Digital Marketing is one of the best skills to learn if you want to make tons of money with flexible hours, work-life balance and growth prospects. That’s why an increasing number of prospective students choose to try and earn a digital marketing degree online or on campus. According to an estimate, there will be 150,000 digital jobs by the end of 2020 only in the US. Business around the world are hungry for digital penetration. Internet penetration will skyrocket in the coming years. And companies market their products where people are. Do you know that over 1.9 billion people use Facebook every month. Over 600 million people use Twitter. Snapchat and Instagram are the new players in the town. Companies are willing to spend a fortune to harness this massive user base. If you want to become a digital marketer, but don’t have a related degree, don’t worry. Digital Marketing is a skill which could be learnt anytime, anywhere by anyone, given the effort and time. Following are the ways to become a digital marketer.
How to Become a Digital Marketer Without a Degree
Mastering the World of SEO
SEO is the driving force of modern day digital marketing. Over 90% of online experiences start from search engines. Billions of internet users search their items of interest on search engines (Google, Bing). You have to optimize your digital presence to get visible on search engines. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a billion-dollar industry. SEM covers concepts like SEO, SEM, PPC (pay-per-click), CPC (cost-per-click) model, or CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) model. Don’t get creeped out by these terms. These are simple concepts with far-reaching consequences. The best way to learn SEM is to learn through courses available on the internet.
Google Adwords Certification
Firstly, you should get Google Adwords Certification. It’s super easy. Just visit this link and you’ll have it all figured out after sifting through it for ten minutes. Google has a simple exam, which you can attempt on the internet anytime you want. If you pass the exam, you get Google Adwords Certificate online, which you could show to your clients and get new jobs. But you’ll need to study a little to pass Google Adwords exam. Google has provided all the content necessary to read before the exam. Trust me, it’s super easy. It’s all theoretical.
Internet Courses You Should Get ($10)
But Google’s official certification won’t make you a master of SEO and digital marketing. It won’t teach you knitty-gritty details of SEO marketing and how to get traffic. For that, I’d suggest spending just $10 and getting Udemy’s famous Google Adwords 2017 course. This course is your one-stop shop for all the SEO, SEM, PPC tips and tricks. The course teaches you how to make ads campaigns on Google, how to build ads for Google, how to do A/B testing, making navigations, understanding sitemaps, learning how to narrow down the right keywords based on competition and clicks and much more.
There are different platforms for SEM. By far, Google AdWords (on Google Network) and Bing Ads (on Yahoo Bing Network) are the most popular. SEM also includes Display Advertising, Search Retargeting & Site Remarketing, Mobile Marketing and Paid Social Advertising.
Also check out HubSpot Inbound Marketing certification program.
Facebook Marketing and Facebook Ads: Indispensable for Digital Marketing
Do you know that over 1.9 billion people in the world use Facebook? Companies have already started ditching search engines to promote their items on Facebook. You can get access to loads of people if you do your marketing on Facebook and do it right. If you want to become a digital marketer, mastering Facebook ads and Facebook marketing is indispensable. And here is another good news: Facebook marketing and ads are simple.
I’d suggest reading this detailed post by Neil Patel, the guru of social media marketing. Neil makes everything look so easy, and practically performs stuff so you could learn step by step.
Facebook Ads Course ($10)
But a digital marketer should be a master of Facebook ads. In order to delve deeper, get this $10 Udemy course of Facebook marketing. You’ll be able to learn important concepts like Facebook Pixel, Lead Generation Ads, Reporting and Insights. The course has videos and notes which you can refer to anytime you want.
Facebook Marketing Official Certification
But wait, how’d we get the attention of employers and make them know that we are experts at Facebook marketing? Simple, get Facebook’s official certification. Just sign-up on Facebook Blue Print, which is an official platform of the company for certifications and learning. Search courses you need, read the content and give the exam.
Practice: Start a Website, Produce Content and Make Facebook Page
Perhaps the best way to become a digital marketer is to get practical experience apart from getting certifications and degrees. If you have no practical experience, rest assured you won’t get any good job as a digital marketer. Why? Because clients want proof of experience.
So how to get experience as a digital marketer? I have good news for you. Digital Marketing is perhaps the only industry where you can get all the experience by yourself.
Firstly, you must have a blog of your own. You should churn out regular, SEO-based content and published on that blog. Preferably, write the content yourself. Otherwise, hire a writer, but do all the SEO-based keyword research yourself. This will give you a chance to apply all the concepts you learnt in digital marketing courses.
Then make a Facebook page of your blog and start making Facebook ads. In this phase, you will get a chance to design and play with Facebook ads. It won’t cost a lot of money. Just have a budget of $10 and promote your Facebook page, and see the results. Apply all the concepts of Facebook marketing on your Facebook page.
You Should Learn These Tools to Become to Digital Marketer
If you want to become a digital marketer, you must learn the following tools.
You must have a know-how of Mail Chimp, the famous tool for email automation.
You must be able to use HootSuite. It’s a simple social media management and automation tool.
You Should Follow These Digital Marketing Experts and Resources Regularly
If you want to learn a skill, always follow the experts regularly. You should follow the articles published on the following websites if you really want to stay ahead of the race in the ever-spiraling digital marketing world.
Moz (For Everything Related to SEO)
Quick Sprout (Marketing, SEO, SMM)
Conversion XL (Conversations of Traffic to Money)
HubSpot (Marketing, CRM, Websites, SEO)
Kissmetrics (Marketing, Analytics, Traffic Quantification)
Neil Patel (Online Marketing, Internet Marketing)