Digital Marketing: How to Give Your Career a Boost

There is no doubt that the beginning of the new year is an excellent time to consider a change in your career path.

There are several factors at play in this. Many employees return to work after the Christmas break with fresh plans and ambitions in mind, perhaps having spent time reflecting on their current role and career path during the festive season, and inspired and motivated to make progress during the year ahead. They may also have fresh budgets!

Either way, whether your desire for change is rooted in positive or negative incentives, January is a good time to act on these thoughts and make more solid plans, as it is a busy time in the job market. Management and recruiters are also setting their stall out for the year, looking to fill vacancies, put teams in place, bring in junior staff, and promote employees to more senior roles.

This is especially true in digital marketing, with major growth predicted to continue. Recent research shows that the skills gap in the sector is a major concern for senior management. Further research conducted in a major white paper by the DMI in collaboration with The Economist Group revealed an ever-present need for ‘soft skills’ among marketers.

As digital technologies continue to evolve, the knowledge and capabilities of employees are lagging behind, leaving many organizations playing catch-up. Over half of CMOs and senior marketers report struggling with the shifting of the digital landscape, and voice concerns about how their department and business will keep up with these developments.

There are major skills shortages in areas such as analytics, social media, and search marketing, as well as great opportunities presented by the emergence of specialties such as user experience (UX) and customer experience (CX), along with the challenges and opportunities presented by exciting tech advances in areas like virtual reality (VR), voice search and artificial intelligence (AI). The brands that execute well on this stand to reap the rewards over the next few years.

Assessing Your Options

Rather than jumping head-first into your next move or hastily deciding that you’ve had enough of your current predicament, a more sensible, prudent approach is to sit down and do a calm, factual assessment of your current position and career path, as well as your options.

Many people may have already begun this mental process of future planning during the Christmas break or before it, perhaps just thinking through options or having a casual chat about it with friends or family members, but you now need to go about it more deeply and thoroughly.

Crucially, this should include an honest appraisal of your current prospects, your suitability for new roles, and the skills you may need to develop to make yourself a viable candidate for them. You may be looking for a wholesale change to your job role, or you may simply feel the time is right to pursue a more senior position in your current organization.

For example, you might work as a social media executive for an agency, and would like to secure a move to work in-house for a major company/brand as a social media manager. Or you could be currently working as a writer or editor for a print publication and looking to secure your first role in digital marketing, as a content marketer or email marketer.

There are different degrees of change involved here, requiring different approaches and strategies. Take the time to put your little career audit down in writing, including where you are right now, where you would like to be in say three months, and the steps required to bridge this gap and secure your next move.

Your CV, Research, and Online Professional Branding

If you are considering your career options, it’s important to always have your CV/resume up-to-date, but the new year is a great time to give it a deeper overview and make updates and improvements where possible. Consider fleshing out the experience and skills you have gained in your current role, as well as adding any skills or qualifications gained recently. You could also include a link to an online portfolio of your work and pay attention to your cover letters.

This is particularly important in digital marketing, which is growing and evolving at a rapid pace, meaning you need to show that your skills are current and relevant to prospective employers. Even small online courses and accreditations, as well as experience with software packages, should be included, provided they are relevant to your specialism.

Another thing to be mindful of is editing your CV when putting it forward for a particular job so that it is tailored and optimized for that role. This doesn’t mean falsifying your resume – it just means leveraging it wisely by including the information and experience which is most appropriate to that particular role. CV writing these days is actually something of an exercise in SEO. As resumes are now often being filtered digitally in the initial stages, rather than being read in full by recruiters, you should include the keywords and skills which are most relevant to the role.

If you are looking to secure a move, the next step is to build a routine for finding new roles and opening that interest you. This means checking new job postings online through recruitment websites and agencies, especially those which have a strong digital focus and are very active in your country and city.

However, these days there is a lot more to job hunting than updating your CV and applying for positions directly through these websites. You need to keep yourself in circulation online and highly visible to recruiters. LinkedIn is crucial here in terms of your professional profile and building a strong professional brand for yourself on the platform.

Taking the time to improve and optimize your profile is a smart investment, as it means that recruiters and employers can find you easily online, get a positive first impression, and reach out to you directly. Adding the ‘Open to New Opportunities’ setting on your LinkedIn profile also helps to put you in the shop window.

Online and Offline Networking

In addition to doing your research and building your profile in the digital environment, you can increase your networking efforts. Connect with key industry contacts on social platforms, and reach out to them at an appropriate time, either on social or via email.

At the very least, this may put you on their radar and in consideration for any new roles that may fit your particular skill set. Publishing and sharing new, interesting industry content is one good way to impress contacts by showing your finger is on the pulse.

And even in today’s busy digital world, offline networking is still very important in seeking out new opportunities. By attending conferences, you will not only gain new insights but also have a chance to meet and chat with industry peers in a relatively relaxed setting. Again, this keeps you in circulation. Joining relevant groups in your area on Meetup.com is another great outlet for networking and gaining new insights and don’t forget your very own DMI member community.

Once you have established initial contact (online or offline), you can take the chance to invite people for a coffee at a later stage, which provides a chance to discuss ideas further, get information and make your case (gently!) for any upcoming work, if that’s a possibility.

Free Online Courses for Digital Marketing

Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

Offered by Google

There’s no better way to learn digital marketing than through the company that started it all. Google’s free online digital marketing course ranks right at the top of our list with good reason; it covers all aspects of digital marketing for beginners as well as intermediate users and it comes with free certification. Industry-recognized certification through Google is an ideal way to get your profile noticed and add to your skill set.

This 40-hour free online course in digital marketing features 26 modules and can be completed at your own pace wherever and whenever you want. Each module consists of several lessons that include text, video, and quizzes to test your knowledge. If you don’t want to progress through the entire course you can pick and choose which lessons to add to your individualized learning plan. However, we highly recommend starting from the beginning and progressing step-by-step so you can receive certification.

While we won’t list each module, some of the subjects covered include:

Building your web presence
Planning your online business strategy
Understanding search and how to improve your campaigns
Getting noticed locally
Building an online store
Expanding internationally
Social media marketing
Mobile marketing
Content marketing
Email marketing
Advertising and analytics

Inbound Marketing Free Certification Course

Offered by Hubspot Academy

Hubspot Academy’s Inbound Marketing Free Certification Course is a four-hour industry-recognized program meant for digital marketers who want to focus on their inbound efforts. The comprehensive curriculum consists of 10 lessons, 34 videos, and 9 quizzes and is designed for beginners. During the free online digital marketing course, students will learn about:

The fundamentals of inbound marketing
Planning a long-term content strategy
Creating blog posts
Understanding social media promotion
Developing a conversational growth strategy
Understanding and creating a conversion optimization strategy
Lead nurturing
Aligning sales and marketing
Applying a customer marketing approach

Upon successful completion, students will be awarded official certification from HubSpot to display on their LinkedIn profile, portfolio, resume, or CV.

Free Diploma in E-Business

Offered by Alison

Alison was developed in 2007 by Mike Feerick and was the first massive online open course (MOOC) platform on the web. With more than six million students registered on the site, this is one of the best free online course providers you will find.

The Diploma in E-Business course helps students build marketing skills through learning Google Analytics and AdWords, search optimization, revenue metrics, analysis, campaign tracking, digital measurement, and more. Over 84,000 students have enrolled in the free online digital marketing course, which takes between six to ten hours to complete. You will need to pass the final assessment with an 80 percent or better grade. Upon completion, you will receive a Learner Achievement Verification Report, or you can opt to purchase a certificate from the site’s online shop for around $20.

Become an Online Marketing Manager

Offered by LinkedIn Learning

This 24-hour course offered through LinkedIn Learning provides students who already understand digital marketing with the skills they need to move up the corporate ladder into management roles. In this free digital marketing online course, students will learn best practices for online marketing, using the latest tools to implement a digital marketing strategy, and how to advertise effectively on social media platforms.

The course features 11 modules covering advanced aspects of marketing including:

Growth hacking
Advanced branding
SEO foundations
Email and newsletter marketing
Google Analytics
Google AdWords
Facebook and Twitter
Sketch for UX design

You can take the course for free if you already have a LinkedIn premium membership (most marketers do) or sign up for a trial and access the classes at no charge for a month.

Digital Marekting Strategy

Offered by The University of Edinburgh

This thorough digital marketing course is offered by one of the top universities in Scotland through Edx. By engaging in the training for four to six hours a week, the course can be completed in about 8 weeks. The syllabus is comprehensive. Students who are looking for the most inclusive free curriculum on digital marketing will find this to be one of the top choices.

Certificates for the course can be obtained at the paid level of edX, which is also part of a professional certification. However, the lessons of each module can be audited for free. Auditing the course allows you to read and view all of the content.

The program is designed to teach users a general understanding of digital marketing at the strategic level as it relates to business. Taught by two instructors from the University of Edinburgh, it’s an ideal course to add to your resume or CV.

Digital Strategy and Action

Offered by Babson College through edX

Digital Strategy and Action is a fascinating free online course that will introduce marketers to what big businesses like Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, and Google have in common when it comes to digital strategy. In it, students will learn how the CEOs of these giants pivoted from a simple idea to billions in revenue, and how they keep growing.

The course features inspiring in-depth case studies, including stories about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings as well as tons of tips, tricks, and advice.

If you’re an entrepreneur or marketer who dares to dream bigger, the course will provide insight into how the world’s biggest leaders in marketing have stayed at the top.

Students can opt for the paid version, which gives them an instructor-signed shareable certificate with the Babson University logo, but this is not a requirement. It can also be taken in its entirety in the audit version for free.

Digital Media and Marketing Strategies

Offered by the University of Illinois through Coursera

The Digital Media and Marketing Strategies course offered by the University of Illinois is course five in a seven-part specialization in Digital Marketing. Like all Coursera programs, it can be completed in audit mode at no cost or in the paid version. Students who opt for the paid version will receive a completion certificate.

The free 15-hour course in digital marketing will teach you: