From checking Facebook over coffee to ordering the lunch via the Seamless app to replying to customer feedback on Twitter, so much of our world is powered by code. Most companies, even if they’re not in the software business, need some kind technology to help them successfully run their companies.
While this has led to a whole host of new types of jobs (Augmented Reality designer anyone?), it also means traditional roles in marketing, sales and finance are rapidly changing. In fact, by learning just a little bit of code, digital marketers in particular can set themselves apart and deliver a ton of impact for the business through compelling content and campaigns.
Here are five awesome things marketers can do with just a little bit of coding know-how:
1. Communicate better with your product and engineering teams
Communication is critical to any business’s success – whether that’s communication to customers, partners or your colleagues. As a marketer, learning some coding basics will immediately help you communicate better with the software engineers in your team. You’ll be able to understand and discuss their roadmaps, tools, and workflows – and even talk more credibly about the basics of GitHub or Agile product management. Even if your product isn’t technical in nature, chances are you’ll need to work with developers to create your website or other sales tools – and being able to easily engage with them during the build phase will result in a smoother process and better end-result.
2. Make marketing collateral that looks beautiful AND gets results
You know all those cool animations on a website that make you want to sign up to “stay updated”? Well, that’s Javascript. And those beautifully designed headers that grab your attention and make you want to click in marketing emails? That’s HTML and CSS. Whether your goal is to increase customer engagement or acquire new customers, knowing some programming basics will help you get the most out of your digital toolbox of landing pages, email templates and digital ads. Embed images, assign headers, change colors or fonts or themes…the list goes on. All of this means you can spend a little less time bugging your developers to make small tweaks and more time on acquiring and engaging your customers.
3. Drive more high-quality organic traffic
Generating high-quality customer leads for free (or nearly free!) is every marketer’s dream. If you have a website that ranks high in Google’s search results, that goal seems a little more attainable. But getting there can often feel like a mystery. By learning to programming fundamentals, you can more easily access the source code of your page, which web browsers read to figure out how to display your content, and optimize your title tags, header tags, meta descriptions, etc. Adding structured data will also help improve your search ranking.
4. Improve your analytics and optimize your campaigns
Digital marketers are constantly reviewing analytics to measure their campaign’s performance. Knowing some basic Javascript, for instance, enables you to use Google tag manager and track what users do on your website – so you know what’s working and optimize the bits that aren’t.
5. Sharpen your problem solving skills
Apart from all the amazing marketing tactics that code helps implement, there’s also value in simply learning a skill like this. Programming not only strengthens your logic and problem solving abilities, but it will also change the way you see the world. And the good news is that there are a ton of free resources out there to help you get started.
Want to learn more? HubSpot and Flatiron School are teaming up on a webinar: Supercharge Your Startup Marketing with Code. Save your spot!
