay-per-click, email marketing or conversion, you have to have your eye on the minutia of what is happening in your campaigns. So whatever happens don’t have spelling or grammar mistakes on your CV, as this immediately smacks of poor attention to detail.

3. How About Commercial Awareness?
Working in marketing all your decisions eventually impact the sales of the business. So whilst some digital marketing roles are deemed to be more technical, you should never make a technical decision that appears better without considering how it impacts sales.

If, for example, you work in PPC (pay per click) marketing you are responsible for buying advertising and so it would be your job to make sure that you don’t pay more for your ads than they generate in sales – known as a positive return-on-investment.

Most interviewers will look for some indicator of commercial nous. Have you sold anything before, have you worked in a retail environment, have you made money using your initiative before? Any examples you can have up your sleeve to demonstrate this will pay dividends.

4. How Technically Savvy Are You?
Being technically savvy is an absolute must. You already have a head-start as you grew up with technology. But you really have to have an affinity with technology to function well in most digital marketing roles. You will be working with technical systems like Mailchimp for email, WordPress for content management, Google Adwords for PPC and Google Analytics for data measurement (to name only a few!).

5. Can You Produce Good Copy?
Pretty much all digital marketing roles require you to be able to write good copy. Copy is our word fortext. So just as in point 2 your CV and cover letter are demonstrable examples of how good you are at copywriting. Often candidates cannot understand why they haven’t been selected for an interview, and often it comes down to what is contained in their application.

When I recruited marketing roles, I refused to interview people with spelling or grammatical mistakes on their application. Harsh I know! First of all, such mistakes suggest that the applicant can’t write or spell, and secondly it says that they haven’t had the foresight to check their own work or that they are simply lazy (and haven’t run a spell check).

If you struggle with grammar (as many of us do), I recommend you check out a copywriting tool such as the Hemingway editor.

Digital Marketing is a fantastic and rewarding career path, and one that suits many people. If you feel that you don’t naturally possess all five of the skills listed above, don’t lose heart, they can be learned and it may just mean that your next step is to brush up, take some training, get an internship or some work experience. There are also roles such as a content or social media marketer that are more creative and less technical and vice versa, so this list should be treated as a guide. Good luck with your job search!

This article was written by Lucy Smith founder of Digital Marketing for Graduates – the place to go if you’re a student or graduate looking to upskill or get a job in digital marketing.