Everybody has their own reasons to put in hours for any given job. Whether we work in an office or from the comfort of our homes, there might be times where we question our career and it can either be just a bothersome thought or the start of a pipeline that leads to a burnout. We all need to collect ourselves and look around for new opportunities and inspirations in such times, but the abundance of career options can be paralyzing as well.
So, hopefully, this blog post can present digital marketing as not just another viable career option but as the diverse and fresh field that it is. But what makes digital marketing differ from other contemporary business practices and fields? In order to explore the benefits of digital marketing and answer this question, we need to get the basics out of the way.
What is Digital Marketing?
Basically, we can summarize digital marketing as traditional marketing’s younger sibling who is faster, constantly changing and combining different aesthetics and using language in alignment with social media trends. The main reason behind this division between the two is not hard to guess: Technological advancements.
Without getting needlessly deep into the subject, the way we arrange our lives in relation to the new and ever-expanding tech devices, softwares, social media platforms, etc. has rendered old-school advertisement and marketing obsolete. The biggest source of advertisement for brands is not a billboard or a TV ad anymore, because while we become progressively more mobile, they stay stationary. This requires brands, companies, and start-ups to keep up with the digital motions the average consumer goes through on a daily basis. This means digital marketing agencies need to accommodate the needs of consumers in accordance with their routines in the era of mobile tech.
In short, we can call traditional marketing the older sibling who has found some sense of stability, content with doing things the conventional way. The younger one, though, seems to know everyone around and is the entertainer of the group, coming up with weird business ideas and new words for everything; an example of which is “meme marketing”, a subsection of social media marketing where brands try to keep up with the latest internet trends and incorporate them into their output.
What Kind of Jobs Are There in Digital Marketing?
Being the new kid on the block, digital marketing has brought up a plethora of different positions and led to changes in some older ones. What they do is the easy part. For example, copywriters contribute to a brand’s identity by writing its lore, the products and ideas it represents today, and the projects and plans it has for the future. Because what good is a product with no story to convey? Or maybe you like visual storytelling over written. That’s a relief too, as every creative agency needs at the very least one graphic designer tasked with designating an aesthetic that summarizes the brand’s identity and how it strikes the eyes of consumers. First impressions are one of the most important components of building relationships, after all.
This choice shouldn’t be taken as an exclusively corporate dilemma, though. You can pursue a job in digital marketing as a freelance SEO analyst and increase the visibility of brands you work for in search engines on a project-to-project basis. So you can have full autonomy if you’d like.
The gist of the matter is that there is a position and a task suitable for everybody’s needs, wants, plans and skill sets. You just need to rely on trial and error for a short while.
Soft Skills You Need to Have for Digital Marketing
Now, we know that soft skills are sometimes open to interpretation which can be a source of headache when it comes to implementing them into your work because they are, well, abstract. To some extent. But they also help us create more personalized and niche results. Let’s go through some of them one by one:
Curiosity
Although curiosity is not a “skill” on its own, it is a key component of effective learning and personal improvement. The digital marketing world is in constant change and it will not be easy to keep track of every new software, legal procedure, social media trend and whatnot. That’s where curiosity comes in. Even if all the changes seem overwhelming, when you find a couple areas that peak your interest such as implementing AI into your work or a new design trend, it will be much easier for you to keep improving your skill set without being burned out by all the new information you see.
Creativity
Yes, this one is easier said than done. But here’s the thing: creativity is not some mythical state of mind reserved for a chosen few. Many of what we call “creatives” are just people who derive inspiration from everyday life and let their mind interpret what they sense as it wants. Then you start picking and choosing which ideas and impressions are useful for the specifics of a task before you start editing them.
Editing
The arch-nemesis of most impulsive creatives. It can be a boring process that forces you to distill the funnest, chaotically beautiful parts of your work. But it is also what makes ideas and projects stick in a professional environment so we all have to make our peace with it. You need to be able to organize your thoughts and inspirations, at least in a semi-logical way, so that they will make sense for your team and customers, as well as keeping yourself from falling into confusion when you get a revision request for multiple texts, visuals etc. And believe us, you will get a lot of revisions.
Analytics
Naturally, being able to analyze the outcomes of your projects when they are datafied is an invaluable skill for marketing as you want your customers’ business to have tangible results with your cooperation. There are various tools and softwares you can use to measure the inputs and outputs, how well your posts resonate with the target audience and your brand’s performance on search engines. In all honesty, though, Google Analytics and Microsoft Office are the two softwares you need to grasp as a must. Luckily, you can find tons of online courses, free videos and infographics that will help you in this regard.
Multitasking
Surely you have noticed by now that digital marketing as a discipline can be quite hectic at times. Some days you need to be able to jump from task to task, customer to customer, keep track of your competitors, get through your revisions and meetings etc. So you need to get used to multitasking effectively in order to survive in the business, basically. One thing that will help you in this regard is having a good understanding of time management so that you can minimize the amount of multitasking you have to do and support yourself against burnouts. Using Google Calendar, an agenda if you like a more traditional medium, or a timesheet on Excel are great methods to keep your time in order and your need to multitask at a minimum.
How to Get Started in Digital Marketing
The sources to get you started in digital marketing are, fortunately, abundant both online and offline. The fact that it is a rapidly growing field allows those interested to access a wide variety of online courses, whether it be YouTube videos or professionally recorded paid courses, university departments for both bachelors and masters, paid or unpaid internships and so many more sources of information that help people get a digital marketing certificate. But let’s just say that you want to dabble and learn yourself in your own way.
The first thing you’ll need to do is find a specific area of digital marketing that you want to build a career in such as copywriting, SEO analysis or graphic design so that you can start working towards a tangible goal and improving one skill set.
Allow me to break the fourth wall for a second: As someone who is doing his internship at a creative agency, I find that an internship is the most efficient and fun way to learn the field and figure out which part of digital marketing strategies you may want to pursue in the future as you’ll be able to observe your colleagues from different departments. Creative agencies are also an immense help with the introduction to the field because they have a more relaxed atmosphere and artistic team compared to conventional corporations without the isolation of freelancing.
5 Reasons You Might Love A Career in Digital Marketing
Now that you know the basics of the field, you probably got an idea about how you feel towards working in digital marketing. Here’s what we think makes it worth the time and effort:
Accessibility
As you’ve just read, digital marketing is a more welcoming field for newcomers and those who have recently started dabbling in it. There are many options, both paid and free, to learn the ropes and develop your marketing skills which makes the anxiety of going into a new discipline considerably more manageable.
Diversity
This one has two sides: The first one is that most creative agencies are fresh start-ups with young leaders, meaning that they are much more likely to be accepting of minorities and disadvantaged groups when compared to old school corporate settings, and the second is the diversity of thought the field requires to function. After all, the competition is born out of the novel and creative business practices and marketing tactics coexisting in the same market.
Youth
Marketing itself is a field that’s been around for ages, digital marketing, on the other hand, is in constant progress as it keeps up with the latest tech developments and social media trends. In other words, it automatically renews its youth and freshness, making it a much more dynamic field than most of its counterparts. There is always room for new ideas, models, designs and opportunities that we don’t often see outside of digital marketing.
Competitive Salary
The urgent shift towards e-commerce during the COVID pandemic brought with it the ever-rising demand for professionals and talents in the business world. Creative agencies provide for this workforce to the sector; however, this also leads to a demand for higher salaries in these positions. That’s why digital marketing is a great opportunity for those of us just getting started in their professional careers to start their working life with a good salary while also having the opportunity to learn more and earn more.
Remote and Asynchronous Job Opportunities
Numerous digital marketing and creative agencies implement a remote and asynchronous working structure, giving us the opportunity to work for agencies from various countries in the comfort of our homes with flexible hours. This also widens the pool of jobs we can choose and increases the chance of finding the workplace that suits our routines, future plans and current needs.
How Walrus Works
Walrus is basically a team of creatives who understand that not everyone excels at storytelling; yes, even bosses and business leaders. And we tell their stories without stifling the audience. How we do it is the easy part. Primarily, we provide peace of mind in the form of social media management, email marketing, performance marketing, creative campaigns, SEO, content creation and website copies. But we also take caution to not forget the significance of empathy and mental wellbeing while we are headed towards growth as success and mental health don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
That’s why sigma bros with their grindsets or performative diversity don’t have a place in Walrus. What we strive for is creating a work environment in which racial and gender minorities can spend their working hours in peace as they know that principles of equality and justice are upheld here, a women-founded creative agency in a world where only 1 out of 1000 creative agencies are founded by women. And we will make sure we earn our keep.
If you liked what you’ve just read about digital marketing and would like to venture into a new career path, shoot us an email at [email protected] and, who knows, maybe we’ll see each other!
