Digital Marketer: Well, but, first you need to know what exactly this Digital Marketing stuff is. Huh…well you could google it, you’ll as always get a dictionary meaning or a convoluted wordy Wikipedia definition. Well, that’s what you don’t need to become a good Digital Marketer!
“In simple words, any marketing that is done digitally is called Digital Marketing.”
Yeah, it’s really all that you wanna know about Digital Marketing and all the secret ingredients to become an expert in this field are in this definition only.
But why Digital Marketing?
Oh, C’mon it’s not really a question to be answered…is it?
It’s common sense. Just look around you, about 90% of people around you spend there more than 60% time looking into electronic devices or using the internet. Well, that’s what Digital Marketers exploit to gain an audience for their product.
The main catch is to channel your ads into those electronic devices that most people use daily and to learn how to do it is why you are here!
My Advice
The only thing I wanna tell you before you dive into Digital Marketing is that it’s you who need to passionate, self-motivated and dedicated to learning this art. Yes, there are a lot of online courses or even college courses have come up to cater to the growing needs of modern market viz. Digital Marketing, but the truth is you can only get your fundamentals straight with that. But unless you go out in the field and do the job, and fail numerous times, you’re eventually gonna give it up!
“So it’s only you, who has to push yourself constantly over the journey!”
Get all the right guns, soldier!
Before going on, you need the right skills and tools to start. Yes, but first you need to do a lot of research and self-study to get ready for the upcoming challenges.
Get yourself well versed with all the major aspects of Digital Marketing:
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
- SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
- Content Development
- SMM (Social Media Marketing)
- PPC (Pay-Per-Click Marketing)
- Email Marketing
Whoa! I know there are a lot of acronyms but believe me, just as hard and intricate they sound, they are some very simple concepts that you can grab in just a week of a little hard work every day!
Search Engine Optimization
Well in simple words, it means how well your content should be developed and marked up so that search engine algorithms can catch your targeted content into its search list.
Follow the above link to get a full guide on SEO from scratch and they really have good content over there!
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Above is a good resource if you want to brush up your SEM skills and it’s basically technique mostly used by big businesses where advertisers bid on some particular keywords that the users might search on search engines such as Google or Bing etc. to get their ads placed right beside the search results. Yes, but that’s paid! But anyway it’s good to know such stuff; who knows you might need it in the future!
Content Development
Well, this is the most important aspect of all your Digital Marketing learning. And I’ll personally suggest you delve more and more into this and it won’t come easy, but you just gotta do it!
Learn some Graphic Design (or you can always outsource) and some writing skills would only add on to your charm. Writing blogs is the easiest way you can start and along with it, apply your knowledge of SEO skills to make your content come up in the search results.
I’ll advise you to get a little knowledge about HTML as well, it’ll actually help you with the markup techniques.
If you are into video editing & production, it’s the best medium to portray your product to the public. But still, that’s a cherry on top of your chocolate pie!
The final catch is, get yourself equipped with all the content ready in form of templates; just start with something simple like a logo design or a small 30-sec video, and soon you’ll have a bunch of stuff already with you to supply to your client.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
See, this is something which is in a boom right now and why not, most of us are so much into Social Media that we almost forget everything else!
First, you need to decide for yourself what kind of content you have and what social platforms would you be requiring to set your magical charms into the internet. The most common would be the big giants like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and now even Snapchat is also swaying away potential customers, for that’s the trend for the new generation.
Once you’ve got your platform set up, always be frequent in posting stuff and not just that, try to gain followers. One such tip to do that would be to always embed the social media icons directing to your platform, in every post of yours (whether it’s a blog post or a small ad video)
In no time, you’ll have a bunch of followers and that’s how you do SMM!
Pay-Per-Click Marketing (PPC)
I’ll suggest you the above link for all the basics you need to know; well it’s actually a little technical but not so convoluted. So go ahead!
Email Marketing
Huh, isn’t it too common? I know most of you guys would have experienced numerous emails piling in your inbox by some unknown company or organization every week or so. I know it’s very annoying sometimes and now when you are on their side, you feel the necessity to do it. But the catch is how you do it without getting curses and unsubscriptions from the audience.
I’ll suggest you develop a short, simple and catchy content, and always post it on an interval to your subscribers (but make sure to make that interval consistent and long enough so that your customers can assimilate the news without getting annoyed by your frequent emails!). Follow this to have a good start at this art
And with such erudition, you’ll be well equipped theoretically to become the next major Digital Marketer. Let’s get into the field, boss!
So after getting all that learning, always go out in the field and try your skills. Yes, you’ll probably fail a couple of times, but in the end, you’ll nail it!
Here are some tips you can do to get started:
1. Practice
Start with your surroundings first. If you are in college, there will be tons of societies or clubs which will be willing to hire you as a Digital Marketing guy for their cause. But this is just practice, don’t get too much involved or you’ll be stuck there only!
2. Find Real Work
There must be some family members whose home business needs some marketing push. Go ahead and show your magic, and yeah ask for your share of the revenue generated.
Congrats! You got your first paycheck.
3. Freelancing
When there’s nothing, there’s always something called Freelancing. There are numerous platforms that can help you get going about it. Try Freelancer.com or Upwork.com
Or you can do it by becoming a freelancer marketer of any new startup.
See that’s the beauty of being a Digital Marketer, all you need is a computer, an internet connection and a bucket full of ideas! So even if you are sitting miles apart from your client, you can surely be of immense use to them.
Once you start getting paid, that’s when your confidence kicks in and there will be no stopping!