Digital marketing is an exciting world to be in. There are many career opportunities and since we all use the internet, the idea of working within the world of social media, websites, and apps is appealing.
However, with any dynamic industry, there is competition for the roles available.
Not only that, the scope of roles is wide. The term “Digital Marketing” encapsulates a number of different paths you can take.
So, with that being said, what are the prospects for someone that has recently taken a Digital Marketing course?
What career path will you be able to take?
In this article, we will take a look. So if you are ready, let’s jump to it.
- Related Content: Top 10 Best Digital Marketing Courses on Udemy
Table of Contents
Digital Marketing Career Paths
Web Developer/Designer
Web developers/designers are responsible for designing and coding websites. They may code both the front and backends of the site to make them function and be user-friendly.
While a general digital marketing course will often cover the basics of web development and what it entails, if you decide that this is the route you wish to take, more specific coding knowledge will be required.
Today’s web developers will be able to work with JavaScript, JQuery, HTML, and CSS. Learning one or more of these coding languages will put you in good stead.
There are also broad web developer courses that you can take. Check out 10 Udemy courses that we have recently reviewed. These cover the needs of web developers from beginner level right up to expert.
SEO Technician
SEO technicians help drive organic traffic to websites. This is done by making website pages appear high in Google searches so that more people click to visit the website.
Again, a good digital marketing course will definitely cover aspects of SEO work. A candidate that has an interest in it and may have promoted their own websites (or done so for others on a freelance basis), will learn valuable experience in SEO.
Parts of the role include making sure content on the website is search engine friendly, and conducting keyword research to see what people are searching for.
The latter could then mean liaising with the content manager (see below) so that the website begins answering these queries via its content.
Analytics and knowledge of relevant SEO tools will help someone looking for a job as an SEO technician.
PPC/SEM Professional
Beyond using SEO to obtain traffic to a website, a large company with a healthy marketing budget will employ a PPC professional to organize and manage the click ad campaigns to promote the company and website.
This role will involve overseeing the PPC keywords that are used (and to make sure they are converting), as well as design and implement split ad groups, display ad marketing campaigns, offers, and landing pages.
All of this has to be tracked in terms of success rate, with reports given to other relevant members of the marketing team, (marketing manager, email marketing manager, etc).
Social Media Manager
Many companies in 2021 prioritize their social media appearance over the website as a way of communicating with their customer base.
As a social media manager, it will be your job to ensure that the various social media campaigns are operating in a successful way in line with the image the company is aiming to portray.
This can involve the types of content being published, including tweets and Facebook posts. A substantial budget may even involve the production of video content and other quality content for social media publications.
Good knowledge of all the social media platforms and creativity are important here. As is the ability to analyze the data in terms of how well a particular campaign is working.
Content Marketer
Working within the same team as a social media manager will be content managers and marketers.
Responsibilities here include finding, sourcing, and creating content that has the potential to resonate with the customer base (and hopefully go viral).
This content may use social media channels for distribution, however, coordinating with others such as SEO experts or email marketing colleagues may be required.
As content creation and marketing will involve writing a lot of copy, you should be a good command of the English language and be creative.
Digital Marketing Manager/Director
The ultimate position for someone that wants to pursue a career in digital marketing would be a digital marketing manager.
In many ways, this role would oversee everything that we have covered above.
You would be responsible for the entire direction of the company’s digital marketing presence and direction and would “pull the strings” of all the departments to ensure that vision is realized.
To become a digital marketing manager you would need 5+ years of experience in the field, with good knowledge of what all the other aspects entailed.
A good starting position would be in the content creation, social media marketing arenas, or as an assistant to a digital marketing manager, where you might get hands-on experience of the many facets of online marketing.
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How to get started in a career as a digital marketer?
This is very much reliant on the direction you wish to take your career. First off, completing a digital marketing course (check out our review of 10 of the best on Udemy here), will give you a good idea of what the different disciplines entail.
Then it would be a case of building your skillset so that a prospective employer would like to meet with you.
As a web developer, this would be designing and building some websites for your portfolio. Interested in SEO? Take some courses and start working on a local small business website to increase its traffic.
The same could apply to a would-be social media expert. If you know what ticks on the various platforms and can prove successful in creating and publishing content that succeeds online, you will be an asset to a digital marketing team.
Roll your sleeves up, get some experience and a satisfying career in digital marketing could well be yours.
