Digital marketing is an efficient strategy for entrepreneurs wanting to drive more business to their websites, as well as a promising career choice given its projected growth in the coming years. In this guide, we explore different ways to learn digital marketing, free resources, and the types of careers that frequently utilize these skills.
If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner who wants to drive more business to your website, or if you are looking for a career that pays well and will continue to grow into the next decade, digital marketing is for you.If you’ve always wanted to learn digital marketing but can’t figure out how to get started, this guide will show you how. In this article, you’ll learn more about the many ways to learn Digital Marketing, free resources to take advantage of, and the types of careers that commonly use Digital Marketing.
Digital marketing uses online channels and tools to promote products and services. As the popularity of the internet continues to grow, digital marketing has become one of the most effective ways to publicize a business and help it succeed. Knowledge of digital marketing can be an asset to entrepreneurs and owners of businesses large and small, and many companies are hiring Digital Marketers to conduct research, build brand loyalty, and create community. Digital Marketers also analyze data collected from online marketing efforts to make a business more efficient and profitable.
Because it is based on data, digital marketing is highly targeted and measurable. With digital marketing, you can adapt and make changes in real-time to reflect your advertising. You can also create targeted ads to ensure products and services reach an interested audience.
Using analytics, you can quickly tell how many people see your ads, how they react, and what action they take. Measuring your success (and where you need to improve) can help overall strategy. Plus, digital marketing levels the playing field, allowing businesses of any size to compete for clicks. Additionally, there’s a low barrier to entry: you can start your paid digital marketing campaign for a minimum amount and build as the company grows.
Read more about what Digital Marketing is and why you should learn it.
Marketing has changed drastically since the advent of the internet. While early ways to promote a business included yellow page listings, print advertisements, and ads on buses and billboards, many marketing efforts have now moved online. With digital marketing, you can adapt and make changes in real-time to reflect your advertising. You can also create targeted ads to be sure your products and services reach an interested audience.
Digital marketing efforts are highly measurable. Using analytics, you can quickly tell how many people see your ads, how they react, and what action they take. Measuring your success (and where you need to improve) can help you develop your overall strategy. Plus, organic digital marketing levels the playing field, allowing businesses of any size to compete for clicks.
Additionally, there’s a low barrier to entry to advertise with digital marketing. You can start your paid digital marketing campaign for a minimum amount and build as your company grows. Digital marketing offers the unique chance to control where you spend those crucial advertising dollars.
One of the best things about a career as a Digital Marketer is the diversity of career paths available. You can choose from various specialties, such as social media, web analytics, search engine optimization (SEO), video production, blogging, and email marketing, or you can find a job that lets you use all of your talents. This section covers some careers available in digital marketing and their average yearly salary figures. The salary information comes from job websites Glassdoor and Indeed and is gathered through self-reported surveys.
Content is what drives the internet. Users are always looking for something new, and Content Managers provide that. Content marketing drives traffic across a variety of channels, including websites, blogs, apps, social media channels, print publications, and more. It’s about generating interest and providing consumers with information about products, services, and brands they need or want. Content Managers choose the type of content and where to put it to create a relationship with customers. Indeed lists the average annual salary of Content Managers and Strategists at $60,000.
Digital Marketers use digital channels and tools like email marketing, social media marketing, paid and unpaid search marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO) to promote products and services. Digital marketing has become one of the most critical ways to publicize a business and help it grow. Knowledge of digital marketing can be an asset to entrepreneurs and owners of businesses large and small. Digital marketing offers companies a chance to extend their reach, do marketing research, and foster connection and brand loyalty. Using online tools for sales, connection, and creating community, and then analyzing the data collected from those online marketing efforts can make a business more efficient more quickly than almost anything else. Glassdoor reports an average annual salary of $52,000 for Digital Marketing Specialists. At the Digital Marketing Manager level, the average annual salary is $96,000.
Social media marketing leverages social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok to connect with a target audience. Using modern techniques and 21st-century tools can generate more engagement, followers, and financial gain. With the internet and online commerce continuing to grow at an astounding rate, social media marketing is critical for global visibility, and it is a powerful way to reach a large number of people quickly. The average annual salary for a Social Media Manager is $76,000.
Digital Analysts use tools like Google Analytics to assist companies with their marketing initiatives by providing analytical support, developing strategies, working on finding the right audiences, performing competitive analyses, and optimizing channels. The primary responsibilities of Data Analysts are researching trends, collecting data, analyzing statistics, developing marketing strategies based on the data collected, and presenting the results to clients and co-workers. Glassdoor reports an average annual salary of $75,000 for Digital Analysts.
Email Marketing Specialists connect with subscribers and develop deeper relationships with current and potential customers. Email marketing can increase sales quickly and reach a large number of people at once at a minimal cost. Email marketing is a fast and effective addition to any business’s digital marketing strategy. According to Glassdoor, the average annual salary of Email Marketing Specialists is $91,000.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) works to develop a website’s online content to increase visibility in search engines like Google. In search marketing, the goal is for website or online content to appear at or near the top of search engine result pages (SERPs) when using specific keywords. Effective SEO improves a website’s quality and quantity of traffic, generating sales and improving business. Glassdoor lists an average annual salary of $95,000 for SEO/SEM Specialists.
Brand Strategists track how a brand performs on the internet and develop strategies to build or improve that performance. They help companies or individuals create a clear message and put that out on the internet. A Brand Strategist is a public relations position that supports a company’s or individual’s public image. They work closely with different teams such as marketing, advertising, and sales departments to research industry trends and public perception, creating marketing and advertising campaigns to strengthen brand identity.
Indeed.com reports an annual median salary of $72,000 for Brand Strategists in the United States, although salaries depend upon location.
Digital marketing can help you reach across the world to drive traffic to your website, increase sales, build a brand, or educate the public. Using the principles of Search engine optimization can help you determine your target audience, choose keywords to track content performance, engage with potential customers on social media, and gain organic search results. The best thing about digital marketing is that most of its tools are free.
Another benefit of digital marketing is that it can be the basis of a great career. You can work for other businesses as a Digital Marketer, Social Media Marketer, Web Optimization Specialist, Digital Strategist, Data Analytics Specialist, or Brand Marketer. Careers in marketing are in demand, and the average base salary for a Digital Marketer in the US is $58,500 annually.
Read more about why you should learn Digital Marketing.
How you choose to learn digital marketing is up to you. You can watch free video tutorials like Noble Desktop’s Pillars of Digital Marketing to get an introduction, but after that, the best plan is to sign up for a class. You can take live in-person classes or choose live online instruction. Some people prefer to attend brick-and-mortar sessions when learning new information, but that isn’t always available. Live online classes have a similar set-up to in-person classes with a real-time, remote instructor who can answer questions and take control of your monitor—with permission—to answer questions and demonstrate techniques. You can sign up for part or full-time classes on weekdays, weeknights, or weekends.
Some companies offer on-demand digital marketing classes that you can take according to your own schedule. You can watch the videos from work or home and move at your own pace. Udacity offers a class called Become a Digital Marketer, and Udemy offers VIP Digital Marketing Master. One advantage to asynchronous video classes is that you can go back and watch the material as many times as you need to if you are having trouble with a concept.
If a full class feels like too much right now, you can attend free online seminars. Noble Desktop offers Dominate Local Search with Google My Business and free digital marketing seminars are available on Hubspot Academy, CopyBlogger, Udemy, and Coursera. These free taster classes give you an idea of what digital marketing is like to help you decide whether you want to explore it further.
Read the full guide on how to learn Digital Marketing.
If you are unsure if digital marketing is for you, free courses and tutorials can help you decide. You can check out Noble Desktop’s YouTube channel, where you will find The Pillars of Digital Marketing Success and other introductory tutorials.
You can find plenty of free digital marketing video courses online. Google offers a class called Fundamentals of Digital Marketing as well as free tutorials on its digital marketing products. HubSpot Academy offers a free course on search engine optimization, as does SEMRush. If you want to explore social media marketing, you could watch a free video on the subject from Constant Contact.
Read about more free Digital Marketing videos and online tutorials.
Whether or not digital marketing is difficult to learn depends upon your level of interest, the time you have to devote to study, and your motivation. Do you love having a passion project? Do you enjoy multitasking and keeping track of data? Is creating content for social media followers your idea of a good time? Then it probably wouldn’t be hard for you to learn digital marketing and change careers, especially if you sign up for a certificate course.
Enrolling in a class doesn’t necessarily require any prerequisites to learn digital marketing, but a few skills can make the experience easier. Being comfortable with technology and enjoying working with numbers will make learning to use digital marketing tools easier. Some familiarity with social media and good communication skills are a plus, too. Beyond that, a solid writing ability, creativity, persistence, and the ability to multitask will make learning digital marketing smoother.
Beyond the cost of a class, learning digital marketing is not very expensive. Some of the most widely used tools like Google Analytics are free, and others like Moz have a free version to get you started. SEMRush is another useful digital marketing tool, and while it can be expensive, you get a seven-day free trial to try it out first.
Read about how difficult it is to learn Digital Marketing.
A comparable subject to digital marketing would be user experience/user interface design (UX/UI design). There are many areas of overlap between digital marketing and UX/UI design, such as collecting data on how users interact with websites, researching markets and competitors, and surveying users. Both Digital Marketers and UX/UI Designers focus on the users, creating the best experience possible for them. Both fields are data-driven and rely heavily on user psychology.
Another field comparable to digital marketing might be web development. Web Developers work with the code that builds websites and need to learn languages like CSS and HTML for front end development and JavaScript, Python, Ruby, and others for back end. Web Developers need to understand the best way to put websites together, which also concerns Digital Marketers. Some people move from digital marketing into web development, and the two fields are equally complex, with front end development being somewhat less challenging than back end.
What is the best way to learn digital marketing? That is up to you to decide. You can take an in-person class or study through a live online program. You can choose courses that meet during the week, on the weekends, or in the evenings. And you can select the level where you feel comfortable starting.
If you are just getting started with digital marketing, you might be more interested in a general overview of the key features of digital marketing, such as what it is, how you do it, and what tools you need. Many free introductory seminars, like The Pillars of Digital Marketing Success from Noble Desktop, offer this high-level survey for digital marketing beginners.
Once you understand the fundamentals of digital marketing, you might want to learn more to drive traffic to your website or help a friend with a small-business marketing project. You can sign up for a bootcamp course that covers digital marketing in depth, like one of Noble Desktop’s digital marketing bootcamps. These bootcamps deliver targeted instruction on a specialized subject such as Google Analytics, Digital Marketing Strategy and Web Optimization, or SEO.
If you want to master digital marketing for a new career or pivot from another industry, a digital marketing certificate course can help you stand out from other candidates. Noble Desktop’s Social Media Marketing Certificate covers the major social media platforms and their analytics and advertising programs, plus how to manage content and boost business. This full-length course includes 1-on-1 mentoring and assistance with designing and assembling your professional portfolio.
Noble Desktop’s Digital Marketing Certificate course includes hands-on instruction as you develop an actionable, multi-tiered digital marketing campaign optimized through SEO (Search Engine Optimization), social media, paid search, content marketing, and email marketing. You do not need any prior knowledge of digital marketing to complete this course, and you will get 1-on-1 mentoring and help creating a digital marketing portfolio.
Noble Desktop’s digital marketing courses teach skills that can help you start a career in the industry. Classes are small, with expert instructors, and you can retake a course for free up to a year after you take it. Those ready to dive into the field can attend in-person classes at Noble Desktop’s New York City location or attend live online digital marketing courses from anywhere in the world.
Noble Desktop also offers more detailed courses for those looking to hone their skills on specific channels. Students can take individual classes on Facebook Marketing, Email Marketing, Social Media Content Marketing: Blogs & Twitter, and Video Marketing: TikTok & YouTube. Students can also study for a Digital Marketing Certificate and learn a comprehensive set of tools and skills for digital marketing. Another Noble Desktop resource that can help prepare for a career in digital marketing includes its digital marketing blog, which has detailed articles about social media marketing, SEO, and other essential tools for digital marketers. Students can also watch Noble’s seminar on The Pillars of Digital Marketing Success, which is available on YouTube.
The time it takes to learn digital marketing depends upon how you choose to study. Getting a college degree takes four or five years, and a self-taught approach is more variable. Classes are the most efficient and economical way to acquire the skills you need to switch to a career as a Digital Marketer. You can complete a certificate course in two to four months.
When considering changing to a career in digital marketing, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the digital tools that marketers use like Google Analytics and Tableau. Learn about search engine optimization and content marketing, and open some social media accounts for hands-on experience.
You can also check out some free resources for learning digital marketing. Watch free video tutorials, listening to podcasts, or reading books can help you acquire a foundational understanding of digital marketing.
Digital marketing classes teach how to use the various platforms to your advantage. Those ready to leap into digital marketing training can look to Noble Desktop, which provides a diverse slate of live online digital marketing classes. Noble Desktop’s virtual digital marketing classes offer students the same intense training, content, structure, and opportunities for mentorship and feedback as their in-person counterparts. Plus, attendees have added scheduling flexibility and the convenience of taking classes from anywhere.
Noble Desktop offers several targeted classes in digital marketing covering social media giants Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. These day-long, immersive learning experiences provide digital marketing tips and tricks for each platforms. It’s also a great place to learn how to create video-based marketing campaigns. In Noble’s Social Media Marketing: YouTube & TikTok class, students study how to build a following on YouTube, identify and engage their target audience, and monitor video topics and trends.
For a more comprehensive look at digital marketing, take a look at Noble’s Digital Marketing Strategies Bootcamp. The bootcamp delves into the important role digital marketing strategy plays in a company’s overall success. Students will complete hands-on projects and learn ways to succeed at digital marketing, including how to establish goals, objectives, and KPIs.
The bootcamp is also offered as part of Noble’s Digital Marketing Certificate, which delves deeper into each aspect of digital marketing, including developing an end-to-end marketing strategy through hands-on classes where you work on your business or company as a project. Students even get free course retakes for one year.
Other online resources offered by Noble Desktop include its digital marketing blog with detailed articles about social media marketing and Google Analytics, among others. You can also check out Noble’s seminar on YouTube entitled The Pillars of Digital Marketing Success and find other digital marketing courses, bootcamps, and certificate programs in your area using Noble Desktop’s Classes Near Me tool.
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