Digital marketing is marketing and advertising products and services to potential customers online. It involves everything from email marketing and pay-per-click advertising to social media marketing and blogging; basically, every digital effort or asset that introduces customers to a brand all fall into the bucket of digital marketing. If you’re looking to work online read more to decide if being a digital marketer is the right online job for you.
Digital marketing has helped businesses grow and flourish. Whether a local corner shop or a Fortune 500 company, a robust digital marketing strategy is a surefire way to sales, and digital marketers are at the helm of making it work.
How to get started
It’s easy enough to become a digital marketer; you need a roadmap and a little creative genius. Becoming a pro isn’t hard, it’s just time consuming and you don’t have to have a background in traditional marketing, you can join the field from any position, whether a copywriter or an influencer.
- Learn the ropes
You have to master the technicalities of the job, including SEO, SEM, and analytics on top of social media and email marketing. Combine these with other soft skills, including writing and a feel for the digital market landscape. To gain mastery, you have to turn them into coherent and transferable skills rather than a passing familiarity.
- Master the tools
Tools make your job much easier. They include analytics tools like Google Analytics, SEO tools like Ahrefs, email campaign tools like SendGrid, plus Customer Relationship Management programs like Salesforce and HubSpot. You can test the waters with social media management tools and image repositories.
- Network
Have your digital marketing resume showcasing your skills and experience, personality, and creativity in a concise yet professional way. Network with other digital marketers and learn from them. If you have no experience in the field, you can start with digital marketing courses before specializing in a niche market. Along the way, master personable skills like leadership and teamwork as you put together your projects and engage on social media. Read Networking Online to learn more about networking.
If you aren’t ready to strike out on your own, you can start by applying for jobs in digital marketing or freelancing to learn the basics of the trade.
Getting your first clients
For any great business looking for long-term success, it begins with investing in yourself. Start by marketing yourself and your business. Since you already have a plan in your head, that should work for your clients, apply it to your business and go through every step as you would for your prospective clients. Start from the development of the brand image, collect the data, draw up the data-driven plan and see it through to completion, changing the faulty steps until you hit your goals. Apply all the advice you would give clients and offer top-notch quality to yourself. When your work is done great, the next part is a lot easier.
- Get out there
Build an off-screen presence where you can find businesses and potential clients while also interacting with other digital marketers. You can visit networking events, expos, and shows where people in your niche frequent. The goal is to get known by potential clients and rack up referrals. The right event can be a game-changer. Reach out to companies on social media who don’t have much of an online presence and tell them how you can help them grow.
- Get listed
Sites like Google and Yelp can be great to start on as you move into business-specific directories that put you in front of the audience you want. You can start from local directories to get clients close to you. Target the more extensive directories which offer more exposure and benefits on the side, like advertisements and event invitations.
- Create your wall of fame
Clients will want to know you can handle them and their needs, so show them you can. Have a portfolio on prioritized clients & brands you have worked with or are currently working with. This will have the clients take you more seriously because your portfolio will testify to your work, and no amount of talk or meetings can top that. When you’re just starting out ask previous employers, professors and any other reputable connections to give you a quick recommendation that you can add to your site.
- Do some blogging
Teach yourself content marketing skills and master all the technical details so that it’s easier to give a proper content marketing strategy and plan to your clients. Since blogs are SEO gold mines, they can also help you get clients from online traffic.
You should also have testimonials of your work on platforms like Clutch.co, Agency Spotter and HubSpot. That’s how the digital cold calls work.
Where to go as a digital marketer
You have several options to try as a digital marketer, depending on what niche or market your clients lie in. Some of the fields you can get into are;
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO); optimizing client pages and websites to rank higher in search engines such as Google. Also features SEM and link building.
- Content Marketing; crafting and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain audience and drive profitable customer action or organic traffic.
- Email Marketing; growing an email list for clients by keeping customers and prospective clients engaged and interested in their products or service offering.
- Social and Display ads; dealing with ads and driving traffic on platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms.
Setting your mark and differentiating yourself
Being different as a digital marketer doesn’t have to involve complex strategies and lofty goals. You can start with simple solutions to complex problems by blending your knowledge and experience into the marketing strategy. Break down the problem and offer a simple, stepwise, well-researched solution that gives clients relief from exhausting analytics and the financial overhead.
You should master the tools and use them for the right reasons and roles. Be creative with how you solve problems while polishing up your people skills. As you expand on your skills and networks, develop your unique selling point that sets your products and services apart from the rest. Your brand voice will need tuning up as well, don’t fall into the cliché strategies like the rest and always go for exceptional quality over quantity.
This post was written by Willy Wallace on Fiverr, he’s a digital marketer and business writer. I hire Fiverr writers to help us all learn to invest smarter and start online businesses. Subscribe for more business, sales and investing posts. Have a lovely day.
