Are you a marketing professional who is just starting out? Are you looking to advance your digital marketing career, but you’re not quite sure which direction to take or how to move forward?
If so, you should be continually improving your skills to get a competitive edge. But what’s the best way to go about doing so?
Check out these interesting facts from HubSpot:
- 85% of working people are dedicating 30 minutes per week to job-specific learning exercises; furthermore, most professionals would like to devote even more time to self-improvement but don’t feel they have enough time.
- 68% of workers are using online learning platforms, and another 62% are looking to influencers and experts.
- Most of them prefer online training and over half use their mobile devices for learning.
Here are ways that professionals can push themselves further and give themselves the competitive edge they need not merely to make more money but to better their skills and apparent value to current or future employers.
- Choose a Specialty
Specialization is undoubtedly key, and the ability to market yourself based on your differentiation is a big part of being competitive. Does this sound intimidating? The truth is you probably already have skills that make you stand out from the rest – you may just have to be creative about how you grow and market them.
The key is choosing something based on your priorities and natural aptitude, as well as your career goals. Are you a tech person who wants to move into the creative or marketing side? SEO could be your thing. Are you a business professional who loves to write? Copy and content writing could be your jam. If you’re coming from the business end of things and you like to write, there’s plenty of demand for content and social media managers.
Here are some areas that will continue to be in demand in the field of digital marketing:
- Social media
- Mobile marketing
- Web development and design
- Video production
- Analytics
- Strategy and project management
- Digital publishing
- Copywriting
Whatever route you take, be sure to have a niche and be able to demonstrate that you can achieve measurable results.
- Show What You Know
Finding a specialization is the first step to moving forward with a rewarding digital career. But once you’ve taken inventory of what you are great at and what you want to learn, you’ll need to start showing other people exactly what you can do.
This part involves much more than creating a portfolio, although depending on what stream you are focusing on, it may depend more or less on your portfolio. Copywriters, web designers, and graphics specialists will certainly want to have a well-rounded collection of work ready to show prospective employers.
But the other side of this is marketing. Sure, you might have a few great pieces in your portfolio, but how are potential clients or employers going to see how you work? How can you get them to clearly understand that your knowledge will help them acquire a competitive edge in their business as a whole? Will they understand your process enough to sign on with you for a major project?
You have to not only learn the new skill but understand how to show the right people the right skill set, which often will include tandem business and communication skills that demonstrate you know how to communicate and work with a business.
- Understand Consumer Behaviour
The old model of interruptive marketing is out, and there’s a new one in town, where consumers have more options and more access than ever before.
One-click purchasing and moment-marketing are two examples of ways that consumers are purchasing online these days.
They are stepping away from interruptive marketing and into something that’s characterized by a high level of choice and access.
The result is that the marketing and business theories you may have learned in business school ten years ago are probably entirely different or are at least heading in a different direction.
Show that you can market on this basis and that you know some current lingo and you’ll be noticed.
- Start Your Own Projects
In order to get practice, you’ll have to put in the work on your own, and this is true whether you officially get certified as a digital marketer or not. Part of this is building a portfolio, and another part is demonstrating how well you can think and learn for yourself.
You have to be learning on an ongoing basis for the rest of your working life to stay competitive in this industry, so you may as well go for it now, and share your knowledge with the world as a part of your personal marketing.
- Be a Leader
These days a lot of people are working for themselves or joining smaller teams of people with diverse skills. You need to be able to showcase your capacity to lead in a business and marketing context (or whatever your specialty is) in a big way.
So, this doesn’t mean you have to technically lead projects, but if you have freelanced, for instance, you can talk about how you’ve managed your own business, developed project plans with clients, and addressed your accounting among other things.
The point is to show that you can take the initiative and stay organised but also work with others in a leadership capacity. You need to be able to come up with original ideas and not be afraid to talk about them in front of a group.
If you have a specialty, you should behave as an influencer by developing a distinct online presence. Building authority in this way is a great way to establish yourself as an expert and come out on top.
- Social Media Knowledge
Speaking of influencers, social media is no longer a “might have” type of skill – it’s a must-have. Even if you don’t specialize in it, you should really know the basics and be able to run a few different social media accounts easily and not only ‘post’ cool images and phrases but be able to truly engage within a social network.
Even if social media isn’t your specialty, demonstrating a solid grasp of the channels and their use is necessary if you’re pursuing a career in digital marketing.
- Networking
One of the benefits of joining online classes or another type of group training program is that you’ll be able to meet peers who are in the same situation as you.
But it’s not only classes where you’ll meet people – you probably already know how simple it is to network online or join a digital community and it’s definitely worth your while to start doing so early.
Whether you’re interested in discovering more about a particular field or you’re already in the field and want to push yourself further, here are a few things you can do to move your career forward:
- Use LinkedIn to contact people at companies or in jobs that you like for informational interviews.
- Search Facebook for groups of interest.
- Scan Twitter for job postings and to have quick conversations about topics in your area of interest.
- Go to meet-ups and conferences when possible.
- Find a mentor and arrange for a discussion with them.
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:
- How to optimize your digital assets
- The basics of online and video marketing
- The basics of email and social media marketing
