Become a Digital Marketer: Courses, Salaries, Jobs, & Skills

The Day-to-Day as a Digital Marketer

Digital marketing refers to any strategy used online to market products and services. Digital Marketers create targeted ads seen on a newsfeed, before Youtube videos, or on Google results pages. They also work with influencers on social media, social media posts, and email marketing campaigns.

Skilled Digital Marketers will implement a data-driven and structured marketing strategy for their employer. This may be a B2B or B2C software company, an app startup, a retail store, a service-based company, or a nonprofit. They usually work on a team with specialized Digital Marketers such as Content Marketers, Brand Marketers, and Social Media Managers. Their team might also include a Digital Designer, Data Analyst, or Videographer if thy’re at a larger company. Smaller companies usually only have one or two marketing roles and the Digital Marketer often juggles many responsibilities within a smaller ecosystem.

Digital Marketers can find full-time, part-time, and freelance work either onsite or remotely. A Digital Marketer’s daily tasks might include compiling spreadsheets of data for your campaign, executing keyword research, meeting with your team, creating content, planning a campaign, measuring outcomes, writing content or copy, creating Google or Facebook ads, compiling reports, monitoring current campaigns, track key performance indicators (KPIs).

What Skills Should Digital Marketers Have?

A good Digital Marketer will need to know the major marketing skills like search engine optimization (SEO), keyword research, ranking strategy, Google Analytics, copywriting, and link building. They should also be prepared to create content marketing materials including blog posts, youtube videos, guides, ebooks, emails, social media posts, and podcasts.

A Digital Marketer might choose to focus on social media marketing, paid advertisements, or eCommerce. Or they might decide that analytics, branding, or affiliate partnerships are more their speed. Whichever specialization they choose, focusing on only one or two areas of the digital marketing world will provide a more successful career. This is because they’ll be able to become an expert in a few areas instead of a generalist in many areas. An expert is far more valuable to employers because they feel they can trust your skills and they’re probably looking for something specific when they’re hiring a digital marketing specialist.

While technical skills are not necessarily required, some digital marketing positions might prefer you to have some familiarity or expertise in basic coding languages such as HTML and CSS, basic UX and UI design principles or design thinking and planning, photo editing, basic data analytics, WordPress or another content management system, spreadsheets and slide deck creation, video creation and editing, current relevant social media platforms, or email marketing tools like Mailchimp. These tools and skills can certainly be learned on the job, but it doesn’t hurt to familiarize yourself with them beforehand either.

Learn the Skills You Need to Become a Digital Marketer

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing utilizes the internet and web based digital platforms to promote products or services. This includes the use of digital advertisements, social media, brand identities, and more.

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SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of website traffic using tactics like keywords and backlinks to create organic, high-ranking search engine results.

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Google Analytics

Google Analytics measures your advertising return on investment while tracking your video, Flash, social networking, and applications. Google Analytics works by tracking website activity through a block of JavaScript code that the web developer, designer, or website owner, embeds within pages on a website.

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Google Ads

Google Ads is the new name for Google AdWords. It is an online advertising service that allows advertisers to pay for the display of brief advertisements, video content, listings, and calls to action within the Google Display Network (GDN) to web users. You'll see Google ads on the GDN which includes Google Search, YouTube, and over 2 million other sites.

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Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the practice of using social media platforms to connect with your target audience or end-user. Social media marketing aims to build brand awareness and loyalty, increase sales, convert leads, and drive website traffic. Social media management can be done through content creation, keyword and target audience research, and the use of social media management platforms like Buffer and Hootsuite.

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Email Marketing

Email marketing is the practice of sending a commercial message to a group of a target audience using email. These emails might be advertisements, business requests, offers, services, sales solicitations, newsletters, donation requests, petition signature requests, and other calls to action.

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Ecommerce

Ecommerce is simply buying or selling products through online services or over the internet. Ecommerce utilizes tech like secure online payments, online shops, online marketplaces, and more to provide users with a convenient online shopping experience.
WordPress

Wordpress is a content management system written in PHP that is usually paired with a MySQL database. It is free and open-source technology. Wordpress is used to build websites and offers a template system, plug in architecture, and content management.

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Typical Qualifications to Become a Digital Marketer

Many Digital Marketers have a degree in marketing, communication, psychology, or business. While a degree is sometimes preferred, it is not required to land a digital marketing position. Certifications like Google Analytics IQ, Hootsuite Social Marketing Certification, Google Ads, HubSpot Content Marketing, Youtube Certification, HubSpot Inbound Marketing Certification, the Facebook Blueprint, and other technical training is always beneficial to a digital marketing career.

Searching for Digital Marketer Jobs

Nowadays, digital marketing is used by almost everyone in business. A Digital Marketer might find a job at a startup, small business, a B2C or B2B business, or a nonprofit. You might work as a Freelance Digital Marketer for coaches and other service based entrepreneurs. You can find work in almost any industry from software and application to retail and services.

You can find Digital Marketer jobs on these sites:

You can find freelance and remote Digital Marketing jobs on these sites:

Tips for Digital Marketers

If you have no experience in Digital Marketing, it might be difficult to land your first gig. To get some experience under your belt and build your portfolio, try making some mock projects for your portfolio site, building your own personal brand, helping friends out with a campaign, or volunteering on a nonprofit campaign. Ask anyone you work with, especially if you worked for free, for testimonials! This will boost your credibility. Focus on the results when sharing projects, especially in your portfolio. Data-driven conversion is what digital marketing is all about.

When you get to market yourself or your freelance services, have an elevator pitch ready. Write custom cover letters for every position you apply to and connect with someone from that company on LinkedIn if you can. Practice interview questions and follow-ups. Skillcrush has some good examples. Before you first interview, master industry jargon like KPIs, ROI, CPA, CPI, and lead marketing. Know what marketing metrics are, what they mean, and how to use them too.

To help you land a job even more quickly and become an expert, choose a specialization. Narrowing your focus to only the data, content creation, SEO, social media, paid ads, audience and community building, or brand development will dramatically increase your chances of landing a gig and becoming an expert faster. If you’re not sure where to focus, try getting a more generalist position first like Digital Marketing Strategist, working for a small company with a combined role, or working freelance. You might also try getting a few certifications under your belt to test your interests.

What Job Titles Would a Digital Marketer Hold?

Digital marketing is used by almost everyone in business. That means that Digital Marketers can find a variety of industries to work in, sizes of business to work with, and even more specializations than ever before. They can also try your hand at freelance digital marketing. Specializing in a specific role, like the ones listed below, often increases job prospects and helps build confidence as an expert – especially if they choose to take the freelance route.

Digital Marketing roles are usually titled:

Content Strategist
Content Marketing Manager
SEO Specialist
Digital Marketing Strategist
Social Media Manager
Paid Ads Manager
Digital Marketing Manager
Partnership Marketer
Branded Content Manager
Audience Development Manager
Digital Marketing Manager

The Day-to-Day as a Digital Marketer

What Skills Should Digital Marketers Have?

Learn the Skills You Need to Become a Digital Marketer

Digital Marketing

SEO

Google Analytics

Google Ads

Social Media Marketing

Email Marketing

Ecommerce

WordPress

Digital Marketer Salaries

Typical Qualifications to Become a Digital Marketer

Searching for Digital Marketer Jobs

Tips for Digital Marketers

What Job Titles Would a Digital Marketer Hold?

Related Careers

Salary Comparison to Digital Marketer

Digital Strategist

Digital Analyst

Marketing Manager

Search Manager

Web Optimization Specialist

Paid Search Manager

Social Media Strategist