Dynamic Digital Marketing

Chapter 8Review your skills bridge

‘Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.’

Benjamin Franklin

Back in January 2018, Damien Hinds – the Education Secretary at the time – spoke about the digital skills gap we are facing and the need to upskill in schools and businesses (Figure 8.1).

Digital skills are becoming increasingly essential for getting access to a range of products and services.

• However, there is a digital divide where up to 12.6 million of the adult UK population lack basic digital skills.

  

  FIGURE 8.1 Cartoon highlighting the importance and need for digital marketing.

• An estimated 5.8 million people have never used the internet at all.
• This digital skills gap is costing the UK economy an estimated £63 billion a year in lost additional GDP.
• A recent study by O2 suggests that the UK will need to fill more than 750 000 new digital jobs by 2020 and train almost 2.3 million people to meet the demand for digital skills.¹

So why invest in digital?

• 82% of prospects can be reached via social media (InsideView).
• Over 70% of B2B decision makers use social media to help them decide (Dell).
• Digital marketing spend is forecast to reach £240 billion pounds worldwide by 2020 (Forrester).

And why invest in digital training?

Professionally trained marketers can achieve:

• 44% increase in web traffic through effective blogging and content ...