Hey there,

In this week’s edition:

• Mateusz shares the 14 digital marketing skills you need.

• Tim explains how our Keyword Difficulty metric works.

• Himanshu shares the seven steps you can follow for an effective content development process.

• Fraser explains what experiential marketing is.

As always, click through to read each post. Or if you’re busy, read the tl;dr below each link.

New on the blog 🎉

14 Universal Digital Marketing Skills You Can't Ignore

The skills are as follows:

• Data literacy

• Understanding different marketing channels

• Copywriting

• Getting around essential digital marketing tools

• Basic design skills

• Assertiveness

• Social intelligence

• Critical thinking

• Curiosity (constant learning)

• Adaptability

• Strong work ethic

• Performing experiments

• Coping with pressure

• Understanding code

Keyword Difficulty: How to Estimate Your Chances to Rank

Tim Soulo

Keyword Difficulty (KD) is an SEO metric that estimates how hard it would be to rank on the first page of Google for a given keyword. It is measured on a scale from 0 to 100, with the latter being the hardest to rank for.

If you check the keyword difficulty of the same keywords in different SEO tools, the numbers will vary quite substantially:

That is why it is important to understand how exactly the ranking difficulty is calculated by your SEO tool of choice. Only then can you make informed decisions based on it.

Here at Ahrefs, we use a simple method for calculating KD. We pull the top 10 ranking pages for your keyword and look up how many websites link to each of them. The more links the top-ranking pages for your keyword have, the higher its KD score. Very simple and very actionable.
 

7 Effective Steps for a Robust Content Development Process

Content development is the combination of the different steps involved in the entire lifecycle of a content piece—right from its conception to distribution. It involves steps like audience research, brainstorming, planning, editing, and more.

Here are the seven important steps:

1. Understand your market

2. Be clear on the purpose of your content

3. Plan your content (metrics you should take into account for prioritization: Traffic Potential, Keyword Difficulty, and business potential) 

4. Create your content

5. Get feedback on your content

6. Distribute your content

7. Monitor your results

What Is Experiential Marketing? 22 Examples & Takeaways

Fraser McCulloch

Experiential marketing is a type of marketing that provides prospects or customers with real-life experiences to raise awareness, build understanding, or increase sales of products or services.

These experiences can be offline, such as live events, trade shows, demo days, etc., or online webinars and conferences.

Here are some examples of experiential marketing:

• Pop-up stores

• Co-branding

• Solo experiences

• Product demos

• Product sampling

• Tours

• Conferences

• Classes and workshops

• Augmented reality and metaverse 

What we’re reading 🤓

Google Erased the Keyword Density Slide From Digital Marketing Certification Coursework

Pretty funny how Google actually included a section on keyword density in its certification course. (It has removed that now.)

Marketing in a Recession: How to Make Marketing Investments When the Economy Is Rough

The economy looks like it’s entering a recession. And typically, marketing spend is one of the first expenses to be cut. Writer Marc Thomas believes this is not a wise move. 

Here’s how SaaS companies can have adverse economic situations work in their favor and make better marketing decisions:

• Using dollar-cost averaging in good times

• Building pipeline

• Investing when others are withdrawing

• Hiring great marketing talent from competitors

Till next time ;)
Cheers,