How to upskill your marketing team ready for digital transformation

In the most basic of terms, digital transformation is the process a business goes through when it integrates digital technologies into normal processes – it is key to optimising the customer experience for businesses today. Recent research shows that within the next 20 years, 90% of all jobs will require digital skills in order to aid this digital revolution. To meet this challenge, businesses will require a skilled workforce who are tech savvy and digitally minded. 

In our experience, your marketing team is best placed to understand the customer journey and the opportunities that come with going digital, and so should be leading the charge for digital transformation. In this article, we want to discuss the benefits of upskilling your marketing team, and how to create a learning and development culture in order for your business to succeed in the digital landscape. 

Why is upskilling important? 

Upskilling is the practice of offering existing employees the opportunity to learn new skills and advance their capabilities through additional training, mentoring or peer coaching.  

Employee upskilling is important for boosting staff satisfaction and retention rates, as well as future-proofing your business, ensuring you maintain a competitive edge over competitors in your industry. Here’s what our in-house expert has to say: 

In the past 12 months, we have seen an increase in the turnover of marketing staff across all industries and sectors. One of the most common reasons for this is lack of career progression for top talent who claim to experience career stagnation. If there is no immediate promotion available, one of the best things employers can do is upskill their marketing staff. Some good examples of this are employers teaching email marketeers to run marketing automation campaigns, content writers being upskilled in digital SEO content writing, and marketing managers being offered PPC and SEO capabilities.

Will Pendlington, Senior Consultant, Michael Page Digital 

How do I upskill my marketing team?

Here are the key steps you should consider when creating an upskilling strategy for your marketing team:

1. Identify your skills gap 

There are several things to consider when evaluating your current team’s skills and where you may have gaps: 

• How well is your team performing against set KPIs?
• What is your current growth trajectory?
• What are the obvious obstacles to growth that can be overcome? 

It’s also critical to speak to your team members firsthand to gauge the key areas that require improvement and which skills they feel would be most beneficial in their day-to-day. 

2. Make training ongoing and available to everyone 

Ensure that all employees have access to training. This means hosting sessions in an easily accessible way, whether that’s via an online portal, so staff can access it when working remotely or at a time that suits them.  

If you are a multi-regional organisation, ensure you have localised training to accommodate employees with a different first language. Don’t forget that all employees will have different learning styles and needs. Make sure you offer upskilling training in a range of different formats so it’s accessible to all. This means taking into account any employees that may have visual or auditory impairments, as well as catering for neurodiverse employees.  

There’s also plenty of free online courses for upskilling that you should make your marketers aware of.

3. Reward and incentivise employees 

While most employees will likely embrace upskilling training, there will always be some employees who are less enthusiastic. This might be because they feel they don’t need the training, they’re simply not interested, or because they have limited time available. 

Consider incentivising your employees, either by giving them recognition (shout outs, leaderboards, or positive reinforcement) or by rewarding them with prizes or financial incentives whenever they successfully complete an allocated training course. 

Closing your skills gap with Michael Page 

Michael Page Marketing and Digital is one of the UK’s leading recruitment partners for businesses who are ready to build diverse marketing teams and attract top talent in the sector. Our dedicated team of consultants can help you to fill specialty skills gaps and boost the overall skillset of your marketing team.

Get in touch today to discuss your hiring needs.