I have been in the digital field for sometime, I have come across so many queries and questions along the way, some relevant and some not so relevant. Why digital marketing? Is it a hobby for you? How did you get into this? and most importantly, can you make any money out of this??
Here are my answers for all those queries and some more!
Is digital marketing easy to learn? Do you need an MBA or a business degree? Do you need to undergo a course or learn online or do hands-on work?
Yes, digital marketing is easy to learn and any social media savvy person or business minded person who runs an online or an offline business can learn and implement digital marketing. It is not necessary that you need the above two qualifications to master digital marketing, anyone is the right canditate. This is mainly because the digital marketing platforms have made it really simple to use their tools.
You do not need to have an MBA or a business degree or a diploma certificate to
get a job in the digital field. Practical work is what they look for when you apply for a job.
What are the mandatory things you need to be taken seriously?
first get yourself a website, create a YouTube account, create a face book page and an Instagram account. Make the Instagram account a business account and interlink it with your Facebook page, create a twitter account and make a Google AdWords/ Google ads account. You have to do everything from scratch to learn the ropes, no point paying and getting it from somebody else. Work on it for some time before going into a job.
If you aren’t confident of what type of website you need ,write to me or call me up, I will guide you.
First thing, work on the above things by getting cheap courses on the net like udemy or go through my website or get books on digital marketing or follow any big-time digital marketers. Also it is a good idea to spend a little on marketing yourself or the website on the digital platforms that I have mentioned. this will give you some much needed exposure on how to go about things.
If you still aren’t clear, it is best you to go to an institute and learn firsthand how to handle digital marketing. Even after this practice for some time before applying for a job .
One thing i can tell you, companies really don’t care for a certificate or a diploma, they judge you on the practical work that you have done.
If I was hiring some one for my company, I would check whether the person has done at least one paid campaign on all the digital marketing platforms like fb ads manager or google ads or twitter ads or LinkedIn ads and has worked on 50 blogs on his or her website or done 10+ YouTube videos with at least 10,000 views per video.
Will digital marketing survive?
Yes, as long as businesses run and digital marketing helps the businesses to earn a profit or sell their products or services online, a digital marketer has scope to make a fruitful career.
But one needs to understand that digital marketing is a very complex platform to market a product or a service. Every day the playing field changes, so often that one has to keep on learning on a day to day basis.
I am writing about this topic at the beginning of 2019 and last year a big giant like Google has closed one of its social media platforms google +, YouTube another popular social platform of google has changed its ad policies for its channel runners, finally they changed their main money-making platform name into google ads from google AdWords. Another social media platform which isn’t part of the google network called Stumble Upon has changed its name to Mix.
I feel digital marketing is the future though traditional media still plays a important role in every media buyers plan as my father with over 30 years experience in media will tell you.
What
do you do after learning digital marketing?
if you don’t have a business to run and don’t want to start off with your own digital marketing agency,
do not immediately jump into a job or get frustrated and go into some other field like my friends did. There are jobs in this field even for a fresher, but it is best to be patient after finishing the course or learning at least for a year.
During this period, I suggest you work on your website and YouTube channel, try to bring in traffic with the help of social media, organically and through paid campaigns and with the help of Google ads.
There are plenty of ways to make money during this time. I will list out some of the ways below:
- Become an affiliate marketer, put google AdSense ads (you need to get it approved first) on your website and YouTube channel, amazon ads and many others on your website.
- Become a freelancer, there are many websites like fiverr, up work or try to make an e commerce platform on your website itself and offer out your digital marketing services.
- Allow others (guest post) to write on your website and charge them money.
- If you have the ability to teach someone digital marketing. Then go ahead with small seminars or have one to one teaching.
- While you do the above, you can also help anyone in your family or your friends who has a business and does not have a website or wants to get into digital marketing and charge them.
- If you have a good social media followers and good engagement rate on your posts or pictures (Instagram) become an influencer.
If you are lucky enough to earn good money from these, please don’t waste your time on looking for a job in the digital field. Start some other business (like I make my own games and publish them) and make it to grow via digital marketing. Or after a year join a client side not a digital marketing agency, be there for a year or two depending on you how quickly you can learn their business and quit and become a competitor for them.
Why I am saying this?
When I do promotion for my furniture business, It takes me just a few minutes depending on the net speed to upload a picture on Instagram with a description. With one click I can promote it to the targeted audience I want it to reach for a certain amount. It hardly takes 5 min to do it the digital marketing field.
Nowadays on phones like apple and google phones (with the net on), you just say Siri or google and say the phrase open an app or what’s the weather for today or tomorrow or next week. In the future I am expecting digital marketing field to become like that. You can just say something like upload and do promote it to my followers and it happens immediately. You are free for the rest of the time.