Study: Marketers Are Really Bad At Online Marketing

Companies such as Facebook Inc FB, Twitter Inc TWTR, Snapchat and others continue to draw advertising dollars away from traditional sources such as TV and newspaper onto their social media platforms.

The same can be said for small startups and online retailers looking to establish themselves online.

This seems like great news for investors, but there is one problem: the lack of competent digital marketers to take advantage of the trend.

According to the Digital Marketing Institute, there is a global digital talent crisis at a time when the digital industry is evolving at such a rapid pace.

Related Link: Analysts See Facebook, Google Able To Withstand Ad Dollar Competition From Snapchat; Twitter Not So Much

For instance, while 59 percent of marketers in the United States, 47 percent in the U.K. and 51 percent in Ireland consider themselves to be very or fairly competent in digital marketing, their actual level of skills is "low across all three countries — scoring 38 percent on average."

Only 8 percent of marketers demonstrated the most basic entry level skills.

In addition, 31 percent of U.S. marketers say their companies at least fairly engaged with digital marketing, while only 18 percent of marketers confirmed their companies offer digital skills training.

"Despite digital marketing now being an integral part of any successful business, there is a persistent and growing global skills gap that is threatening to undermine future organizational growth," Ian Dodson, co-founder of Digital Marketing Institute said in a 54-page long report.

Digital technology has "fundamentally transformed" how consumers interact with businesses. In order to take full advantage of the economic opportunities that digital marketing offers, there needs to be a "fundamental readjustment of the outlook on skills training."

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