By Atika Lim – Nov 6 2018 with additional reporting by Kenneth Koh.
Digital marketers: they are the modern-day warriors of marketing. They serve an important role in today’s business landscape, as more and more of our lives become intertwined with digital technologies. Hence, this makes the digital marketer a key role in any company looking to gain an edge in the 21st century.
We have all heard how important programming skills are in today’s world. It makes sense – an increasingly digitalised world means a higher need for programming-trained professionals, for technical wizards like software developers to – you guessed it, digital marketers.
While it might not seem obvious at first, digital markets, whose jobs do not necessarily require any coding, could in fact benefit from learning certain programming languages.
One such programming language that is relatively easy to pick up is Python.
Here, we take a look at how Python can benefit digital marketers everywhere looking to upgrade their skills and streamline their work process:
I. You’ll Be Able To Automate Data More Efficiently
While learning to code might not seem necessary for a digital marketer, doing so can be very beneficial for those looking to automate and analyse large amounts of data.
As Saeed Tajdini puts it so appropriately in a Quora post, learning Python could help marketers better analyse their marketing return on investments better.
Having Python knowledge could also help marketers analyse large amounts of data without having to manually input them into an Excel spreadsheet and conjuring them up with a formula. Python also allows you to search more extensively than Excel.
Having some form of coding knowledge can also benefit digital marketers when they’re in charge of marketing a website or digital product — this means you’re better able to understand the jargon being thrown around by developers and be better able to understand what your digital products can actually do.
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II. It Makes You A Better Problem Solver
An essential part of programming is being able to create efficient and concise code as well as subsequently maintaining it by fixing any bugs and functionality issues that may arise.
With coding knowledge, you’ll be able to better solve issues and will always be on the look for ways to solve issues at work or with regards to the programming you do.
You might even start to look at APIs and find ways to work with coding-related marketing programmes like SQL.
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III. The Python Community Is Big And Helpful
For digital marketers who’re interested in learning how to code but think that the endeavour sounds daunting, fret not!
As we’ve mentioned before, Python is one of the easiest programming languages to learn. Not only is it more concise as compared to other languages like C#, it’s really easy to read and understand.
What’s more, Stack Overflow did a predictive graph of the popularity of Python and also charted the growth and influence the language has had over the years from 2012 to 2017.
There are plenty of resources for Python students to refer to whenever they’re encountering problems. Websites like Reddit and GitHub have communities for Python enthusiasts to share their knowledge.
These communities are also big on offering tips and helping each other streamline the coding process where possible. Don’t believe us? Just take a look at the Python subreddit here.
Finally, knowing how to code could make you invaluable to just about any company. As we’ve shown before, coding is a skill that’s increasingly in high demand in the job market. So learn to code and make the hunt for your next job easier!
This article was originally published on Think by Upcode Academy. Upcode Academy is a leading training school of programming and coding skills. Find out more about their popular training courses here.