.svg)
Digital Marketing
- Do you enjoy social media?
- Do you like telling stories?
- Are you a good communicator?
- Do you enjoy connecting with people and understanding what makes everyone unique?
- Are you creative? Do you enjoy writing or photography or videography?
Download Facilitator Guide
CLICK HERE
Digital Marketing could be your future career path
Digital marketing is a form of marketing that uses online-based technologies to promote a product or service. It is an essential function for every business or company to identify new customers or users. Digital marketing depends on social media, video advertising, email, etc. to reach a wide audience.
Digital marketing professionals do not need formal training. There are lots of ways to get started, and work in different ways. A job in digital marketing can lead to other jobs in customer service, sales, IT, or Human Resources.
In this toolkit, you’ll explore the field of Digital Marketing and how to pursue a role in this career field. There are activities to figure out whether you enjoy this kind of work. If you have a social media account, you are already aware of basic digital marketing!
Want to get started right now?
Plan a digital marketing campaign! Click on this link to get started
Create your own idea for a service or product you want to sell. It could be babysitting or dog walking, selling music you’ve recorded, artwork you create, or a special dish you invented. Anything!
Directions: Follow these steps which are the basic building blocks of any digital marketing plan.
Step 1. Do Market Research and a Competitor Analysis.
- Look up two companies that offer similar products or services to your company. Review their digital channels, including their social media and YouTube. How many profiles do they have? How many followers are on each channel? Take a look at their website. What words or phrases are they using that stand out to you? What emotions are you feeling looking at their content? What “calls to action” do you see - Example: “Click here”, “Share or Subscribe to Learn More”?
- What is effective about each company’s digital marketing? Which one do you think is more effective? Why?
Step 2. Develop Objectives and Goals for your Digital Marketing Campaign.
- Digital marketing is always aligned with business goals and objectives. A business goal could be to increase brand awareness, increase sales, or retain customers. The business objective is translated into digital goals.
- For example, a digital goal to increase brand awareness is to increase the number of followers on social media or visitors to a website.
- Each digital goal is measured. In business, this is called a Key Performance Indicator, known as KPI. A KPI is a specific metric that establishes a baseline for performance. A KPI for increasing followers on social media could be the number of impressions - the number of times your content is displayed.
In your campaign, what are your digital goals?
Step 3. Set Value Propositions for your audience.
A. Who is your customer? Interview 3-5 friends about their interest in a product or service like yours. Take note of their demographic information - gender, age, income status, and location. For each interview, take notes:
- Why do they need your product or service?
- Are there any reasons why they cannot buy your product or services?
- If they had your product or service, how would their life be better?
- What social media channels do they currently use? What websites do they visit related to your service or product?
- What time of day do they use social media the most? Morning? Evening?
- If they were to do a Google search for a product or service like yours, what keywords and phrases would they type in?
B. Create a persona. Use your research interviews to create two personas of your potential customer. Personas are fictional profiles that represent people in your target audience. They help you figure out how to reach people on a more personal level and deliver the right messages, offers, and products at the right time. These personas will represent people in your target audience. They will help you figure out how to reach people on a more personal level and deliver the right messages, offers, and products at the right time. Try to create diverse profiles as best as you can.
- Create two personas. Use fake names, ages, income, and location data in your profiles.
- Create a Value Proposition for each persona by answering this question: If I am your ideal customer, why should I buy from you over one of your competitors?
- List a targeted digital channel for each persona.
Step 4. Channel Strategy and Content Development
Begin your digital marketing channel strategy by creating a simple organic social media channel strategy. You will not boost any content for this strategy.
- Organic media is free content shared on social media profiles - posts, videos, stories, or more. The content is seen by people who follow the hashtags.
- Paid social media refers to organic content used to boost posts for advertising on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok.
A. Create a social media strategy for your product or service with your personas in mind. How will their social media behaviors help you to reach your digital goals?
- Create 2 social media posts for 2 social media accounts
- Write copy - text - for each post. Remember your word/character count! (Twitter is the shortest)
- Use free online tools like Canva to create your content
- Consider different media formats (Instagram has photos, reels, and stories)
- Don’t forget your hashtags! Create 5-7 different hashtags for your campaign. Tip: think of hashtags like keywords for your campaign. What words or keyphrases come to mind about your content and brand?
Would you enjoy doing this every day?
No matter how much time you spend on these activities, you should get an understanding of whether you would enjoy tackling these kinds of challenges everyday. This could be your future career in Digital Marketing.
Meet a few Digital Marketing professionals
Understand the Business
There are many types of digital marketing campaigns:
- Content Marketing: Marketing that encourages potential customers to learn all about your product or service and ultimately convert them into a user or a returning customer. In content marketing, different content formats, types, and styles are used along every stage of the purchase consideration funnel:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Consideration
- Conversion
- Retention
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of your online content in organic search engine result pages - for example, the results page of a Google search. The higher the organic placement on a Google SERP, the more effective your SEO.
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising: PPC advertising is a strategy of digital marketing and lead generation where when a potential customer clicks on your ad and is taken to the desired landing page or form, You are only paying for the click on an ad and not the ad itself.
- Email Marketing: Email marketing is a structured, strategic approach to deliver marketing messages to targeted mailing list subscribers.
- Social Media Marketing: Social media marketing is an essential digital marketing strategy to engage with your targeted audiences and effectively distribute your product content.
Where you can work
Digital marketing professionals can work in three different areas:
- In house
- Agency
- Freelance
The differences are the amount of work, the number of clients, available resources, etc.
- Working for an agency may mean working on many projects at a time, with lots of resources to create content. You might be one of several digital marketing professionals providing specialized talents like search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and automated email marketing.
- In-house marketers provide digital marketing services to only one company, their employer. This means managing all aspects of the department’s digital marketing function. You might work on a marketing team with two or three other marketing managers such as a social media manager or a content marketing manager, collaborating on marketing projects. You all would report to the Director of Marketing or Vice President of Marketing and support other departments with their marketing and communications needs.
- As a freelance digital marketing professional, you might not have the resources of an agency or in-house marketing. But you will have more personal interest in your work. This means building more robust, direct relationships with clients and more long-term business prospects.
The Job Outlook
The digital marketing industry is a fast-changing field. The internet has changed the way we find out about products and services. So much has changed even in the last year.
Marketing, in general, is considered a Bright Outlook career by the US Department of Labor, and Search Marketing Strategists are a high-growth specialized field that relies on digital marketing.
The salary for these careers can range from $37k - $138k
.jpg)
Explore Career Paths
Career paths in digital marketing are not as formal as some other careers. Some marketing professionals have degrees in the humanities such as English or psychology. This is because, at the center of all marketing, the customer experience is important. In the humanities, the human experience, social behavior, and culture impact the world we live in. This thinking is no different from digital marketing.
Even without a degree, your digital marketing career can start anywhere. Here are some paths you can follow and skills you will learn:
- Get your foot in the door. Most people who pursue a digital marketing career pathway get started through
- Social Media management:
- Create, curate, and manage all published social content
- Monitoring, listening, and responding to the community in a manner that ultimately drives business
Explore Career Paths
Career paths in digital marketing are not as formal as some other careers. Some marketing professionals have degrees in the humanities such as English or psychology. This is because, at the center of all marketing, the customer experience is important. In the humanities, the human experience, social behavior, and culture impact the world we live in. This thinking is no different from digital marketing.
Even without a degree, your digital marketing career can start anywhere. Here are some paths you can follow and skills you will learn:
- Get your foot in the door. Most people who pursue a digital marketing career pathway get started through
- Social Media management:
- Create, curate, and manage all published social content
- Monitoring, listening, and responding to the community in a manner that ultimately drives business
- Nurturing and growing the community, and any influencer outreach efforts
- Managing promotions and social ad campaigns
- Blogging and website content development
- Create content in varying formats that help drive interest of your audience around a particular product or service
- Write topical blog posts or produce instructional videos that help build a company up as a trusted, credible brand in their industry.
- Entry-level digital marketing roles can begin as a Junior Marketing Associate or Social Media Manager (SMM). Social media managers track online conversations and interact with followers. They interact with customers on behalf of the company or brand.
- Mid-level jobs involve a higher level of strategic thinking, analysis, and budget experience. These roles include Marketing Manager, Content Marketing Manager, and Content Strategist. Professionals in these roles manage marketing strategy from planning, developing, executing, and evaluating all marketing activities. In these roles, you are analyzing data from websites or social media to inform future marketing and business development.
- Senior Digital Marketing roles are Senior Marketing Managers or Marketing Directors. Senior marketing roles supervise a team of marketing professionals responsible for digital marketing. They might interact more with other departments such as sales or finance to help meet business goals. They may also report to a company’s CEO or President.
The path can be different for everyone. This is a field where you can create your own pathway.
Skills to Pay the Bills
Take stock of the skills you already have
You are organized, detail-oriented, and deadline-focused. You can see the big picture of a project, but you also see how the smaller building blocks matter to a project.
You think outside of the box. You are always using your imagination.
You are an active listener and understand the importance of clear communication.
You are not scared of numbers. In fact, you see how data can bring to life content, whether creating or adjusting it.
You love to write! Writing and wordplay are essential skills for any area of marketing. You’re good at proofreading your papers and emails.
You can manage your time effectively. You have to know how to prioritize tasks and meet deadlines.
Skills you will Learn
Earning a certification in digital marketing is a way to hone your skills and show an employer what you can do. Before you sign up for any certification course, be clear about the time commitment, and whether the certification is recognized by industry and employers.
Be cautious about spending money on a certification program unless you are absolutely certain of the value to your career. Here are some free courses that can lead to certifications:
Technical skills you will learn:
- SEO (search engine optimization)
- Video marketing
- Marketing analytics
- PPC (pay-per-click advertising)
- Basic design skills (Canva, Adobe, etc.)
- Competitive research & analysis
- Brand positioning
Get Started
- Learn more about digital marketing - with tips from experts
- Start to build your personal brand:
- A Digital Marketer’s Guide to Personal Branding in 2023
- 10 Steps to Building Your Personal Brand on Social Media
- Create sample content - build an online portfolio
- LEARN, constantly and often: Digital Marketing is a constantly changing field. Be willing to learn and advance your skills through webinars, blog posts, podcasts and other learning resources.
Review a Job Description
Job Descriptions are the way a company recruits and hires talent. You can learn a lot from a Job Description about the skills and qualifications you need to prepare for the job. Even if you are not ready to apply for a job now, learning to read the Job Description can help you prepare for what you need to learn after high school.
This company (name withheld) is hiring a Junior Marketing Associate (JMA). This is an entry-level job. Read the job description and take note of all the skills you need to apply for the job. As you read, look for the technical skills that you will need to learn, and the human behavior skills that you are already good at.
GET PREPARED
Make Your Plan
Be ready to apply to this job in a few years by writing a paragraph of less than 250 words explaining why you want the job and why you will be a good fit for the company.
- Why do you want to pursue a career in Digital Marketing? Specifically, what aspects of the job interest you?
- What skills you have that will be an asset for this kind of job
- What skills do you need to learn after high school?
- What is the career path you see for yourself in the future?
Keep this paragraph as part of your career plan.
