In an age of digital, the dividing line between marketing and communications is becoming increasingly blurry and activities performed by professionals in each area now increasingly impact their colleagues across the way. In some cases, marketing and communications is merged in one function (marcom). In other cases, they remain separate departments. But even for the latter, communications professionals, in particular, are realizing that learning more about digital marketing is becoming a must. If you’re not already convinced, here are 5 reasons for professionals to brush up on digital marketing right now.

1. Social media goals are shifting.

With many communications professionals managing the company’s social media (separate from the marketing department), it’s critical that companies not only coordinate messages across departments but the two areas support each other strategically. In another life, gaining followers and getting likes from a communications standpoint seemed great until the CEO asked: “How do I turn all those followers into customers?” The latter, of course, is a marketing question, but it’s also now a communications question. And defining the role that social plays in your organization requires comm pros to learn more about funnels, touch points, customer relations management, and even paid media tactics such as lookalike targeting and retargeting.

2. Press releases serve multiple functions, not just media pickup.

Press releases remain the bedrock function of many communications shops. And crafting the language so it not only gets posted on a publisher’s website but also gets picked up and noticed by the editorial staff is skill all on its own. Press releases have also long been known to be a tactic to produce high-quality inbound links from an authoritative source, boosting SEO. And while experts believe that has shifted some in recent years, there is evidence that Google still values press releases as far as SEO goes. But knowing what best-practice tactics work from a SEO perspective and determining downstream SEO value relies on keeping up with marketing techniques, and balancing communications tactics with basic SEO writing and linking back to the company website.

3. Communications is ultimately about projecting brand (and behavior change).

Whether a communications department is externally focused, internally focused, or both, the goal of communications is ultimately about consistently projecting the brand and reinforcing the brand promise – hence, the need to be aligned with marketing, which ultimately does the same function. Many communications departments, especially internally focused ones, also engage in their own form of marketing and behavior change. Whether that’s ensuring employees take the company training, participate in the lunch & learns, or company activities, or even deal with a customer on social media, a successful communications function will alter individuals’ behaviors in a desired way. The ability to understand marketing in this case helps tremendously to move those undecided or unengaged to becoming customers and advocates.

4. Communications teams often run websites.

In some companies, marketing doesn’t own the website, the communications or the IT departments do. (We would argue, in those cases where functions are separated, the website certainly belongs within the marketing function but each company deals with it differently.) When we train marketers on website design and UX, we focus on 7 elements that professionals should know about creating the ideal customer experience on your website, which, in most cases, is ultimately about pushing a visitor further down the marketing funnel toward a conversion of some kind. How that’s done varies, depending on industry and the type of business. But one thing that’s true regardless of business type is that a company website is one of the core foundations upon which digital marketing rests, and not optimizing it in a marketing-centered fashion can mean losing out on potential customers and conversions. 

5. It’s good to learn for your career.

One of the pain points we know exists for communications professionals is that, like their marketing counterparts, they often get pigeon-holed into a role doing one thing, ultimately limiting their career growth. And as communications functions blend more and more into marketing, if not include the whole function, it’s critical that professionals schooled more traditionally in copywriting or editorial, get more exposure to marketing strategies and tactics. At Marketing Nice Guys, we’d also argue that broadening one’s knowledge of marketing also helps with both creativity and seeing the bigger picture, which is necessary to advance in any career.At Marketing Nice Guys, we offer ongoing virtual digital marketing boot camps that are perfect for communications professionals, as well as a digital marketing corporate training course customized to each company.