Did you know that in the past year alone, over 60% of businesses have increased their digital marketing budget?
Indeed, according to Wordstream the global market for digital marketing and advertising is estimated to be worth around $460bn. That’s significantly more than the $350bn it was worth in 2020, yet still considerably less than its current projected worth of $786.2bn by 2026.
Clearly, this is an intensely fast-growing industry that presents many career opportunities. So if you want to be a part of it, there’s never been a better time to join.
But just what is digital marketing? What kinds of career paths does it open up? And how do you get into digital marketing with no experience? Read on to find out!
What exactly is digital marketing?
Digital marketing involves a company promoting its products and services using all digital channels available to it. Often this means placing promotions on web pages, creating content related to those offerings, and circulating that content widely using email, text messaging, Google Ads and paid or organic social media.
Digital marketers work as part of a wider marketing team to understand their audience, segment them into personas, and develop effective creative marketing strategies to catch the attention of those groups in different ways, driving subscriptions and sales in the process. Marketers are also responsible for tracking the success of these campaigns using data from tools like Google Analytics and using it to optimize income along with less obvious metrics like brand reach and brand awareness.
What kinds of career paths can you take in digital marketing?
The digital marketing world offers lucrative and diverse career potential with many prospective routes to take depending on the skills you develop and the areas that interest you the most.
Often a digital marketing career begins in a junior role such as a paid intern or digital marketing assistant. From there you can progress to a digital marketing consultant and eventually a digital marketing manager. However, within those roles are a number of specialisms, like social media, e-commerce strategy, content marketing and brand management. The route you take is entirely up to you.
How to get into digital marketing
If what you’ve read so far appeals, it could be that this is a career path worth investigating. And with so many areas to specialize in, marketing is a career path you can explore to your heart’s content and take a journey that’s truly unique to you!
These are our tops tips on how to get into digital marketing with no experience.
Explore and showcase your passion for digital marketing
Many people gravitate towards a career path because they’re putting a hobby or passion together with something they’ve found they have a flair for. So our first tip on how to become a digital marketer is think about what you love doing and how you could market yourself to people in that space. Creating digital content and sharing it on social media is a fantastic foot in the door to the digital marketing world – particularly if you find success at growing an audience and converting that community into paying customers or subscribers. Building a thriving social channel can really put you on the map as a budding digital marketer. Then you can start digging into analytics, set up a website, learn tools like Mailchimp and SurveyMonkey, and essentially build a portfolio of campaign work that can help you launch your career for real.
Pick a niche early (you can always change it later)
When you start out researching digital marketing you’ll quickly realize how vast the field is. Very occasionally people make careers from being generalists – though more often than not people climb the digital marketing career ladder by choosing to specialize and mastering that area of their craft – before perhaps eventually expanding their skill set by moving on to another area. For instance, you could choose social media marketing, content management, pay-per-click (PPC) or search engine optimization (SEO). Whatever excites you most, that’s a great place to start your journey to becoming a digital marketer.
Get a digital marketing certification
Augmenting the successes from the personal time you’ve put into building your portfolio with a formal digital marketing qualification is a win-win. Not only does an official marketing qualification make you look more employable, you can also take everything it teaches you to make your budding personal brand channel even more popular! So whether you choose to join a company or keep working on monetizing your personal projects, the skills you’ll take forward will prove foundational for your future career.
Widen your professional network
There’s a saying goes; “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” While that’s not entirely true here – having an incredible amount of knowledge about digital marketing tools, techniques, strategies and resources is always incredibly helpful – having like-minded and useful connections can certainly help you get a foot in the door before applying. Not only that, but it’s a great way to stay on the cutting edge of digital marketing approaches and learn from people who have more experiences and an entirely different perspective. It will also stand you in good stead for working in a wider digital team; a key part of the role for most digital marketing consultants.
Apply for a junior digital marketing position
With credible qualifications, a solid body of work to speak to at interviews, some solid contacts, and a noticeable passion to propel yourself into this exciting field, you should be ready and prepared to fire off resumés and start talking to recruiters about landing your first paying digital marketing gig at the company of your dreams. So… what are you waiting for?
Want to help market our brands?
At Church & Dwight we’re always looking for talented digital marketers who can help our brands reach a wider audience. If you’re interested in joining us, find out more about what our marketing careers can offer, and read read about life in our marketing team. Think you’d be a great fit for a digital marketing position with us? See our open roles.
