With audiences spending more time in front of their screens now than ever before, companies of every shape and size are looking to ramp up their digital content production and take advantage of this cultural and consumer shift to all things digital.
Put simply, organizations in every sector are seeking talented marketers to get their products and messaging in front of their target customers.
But with so many digital marketing jobs out there to choose from, how do you know which is the right one for you?
From content production to analytics, the digital marketing team requires a broad spectrum of talents in order to hit its two big targets: acquiring and retaining customers.
If you’re still not sure where you’d like to be in this eclectic team, check out our list of the best digital marketing jobs.
Whether you’re a dab hand at strategy and long term planning, or you’re happiest brainstorming great ideas and producing first class content, you’re guaranteed to find a fulfilling role with growth and longevity in the digital marketing team.
Digital marketing
“Digital marketing” refers to the curation, production and implementation of all public-facing digital content for a company, brand, or individual.
A digital marketing team will seek to build trust and increase awareness through the publication of promotional materials and relevant content with the aim of converting new customers, and keeping existing ones loyal and engaged.
Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and numerous other social media platforms are typically used to share posts and promotional material using text, graphics and videos, as well as to establish groups to share ideas about the product or its content with other fans or customers.
Emails, newsletters, and web-based advertising are also popular tools to reach audiences, while some companies take advantage of text and multimedia messages for more direct promotion.
Longform content plays a role too. With a growing recognition of the value of SEO, more businesses are gaining traction publishing articles on sites like Medium, Tumblr, and WordPress as well as on company landing pages, product pages, and blogs.
So now that we know what digital marketing is, what roles are available in this dynamic, multi-faceted and lucrative field?
Top digital marketing jobs
1. Content strategist
There’s been a huge shift in marketing in recent years away from the ‘hard sell’ often associated with traditional advertising towards providing valuable content as a lead generation tool. This shift has meant demand for content strategists has soared.
A content strategist’s role within the marketing team is to develop a strategy that aligns with both the company (or client’s) business goals and the customer’s needs. They do this by planning high-quality, relevant content that provides some kind of intrinsic value to the reader.
This kind of content—typically a mixture of long and short-form text content, images, videos and infographics—promotes the brand as an authority in the field, builds trust with potential customers, and provides opportunities for the content team to increase website traffic using techniques like back-link building and SEO.
A content strategist will not only plan content to be published, they will often work closely with the SEO team to write detailed briefs for freelance or in-house writers, run competitor analyses, and conduct content audits.
Depending on the size of the team, the content strategist will most likely be expected to jump in and write, edit and publish content themselves when other content producers are not available.
2. Email marketer
With the prevalence of emails—319.6 billion sent per day as of 2021!—this popular format is an area that brands really need to leverage if they are going to reach their target audiences.
To do this, the email marketer has a specific brief to work to; cultivating language and design that speaks to users on their home turf, and ensuring their company’s emails stand out amongst all the other emails flooding their target users’ inboxes.
As well as nurturing leads, boosting traffic, improving conversion rates and increasing brand awareness via email and newsletters, email marketers are expected to build campaigns which align with the overall goals of the rest of the marketing team, track open rates, conduct A/B tests, and analyze what language and graphics work best for their brand’s messaging in this format.
3. SEO specialist
The role of the SEO specialist is crucial to any company with an active, online presence. SEO—or Search Engine Optimization—primarily helps to send the right people to the content they are seeking through the careful placing of specific keywords in high quality, relevant content on a website or blog, thereby increasing the visibility of that content on search engines like Google or Bing.
You can learn more about SEO (and how it’s different from SEM) here.
The SEO specialist is responsible for researching and identifying those keywords before ensuring the content is tailored to naturally include them.
When this is successful, the content on a blog or website moves further up the search results and reaches more of the people who want or need the product that company is selling.
Ultimately, SEO should lead to target users finding content which is beneficial to them. When this happens, the user’s faith in the brand increases, and the company sees a rise in both conversions and returning customers.
Working as an SEO specialist can pay handsomely, too—learn more about SEO specialist salaries in this post.
4. Digital marketing manager
The digital marketing manager is responsible for the successful running of digital channels and campaigns that create new customer leads, promote the brand, and contribute to overall company growth.
The size of the company will determine how hands-on the digital marketing manager is when it comes to the execution of tasks, but in almost every case they will collaborate closely with the community and social media managers, as well as the head of marketing to ensure that messaging is aligned and tasks are distributed among the right people.
As well as working closely with the rest of the marketing team, the digital marketing manager is expected to collaborate frequently with team members in the content production teams, like copywriters, graphic designers, and videographers, and work on strategy and planning with members of the business and sales teams to ensure that targets are aligned and met.
As such, digital marketing managers require a variety of skills and knowledge of different tools.
You can learn more about how to become a digital marketing manager with this step-by-step roadmap, and discover your earning potential in our digital marketing manager salary guide. You can also explore a similar role: the digital marketing specialist.
5. Social media manager
The social media manager is primarily responsible for curating a brand’s online voice and presence via its social media channels.
Using tools like Hootsuite or Buffer, the social media manager must create, plan and schedule shareable content on sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
When a social media campaign is over, they will gather data from users to analyze and report their learnings back to the rest of the marketing team.
Seeking out and building partnerships with other relevant brands or influencers is another aspect of the social media manager job description, and a good knowledge of Google Adwords and sponsored content is essential to ensure campaigns are executed successfully.
Those interested in becoming a social media manager will therefore need to demonstrate a variety of skills.
6. Virtual reality developers and editors
This is a high-tech digital media job, but since the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for people with these skills is booming. According to ARtillery Intelligence.
Virtual reality used within businesses is forecast to grow to $4.26 billion in 2023 due to an increased need for training, meetings or better customer service.
As a career, it combines technology and creativity so will suit people with interest in those areas.
People that enter this field usually come from a design, games or programming background as they possess the skills needed for this role. The goal would be to work your way up to a Director position from starting as an assistant, tester or editor.
While the gaming sector is a key industry for VR experts, industries such as architecture, construction, retail, and education are now using VR techniques to create immersive experiences. As a product, VR is still expensive to purchase and is a specialized field.
However, the technology is being used more in digital marketing campaigns to enhance the customer experience. A great example is Obsess, which uses web-based AR and VR to create engaging shopping experiences for brands.
VR is rising in popularity as a tool to attract and engage customers and will require VR developers to execute successful marketing campaigns. So if this area sounds like something that would interest you, brush up on those programming and design skills!
7. UX designer
User Experience (UX) designers are responsible for the end-to-end development of websites and digital marketing applications. They may have a technical background or experience in high-end design.
UX designers are focused on understanding the website from a whole marketing experience, and so need to understand audiences as well as have an in-depth knowledge of the product or service.
Their role is integral to optimizing an ecommerce website to drive prospects and customers to browse and buy.
They will typically take the lead role in project management for visual design and testing, with a specific eye on the usability of a website or application to improve user experience from start to finish.
8. Analysts and artificial intelligence (AI) specialists
The growth of the AI market is accelerating and projected to be worth $360 billion by 2028 as it offers companies a way to improve business operations and customer experience.
Plus, with the rise of big data and data mining, anyone who can create systems to analyze this information and apply it to strategic marketing will be in high demand.
Most people who specialize in these areas will have technical degrees and a computing science background.
If this is something you’re interested in, you’ll want to get a solid understanding of data optimization and machine learning to enhance marketing activities, as well as have an in-depth knowledge of programming.
With such a reliance on data and analytics to boost marketing campaigns and drive effective budgets, Data Analysts will always be in demand.
Our recent research with The Economist Group showed that recruiting for data and analytics talent is the most difficult out of all the marketing disciplines according to 39% of senior marketers, So becoming an expert in this area will provide you with great career opportunities.
Tips for improving and transform your digital marketing skills
Anyone involved in business marketing or leadership should consider their current and potential level of digital marketing skills as highly valuable.
But if you don’t feel that you’re that technologically aware or advanced, don’t worry! There are plenty of ways to learn new skills and upgrade existing ones to remain relevant in your role.
Online learning and e-learning are great ways to learn especially when you’re short on time and looking to pivot existing skills mid-career. Here are a few ideas on how you can upskill to ensure your skills are up-to-date:
- Take an online digital marketing course – work at your own pace in your own timeframe
- Design your own website to promote your knowledge and demonstrate skills
- Network in the field or specialization you’re interested in
- Conduct informational interviews
- Subscribe to blogs that offer relevant information and insight that you can apply at work
- Sign up to and participate in social media groups in your area of interest
No matter what you choose to specialize in, every company needs people with digital marketing experience. Even if you’re not technically minded, there are still plenty of opportunities to develop your dream digital marketing career.
Side notes
Whether you veer towards business and management, tech or the creative end; there will always be different types of marketing jobs available.
