Podcast Summary: The Digital Marketing Podcast

Episode: Mind the (Digital Skills) Gap

Date: January 12, 2017
Hosts: Daniel Rowles & Ciaran Rogers
Duration: ~14 minutes (content portion)

Episode Overview

This episode addresses the ongoing challenge faced by marketers: the digital skills gap. Hosts Daniel Rowles and Ciaran Rogers discuss why the gap persists, which digital skills are crucial for modern marketers, and how individuals and organizations can realistically assess and close their own gaps. The conversation draws from Daniel's experience lecturing at Imperial College and the launch of a new digital skills assessment tool. The episode is practical, reflective, and challenges listeners to take action as part of a "New Year, New You" philosophy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Existence and Impact of the Digital Skills Gap (00:19 – 03:40)

• Daniel highlights recent reports and personal experience showing the persistent gap between traditional marketing skills and required digital expertise.

  • Quote: “We’ve known this for a long time that the environment is moving very quickly and therefore people staying up to date with that is a bit of a challenge.” (00:29 – Daniel)

• This gap affects both individuals trying to upgrade skills and organizations recruiting for key marketing roles.

• Imperial College & Skills Assessment:

  • Daniel lectures at Imperial College London, teaching digital modules to highly talented postgrads.
  • He introduces a new, free skills assessment tool at TargetInternet.com that maps a user's existing digital skills, benchmarks them against objectives, and recommends tailored learning resources.

2. Should “Digital Marketing” Be a Separate Term? (03:41 – 04:57)

• Some debate whether marketing should still be split into “digital” and “traditional”; Daniel sees value in the term during this transition but argues for a unified strategy.
  • Quote: "You should have a marketing strategy and bits of that should be digital…we’re still in this transitional phase where everyone’s adapting to this stuff." (03:44 – Daniel)
• Both hosts agree that understanding digital is no longer optional—it’s a permanent and critical part of modern marketing.

3. Essential Digital Skills: The Four Pillars

A. Tactical Skills: Understanding the Channels (04:57 – 07:04)

• Marketers, even at senior levels, must understand the core principles of digital channels (SEO, PPC, email, etc.), regardless of whether they execute tactics themselves.
  • Daniel argues that small tactical missteps can have major strategic consequences.
  • Example: "Page titles and SEO…is a very technical kind of bit…but it has such a significant impact…if you get it wrong, you can crush your online business." (04:44 – Daniel)
• Ciaran backs this up with a warning about relying blindly on agencies:
  • Quote: “Unless you have a degree of knowledge about this, you are just a lamb to the slaughter…You could be thinking, ‘oh, you’re doing brilliantly’, and actually you’re not…you may be only getting 30% of what you’re doing.” (05:07 – Ciaran)
• Both agree that many agencies are excellent, but there are also many underperforming or misleading, so clients must be knowledgeable to discern quality.
  • “I've easily done work with over 30 agencies…and actually I probably only rate two or three of them.” (06:52 – Ciaran)

B. Strategic Planning & Measurement (07:04 – 08:25)

• It’s not enough to know tactics; digital marketers must also plan strategically and, crucially, know what and how to measure performance.
  • Quote: “You need measurement frameworks. So you need to know what you’re measuring and why and how that impacts your bottom line.” (07:09 – Daniel)
• The best teams blend tactical know-how with sound strategic oversight.

C. IT and Technology Fluency (08:25 – 09:36)

• Technical competence is a frequently missing, but vital, component—even for brilliant marketers.
  • Quote: "Very few of them…have knowledge in things like HTML, how you build web pages, how web servers work, what FTP is…Once you get them, you kind of know what your IT team's doing." (08:27 – Daniel)
• Marketers should build relationships with IT and development teams through simple approaches (like having a coffee and asking questions).
  • Ciaran: “Go have coffee with people, ask them questions, take an interest in what they do…you get to understand them, their world…” (09:09 – Ciaran)
• Cross-disciplinary teams are encouraged to foster better understanding and collaboration.

D. Soft Skills & Stakeholder Management (10:01 – 13:50)

• These include leadership, influencing, and managing upwards/downwards—skills rarely formally taught in marketing education.
  • “This…isn’t really taught as part of marketing a lot of the time. And that's often managing up, managing down, working with colleagues effectively…getting leadership buy-in.” (10:01 – Daniel)
• Daniel describes two approaches for influencing resistant leadership teams:
  • "Shock and awe": Bring in an external respected speaker to directly confront leadership with the urgency of digital transformation.
  • "Softly, softly": Take leadership on the learning journey alongside the team, creating psychological safety and buy-in.
  • Memorable story: To convince a resistant board to update a website, they filmed top clients struggling comically to use the outdated site, edited the footage, and played it for the board—leading to an immediate change of heart.
    • “We recorded them…pulling very confused, fed up…faces…And then we played it to the board and went, ‘This is what your website does to your customers’…” (12:13 – Daniel)
• The most effective digital marketers are well-rounded with strength across all four quadrants—tactical, strategic, technological, and soft skills.

4. Advice for Individuals and Organizations (13:50 – End)

• Use the Target Internet skills assessment (free for individuals, possible for teams) to identify strengths and weaknesses and map improvement.
• Regularly review and upskill in all four areas.
  • Daniel: “Look at your skills, go into those quadrants…tactical, strategic, technology, and soft skills…and look at where you can improve things.” (13:54 – Daniel)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On agency reliance:
  “Unless you have a degree of knowledge about this, you are just a lamb to the slaughter.” (05:04 – Ciaran)

• On technical competence:
  "If you get those things [web basics] it makes everything else make a lot more sense. It allows you to manage your IT and your technology teams a lot more effectively." (08:51 – Daniel)

• On cross-disciplinary collaboration:
  "This idea of cross disciplinary teams is really important...that can foster that culture of people communicating and understanding what each other are doing a lot better." (09:36 – Daniel)

• On influencing leadership:
  “It’s like defense against the dark arts, right?” (10:38 – Ciaran)
  “It’s absolutely...” (10:40 – Daniel, laughing)

• On self-improvement:
  "Assess yourself. It's new year. Look at your skills, go into those quadrants…look at where you can improve things." (13:54 – Daniel)

Episode Structure & Timestamps

• 00:19 – Why the digital skills gap exists; Imperial College experience, skills assessment launch
• 03:41 – Should “digital marketing” just be “marketing”? Transitional phase discussion
• 04:57 – Importance of tactical knowledge, even for senior marketers; agency management
• 07:04 – Strategic planning and measurement frameworks
• 08:25 – IT/technology skills and why marketers need them
• 09:09 – Building relationships across functions
• 09:36 – Cross-disciplinary teams
• 10:00 – The importance of soft skills and stakeholder management
• 10:38 – Two techniques for influencing leadership
• 12:13 – Memorable “website usability” experiment to win board buy-in
• 13:50 – Using assessment tools, summing up the four crucial skills quadrants

Conclusion

This episode stresses that digital marketing is not just about knowing the latest tools or platforms—success requires a balanced set of tactical, strategic, technical, and soft skills. Whether you’re an aspiring digital marketer, an experienced head of marketing, or someone tasked with hiring talent, understanding and bridging the digital skills gap is crucial for long-term relevance and success in marketing.

For practical next steps, listeners are encouraged to assess their own and their team’s capabilities using the free digital skills assessment at TargetInternet.com, focusing improvement efforts across all four key areas.