Your Guide to Become a Digital Marketer

Digital marketing is quickly becoming the go-to medium for brands trying to connect with their target audience in the most effective way possible. The three main pillars of digital marketing are social media, search engine optimization (SEO), and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. If you’re not yet familiar with all of these terms, don’t worry; we’ll explain what they mean, how they can help your business, and how you can become a digital marketer yourself.

What is Digital Marketing?

Understanding what digital marketing is and how it differs from traditional marketing is a key step in understanding how you can use it to reach customers. Basically, digital marketing entails using any of several digital tools and platforms —such as social media sites, content publishing platforms like blogs or podcasts, e-mail marketing services or search engine optimization (SEO) techniques—to reach people who may be interested in your product or service. The idea is that digital refers not just to specific types of technologies but also to customers themselves: All of us are digital by now, so all of us can be reached by digitally based marketers if they know where we live. Or if we’re already talking about ourselves on Twitter, Facebook and our blogs!

What are the different roles?

The digital marketing industry covers roles like web designer, SEO specialist, content marketer, social media manager, and search engine specialist. Each role has its own duties and responsibilities that require unique skills. To be successful in digital marketing, you’ll need to have both technical and communication skills as well as an understanding of what makes customers tick. 

The goal is always growth—increase in traffic (i.e., leads), engagement (likes/shares/follows), conversions (purchases or signups), and brand recognition (i.e., name recognition). An ideal candidate will be able to create content that helps increase these metrics for your business.

• Tools Digital Marketers use
• Tools for productivity: Evernote, Dropbox. 
• Tools for analysis: Google Analytics. 
• Tools for content creation: Canva (text), Youtube (video), Feedly (for reading articles). 
• Tools for sales and marketing: Mailchimp (email marketing). 

Learning how to write better content by reading other people's writing as well as taking courses on skills such as copywriting will help you become better at your job. Online courses that might be helpful are from Copyblogger, Hubspot Academy and Udemy.

Career options in Digital Marketing

There are many ways in which you can enter digital marketing. This industry is growing so rapidly that you will always find new jobs emerging every day. You can choose to start your career as an in-house digital marketer, work as a freelancer for a digital agency or set up your own business and work as an independent consultant. No matter what option you choose, it is important that you have good understanding of what digital marketing really means and where do you want to be at from now on. 

Here are some options available for you as a digital marketer: 

• E-commerce manager: 

The e-commerce field is dominated by online shopping stores such as Amazon and eBay. The demand of professionals who can handle customer support operations and customer satisfaction has increased exponentially recently because more people shop online than ever before. An e-commerce manager makes sure that customers have positive buying experiences while they purchase products over websites owned by other businesses. They also need to manage inventory levels since these sites often deal with high volumes of orders during sale events such as Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales etc. So if you wish to be involved in these activities then becoming an e-commerce manager might interest you a lot. 

• Content writer: 

Content writers develop content using various web tools for promotional purposes. They create quality informative articles and other types of content (such as infographics, videos etc.) that help businesses grow their online presence. They can either work full-time on their own or become freelancers who take projects from different companies on an as-needed basis. The demand for freelance content writers is increasing day by day so if you wish to work independently and have good writing skills then taking up a job in marketing may be worthwhile idea. 

• Social media consultant: 

Though there are many people who think that anyone can create social media accounts and run them, it requires thorough knowledge of how these platforms work. This job is suitable for someone who loves social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. He/she should be able to create content that other users find helpful or interesting in order to build an online presence for any business. They also need excellent analytical skills in order to analyze data about customer behavior on different sites so that they know what kind of content will be most effective for future campaigns. 

• Web designer: 

If you have good designing skills then becoming a web designer may interest you a lot. This position is perfect for someone who likes creating modern and attractive websites using various software and tools provided by different companies. 

• SEO analyst: 

Though there are many people who think that search engine optimization (SEO) is not important anymore, it has become essential in today’s market because more people use search engines like Google and Bing than ever before when they want to learn about any kind of product or service. The job of an SEO analyst is to create content that will help increase online visibility of businesses so that potential customers can find them easily when they use different search engines.

 

• Mobile app developer: 

As smartphones become cheaper every day, people all over the world spend most of their time on these devices playing games, listening to music, checking social media sites etc.

How to become a Digital Marketer?

Since digital marketing is one of many things every business needs, but rarely has time or money for, it’s great if you can perform some of these tasks on a freelance basis. If you can do so, not only will you have built up some experience doing things like SEO and social media campaigns, but also begin building out your network. 

As an added bonus (and potential for more work down the road), many companies need independent contractors who can help out with more short-term projects—for example by offering help on an existing website redesign or getting their social accounts set up. The most common platforms that hire remote workers are Upwork (formerly Elance), Freelancer, and PeoplePerHour.