So you want to start a career in digital marketing but you don’t know where to start? One of the best parts of working in the industry is that you do not need a certification to work as a digital marketer. However, you do need the skills and knowledge so companies will hire you.
With the world becoming more and more digital, becoming a digital marketer is a fantastic career choice with a lot of great opportunities. In this blog I will provide you with the best ways to develop your knowledge and how to start off in this industry.
Choosing and Learning Digital Marketing Channels
There are multiple channels in digital marketing. However it would be impossible to learn every single one to its full capacity in the early stages of your career. Having a basic knowledge of all of them and being able to demonstrate your knowledge on them will be a fantastic start and you can expand and specialise in one of them in the later stages. The main channels include:
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) – Making sure website reaches the top of the Google search results by optimising your website with quality content and relevant keywords. This way you can gain traffic free and organically.
PPC (Pay Per Click) – Paying Google continuously to get your website to the top of the search results page appearing as an add. However the traffic you may gain will not be organic.
Email Marketing – The act of broadcasting emails to potential customers in hopes they will be intrigued and visit your business.
Content Marketing – A strategy that utilises media such as videos, podcasts and articles to gain an audience and promote your brand.
Social Media Marketing – Similar to content marketing, this marketing strategy utilises social media by posting content and interacting with your business’ community via social media.
Digital Marketing Certifications
Even though a certification is not needed to find a career in digital marketing, they are a good way to make yourself to stand out a lot more. The best thing is there are a lot of free certifications you can acquire by simply searching for them on Google. Not only do you stand out more to employers but by doing the free courses you also expand your knowledge about the industry. Here are some of the websites you can find these free courses.
- Google Digital Garage – https://learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalgarage/courses
- Google Analytics Academy – https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/
- HubSpot Academy – https://academy.hubspot.com/courses/digital-marketing
- Future Learn – https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/digital-skills-digital-marketing
- Free Courses In England – https://freecoursesinengland.co.uk/digital-marketing-free-course/
- Word Stream – https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/08/19/free-online-marketing-courses
Creating and Posting Blogs
Creating your own blogs is another brilliant method to start off in the industry. Simply choosing a topic in digital marketing that you would like to learn about and writing about it, it not only helps you expand your knowledge on the topic but you are also helping others start out themselves. Creating and posting blogs that you have made also demonstrates that you can work independently and you don’t need someone to hold your hand through it.
When in an interview for an apprenticeship, the blogs that you have made and posted will more than work in your favour as it tells the employer that you know what you are talking about and have the basic essential knowledge of digital marketing whilst having no prior experience whatsoever so it ultimately will make you stand out a lot more.
Creating a Website
When starting off in this industry, it’s vital to learn the fundamentals such as how digital marketing works and what are the strategies in marketing. One of the best ways to get started is to make your own website. You can create one simply with tools such as WordPress. With creating your own website you can demonstrate that you have developed your skills by creating something from scratch. Also you can experiment with multiple strategies and since it’s your website you don’t have to worry about jeopardising someone else’s. You also don’t have to worry about your website ranking high in the search results. Considering it’s your first website, it doesn’t matter where it will be ranked. The point of it is to show the skills that you have acquired and demonstrating the knowledge you gained.
Not only does your knowledge expand in the business, your skills with creative software like WordPress and Canva (which I myself also use), will become more fine tuned which will also look great to an employer.
Getting a first job in this industry will undeniably be difficult. So, use your website as a creative outlet because essentially, you are creating your own opportunity to learn and practice your skills. This portrays your enthusiasm and that you have a passion to learn. Also, in an interview you will be able talk about what you have been doing to expand your understanding of the industry which will make you stand out more to an employer as it shows you have some sort of experience.
Social Media
One of the best ways digital marketers attract and generate traffic to their websites is by promoting them on a plethora of social media platforms such as: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc. With just simply creating your own digital marketing social media account, you can your own niche subject and with that, grow a following which will look great on your CV.
Social Media Marketing can be broken down into, as people in the industry call it; the seven C’s of Social Media Marketing. These include.
1: Communication/Community – Determining and understanding your target audience, finding out theur most used social media platforms and interacting with your community.
2: Content – Figuring out what you are going to post and show your target audience to gain their interest and attract more people to your community.
3: Curation – The process of finding content relevant to yours and presenting it in a meaningful way.
4: Creation – The act of actually creating the content for your social media platform, they can be in the form of images, text and videos.
5: Connection – This part involves sharing the content and actually connecting with your community. Hence this C being called communication. It is vital that you understand what your target audience and community like about your brands social media strategies and interactions.
6: Conversation – Similar to the first C (Community), conversation differs by actually actively engaging in conversations with your community.
7: Conversion – With this last C, you need to remember that your social media strategy should always be tied with your business strategy. By externally and internally converting social media into action such as making purchases or registering for webinars for example. You will be able to develop a successful strategy.
Keep Learning By Staying On Top Of Digital Marketing Updates
No matter how skilled of digital marketer you are, the digital world is still constantly changing so that means marketing is forever changing and that is far from a negative thing. Becoming a digital marketer means that you will always be learning throughout your career. By keeping up to date with the forever changing industry. You will never fall behind and miss out on new and more than crucial info for your starting career.
To say there is an abundance of reliable sources and methods when searching for digital marketing updates would be an understatement. In this section, I’m going to name a few sources and methods to make your search easier.
Methods:
- Setting Google Alerts – To stay in the know constantly, setting alerts to certain keywords you choose such as ‘social media updates’ or ‘updates in marketing’. You will instantly be informed when there is even a slight or major update.
- Search Hashtags – Another reason that social media is a brilliant way to grow a business. Searching for hashtags on a specific keyword that’s important to you like #digitalmarketing, #socialmediamarketing etc. You will find quality and trustworthy content produced by professionals in the industry.
- Subscribing to marketing blogs and newsletters – Simply searching on Google for blogs and newsletters. You will be able to find reliable websites that produce blogs that provide reliable content such as marketing tips or insights that will aid you in gaining more knowledge.
Website Sources:
- HubSpot.com – https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing
- Semrush.com – https://www.semrush.com/blog/
- Ahrefs.com – https://ahrefs.com/blog/digital-marketing-trends/
- NeilPatel.com – https://neilpatel.com/blog/
Beginning a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship
To truly gain a wider understanding of digital marketing is by acquiring an apprenticeship in the industry. By doing this, not only will you be able to gain a lot more knowledge and experience by working with experts in digital marketing. But you will also learn how a modern digital marketing agency runs and adapting their practices and using them to your advantage if you decide to go your own way in the future such as going into freelancing.
Essentially what you would be doing in an apprenticeship in digital marketing, is assisting the marketing of your companies products via various different platforms such as Google or even social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Since starting off as an apprentice, you will be learning to understand what platforms fit a clients needs and reaching a certain target audience by analysing how your audience acts on other platforms to create the most effective message to them.
The skills that you acquire by for example, creating your own website or creating your own blogs. When going to an interview for an apprenticeship, you stand out a lot more than others that have no experience whatsoever.
There are many different websites you can go to if you want to find digital marketing apprenticeships. Here a few:
