The world is moving so fast these days, how do you know that the career you study and interview for one day is still going to be in demand the next?
Luckily, plenty of career paths nowadays are built to last, but also constantly evolving. New best practices, advanced ways to move forward, and always lots of well-compensated job openings to hunt down… working in digital marketing is appealing for so many reasons.
What makes a digital marketing job so good?
Digital marketing is a career path that’s challenging, creative, rewarding and engaging.
Yet because so much of it relies on digital technology, it moves faster than magazine, print media and old-school PR jobs – although digital marketing definitely evolved from those roots.
Because of the technological focus of digital marketing jobs, they’ve not only remained largely unaffected by the global health crisis, but actually flourished despite the pandemic.
LinkedIn data collated by experts suggests that this is an area of employment where talent is actually in more demand than ever, no matter what is happening with Covid-19 worldwide.
Digital marketing jobs are known for being highly dynamic. They rely on a lot of moving parts to function, so to speak – data from search engines and sign-up forms, together with societal trends and hot new product releases, make for an ever-changing landscape that means no two days at your digital marketing job are ever alike.
Why are digital marketing jobs in such high demand?
It’s easy to forget how new a technology the internet really is. In just a few short decades, it’s entirely transformed the way we communicate, entertain ourselves, buy and sell goods and – of course – market and advertise products.
Nowadays, this is made even more pronounced by the growing interest in blockchain technologies and the emergence of Web3.
Because those new kinds of online interaction are expected to require new ways of looking at the web as a whole, the way marketing works on Web3 is still being explored.
Put simply, every business today needs an online presence – from sole traders and small family businesses right up to corporate giants in every country in the world.
All of them are competing to land a favourable space on search engine results – but also to have their advertising on social media, streaming sites and other platforms be as effective as possible.
Is digital marketing an easy career to be in?
While technology might simplify collating, comparing and collecting a lot of the data that a digital marketer uses to form their best strategies, the reality is that this is quite a challenging career path.
However the salaries and perks that often go with digital marketing jobs are designed to reflect that, meaning this can be a hugely rewarding direction to take if you’re driven, ambitious, creative and determined.
Because this industry is so hungry for talent, and because of all of the complexities in how it’s evolving, you’re unlikely to ever find a shortage of digital marketing job vacancies.
Companies of all shapes and sizes somewhat urgently need to keep pace with how things like search algorithms, popular social media platforms and online video services are changing.
Businesses who are unable to reach their customer bases, not to mention grow them, miss out on a lot of revenue. Competition in digital marketing is always lively, and much of your job will involve innovating new ways to capture customers’ attention and promote the values of your company’s products and services.
What challenges do people face working in digital marketing?
Digital marketing is a career path that leans on a lot of different areas in which to grow and operate day to day. That means that changes in how certain platforms work, or new governmental regulations on internet best practices, can have sudden and unexpected changes in how your digital marketing job functions.
For example, changes to a search engine’s algorithm or data collecting policies can be implemented almost overnight. Digital marketing teams who aren’t ready for those changes often have to scramble to make sure that their online content and social media strategies fit these new systems – and sometimes with very little warning.
Similarly, you’ll be working in companies whose priorities may change with little forewarning. For example, you may spend months of your digital marketing career with a business preparing for a product to launch, only to have it delayed or even cancelled out of the blue.
The only constant in digital marketing work is change, yet that’s exactly what makes it so appealing to so many people. This isn’t a job about just sitting in an office mindlessly typing into spreadsheets – digital marketing is dynamic and always teaching you something new.
As you gain skills and experience in digital marketing, as well as training to help best prepare you for working in this sector, you might find yourself fascinated at learning the secrets of how the internet works.
Which skills work best in digital marketing?
Naturally, any experience or specialist training for digital marketing jobs always makes you far more appealing to potential employers.
This confidence carries forward into your job interviews and can help you secure some pretty promising positions – often quite quickly, as digital marketing is an industry that moves fast.
However, there are a number of soft skills that you might have picked up in other jobs, hobbies, studies – or even have the good fortune to simply have as part of your natural personality. Keep these in mind, and you might have more advantages to offer a digital marketing job than you think.
Creativity
One of the most important skills for any digital marketer is creativity. When was the last time you remember seeing an online advert that simply showed you a product and then vanished? Marketing is about making memories.
Marketing is all about capturing attention, creating curiosity in the viewer and rewarding them for giving you their time. To create advertisements, content and experiences to satisfy those feelings, creativity is key.
Creativity is also important for digital marketers because much of your workday will involve facing down unexpected challenges that need new, fresh ideas to overcome.
Remember, the online world is evolving all the time, and nobody has all of the answers yet.
Because of that, you’ll often have to provide ideas to your teammates yourself – and the more creative a problem solver you are, the more praise and attention you’ll likely get from your boss or clients.
Computer literacy
Digital marketing professionals don’t necessarily need to know how to code, although learning some HTML is often useful. However, you need to be confident with computers and smartphones overall.
Digital marketing software is always growing and changing, and it’s likely that you’ll need to learn all kinds of tools for search engine optimisation, analysing data and predicting customer behaviour and engagement throughout your career.
It’s important you know how to pick up these new systems fast, but also have the confidence to be able to break down the data you receive from search engine results, how many people clicked on your online adverts and so on – often to present the findings of that data to your colleagues in meetings.
Lateral thinking
Often, working in digital marketing is about testing the websites or apps your company creates as though you are a customer.
You’ll be responsible for finding out what areas of frustration exist in a given experience, and work out how to get rid of them so customers don’t feel dissuaded from engaging with online content your team creates.
Lateral thinking is important for understanding other people’s perspectives in this way, but it has other advantages too. Because digital marketing jobs are so dynamic, there will often be times when even the most strategic plans go a touch off the rails – and you’ll need to find a solution fast!
Collaboration
When you work in digital marketing, teamwork is hugely important, especially since what you create, publish and measure is often the ‘face’ of a company. It’s vital a bad impression of your business is never given to the public.
Being able to handle criticism of your work, to tactfully critique your colleagues’ work when it needs improving, and to understand how everyone can work together to make the best content at both a technical and aesthetic level takes a lot of discussing.
Staying humble, honest but also confident is definitely a great strength to have here.
Digital marketing is the future – is it yours?
Lots of jobs get made obsolete by how fast technology is moving, but not digital marketing. In fact, the demand for talent in this field has never been stronger.
Learning digital marketing skills helps you stand out online, whether as a content creator, freelancer or a member of a team at a company making a big mark on the World Wide Web.
It takes determination, confidence and an ability to roll with life’s challenges as they pop up – but if you want a rewarding, engaging and sought-after career path, digital marketing could be the perfect fit for you.
