Are you seeking a career in a fast-growing industry where skilled individuals and dedicated professionals possessing a drive to learn are in high demand? Then digital marketing could be a very good career path for you as it presents an industry that cherishes all kinds of skill sets, from analyst to creatives, to techies as well as a mathematician. This career path will undoubtedly land you in your choice of the agency or in-house roles while also lending itself to freelancing and remote working.
At the moment, there are over 35,000 individual job listings right on indeed when you search for the keyword “digital marketing.” With such a huge amount in this field, it is therefore not amusing why digital marketing is now high in demand.
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The digital marketing industry is so broad that you can choose to specialize in search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing (SMM), data analysis, pay per click, and many more. Interestingly, unlike some industries, you do not need a formal qualification or form of education to kick start your career. What most employers value is talent, knowledge as well as a drive to learn, this is because what you have to offer is way important than a piece of paper. Although, a degree might be a good option if you intend delving into Search Engine Journals. This has helped create a terrific list of some great on-campus and online programs.
Table of Contents
Starting a Career in Digital Marketing
Starting a career in Digital Marketing is as important as knowing the dough that comes with kick-starting the career. While the industry is seeing a series of growth in recent times, it would be nice to put together what is needed to get yourself fully into this career path.
Build an Online Presence
Nowadays, with regards to starting a career in practically any field, you will not exist without an online presence. For clear reasons, this is particularly valid for digital marketing: a prospective business will look online first to learn more about candidates, and if they can’t find you, they will proceed onward to the next applicant who has a curated online presence.
Build your own digital marketing blog, social media accounts that are connected to sites you have built, portfolios, and so forth show them what you are truly prepared for.
Know the Latest Trends
Digital marketing is a profession that is consistently progressing and continually evolving. If you are picking it as a career, you have to be aware of the most recent trends. The necessities of this industry change after some time, and if you fall behind, another person will be waiting to have your place.
Attend virtual workshops, take online classes, and give a valiant effort to stay ahead of these trends as opposed to just staying aware of it.
Make a Winning Resume
Before you begin going after jobs, try to create a unique resume that shows exactly how important your skills are. There is a wide range of resumes templates, and you shouldn’t restrict yourself to only one, particularly when you are working in an innovative industry like digital marketing.
Go online and look at different resume templates for digital marketing experts, and tailor yours around them.
Get Some Wins
At some stage, perhaps quite quickly, you would be getting a feeling for one or two areas of specialization which you are interested in and you are sure to perform well (in most cases, they would match your skillset as well).
Start by finding what you are good at, you might not be perfect you just have to be sure you do not suck at it. The choices you can choose from includes:
- Meta descriptions and/or Writing title tags
- Crafting sales copy
- Writing articles
- Analytics data
- Infographics and/or Designing imagery
- Designing emails
- Creating social media posts
- Writing text for PPC ads
- Coding
- Performing keyword research
You can choose from this list or one of the other tasks performed by digital marketers.
Once you have identified where you can perform better (or a minimum of where you are not too poor), seek and approach a good number of startups and apply to offer these services. For free. You can think of it like some informal internship and as a way of paying your dues. It helps them just as it is good for you as well.
See these ’10 High Paying Careers You Don’t Need a University Degree to Start’
Interning with Marketing Agencies
When seeking an internship, be ready to work with a wide number of clients across diverse industries, this gives you a wider range of experience cum opportunity to learn while on the job from reasonable digital experts. Just be sure your option is ‘marketing agencies.’
Agencies seem to be the best option not only because you get to experience a huge number of different business models and industries, but also for the fact that they do the same thing as yours. All being well, you would be working in the midst of people who can teach you, while also acting as the sound board for your ideas.
That being said, you should understand that you working for free does not automatically make you a valuable person. You would be stressing out the organization if you repeatedly make mistakes that someone else would have to spend extra time to fix. In that regard, you need to prepare yourself for some mental tasks that might not relate to what you do but will get you closer to your goal.
Find a Mentor
In the digital marketing industry – or any other booming industry – people do not necessarily become experts on their own basis. Everyone needs a little help along the way. A lot of the most successful business people we know have all been influenced and guided by their mentors; you can think of Steve Jobs giving advice to a young Mark Zuckerberg, or even Bill Gates looking to Warren Buffett for support all through his career.
A mentor is akin to your career coach and personal guide. They are there to share their experiences, answer all your questions, and also generally help you get to the next stage in your career. Sadly, having someone with you sharing in this agreement usually takes time. It is not as simple as walking up to someone and saying: “Will you be my mentor?” That is a very huge task and has a lot of pressure connected. Even when they agree and say“yes,” your question might leave them wondering: “What’s next?”
Instead, contact your favorite bloggers and ask them random questions that relate to your field and what you want to know about it. Always take control of the dialogue by asking them exactly what you want to know, if they give positive replies and they come out well, thank them. You can wait for a few days and try the same process. When you do this often and they seem not too tired to reply to you, they eventually become your mentor (even it is unofficial). This is of more ease than asking them to be your mentor.
Get Yourself a Job
At this point, you most likely would have been involved in the digital marketing industry for about a year or two, doing a series of free jobs. Interestingly, if you are able to get to this stage in less or more time, it is still very okay too. Understand that this is not a college degree course. There is no rule about how short or long the process should be.
In truth, if you do not have to work to assist yourself while doing all of these, you might even feel ready to begin job hunting before the duration of a year. If you are making attempts to fit all these around a full-time role, it might take longer. Whichever way, you should do whatever works for you, and commence job hunting only when you feel deemed ready to start.
LinkedIn remains one of the best online platforms to get digital marketing jobs. It is the social media platform for any agency and professionals across the globe. Of course, since digital marketing is such a booming industry, it should therefore come as no surprise that some recruitment companies have also jumped on the bandwagon. There now exist many recruitment agencies that use recruitment agency software that specialize basically in filling digital roles. If you Google search for “[your desired job title] + [your present location],” you will definitely uncover everything relevant that is nearby.
The Digital marketing industry is a fast-growing one having the best set of practices that can change just at a moment’s notice. Taking the practice of marketing through search engines as an instance, Google makes a huge amount of updates on its algorithm annually. A good number of these updates will definitely alter the search landscape, thereby dropping off-site pages one after the other and catapult the rest on the rankings. The latter said is one element which digital marketers need to beware of so they can stay ahead. Lastly, to be better in your career you need to keep taking out time daily for digital, if you do otherwise, you will fall behind very quickly.
