What to Learn In Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is essential for any modern business. By taking advantage of digital technologies, marketers are able to achieve things that would previously have seemed unthinkable. As a result, digital marketers are highly valued, and a digital marketing degree will open many more doors than you might realise. Here’s what you need to know to decide whether to study a digital marketing degree or not.

What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing refers to a wide range of marketing techniques that involve using digital mediums, usually the internet and other online technologies, to market to consumers. Digital marketing is every bit as diverse as the technologies that underpin it, and there are myriad techniques digital marketers can use and channels they can exploit.

As the numbers of digital devices and services in our daily lives increase, the opportunities for marketers are increasing along with them. In some cases, the line between the role of digital markets and that of other marketers can become blurred. For example, data scientists who work in marketing could be considered part of digital marketing, even if they are only advising marketers on how to deploy their data analysis and aren’t producing marketing materials directly.

For large corporations, large marketing departments often bring together a wide range of very different skills. This contrasts with smaller businesses who have little choice but to make do with a smaller team. Thanks to the plethora of tools that now exist to help digital marketers, these small teams of digital marketers can still take advantage of advanced techniques like data analytics, albeit not to the same degree as their larger counterparts.

There are essential skills required in every business regardless of size or niche and here are the top 10 Digital Marketing Skills required in business today!

What Is A Digital Marketing Campaign?

Digital marketing campaigns encompass every single piece of marketing that you have seen on a digital device. This means every advert that has been displayed on your smartphone or shown in your internet browser. Digital marketing campaigns are nearly always internet-based, although there are some limited exceptions to this. Because digital marketing campaigns are internet-based, they can be much more dynamic than traditional marketing campaigns. An online marketing campaign can be updated on the fly without the need to invest significantly in new physical marketing materials like posters or flyers.

Digital marketing campaigns are delivered to consumers through a variety of different channels and arrive on a range of devices. In order for a digital marketing campaign to be successful and produce a worthwhile return on investment, it needs to reach as many people as possible. As a result, while platform-specific marketing campaigns do exist, most digital marketing is designed to be platform-agnostic and deliverable to any device that has an internet connection.

The best way of achieving this is by spreading the campaign over multiple channels. As a result, an individual digital marketing campaign will usually involve numerous individual components. For example, a PPC campaign is a great way of reaching people who are using a web browser but less effective for reaching app users. Some people also choose to block these ads, making it harder to reach them.

To account for this, a digital marketing campaign will combine these PPC ads with ads placed on social media platforms and an SEO campaign. Almost everyone is reachable using digital channels, but few people are reachable via all digital channels.

What Are The Channels Of Digital Marketing?

There are far too many digital marketing channels to list in this guide, but we can take a look at the most common ones. These are the ones that aspiring digital marketers need to know above all others.

1. Email marketing. Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, but it is one that is still relevant today. Big businesses today are amassing email subscribers at a prodigious rate, making email marketing an obvious choice for many.
   
2. Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) accounts for a significant number of the adverts you see when you are browsing the internet. Digital marketers will need to decide how important specific keywords and audiences are to them as part of the campaign planning process.
   
3. Search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO is the bread and butter of digital marketers today. A website’s SEO score will determine how visible it is in search engine results pages. Given that the majority of internet traffic today is driven by search engine searches, high visibility in results is very valuable for any business.
   
4. Social media marketing. It is hard to overstate how important social media platforms are for digital marketers. Not only do social media platforms make it possible to reach a large number of people simultaneously, but they also provide the tools that marketers need to be able to finely target their ads at specific groups of users. This enhances their efficiency and increases conversion rates.

These are just some of the most important digital marketing channels for modern marketers. By utilising multiple channels simultaneously, digital marketers are able to reach a large number of people effectively with their marketing campaigns.

Developing a Digital Marketing Strategy is going to be the key to success because a goal without a plan is just a wish – Every dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action becomes reality.

At least half of all businesses don’t have a well-documented marketing plan – Check out our Digital Marketing Strategy Infographic which showcases the components of a digital marketing strategy and handy tips to prioritise your tasks.

What Is Included In Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing encompasses any kind of marketing that is delivered via the internet to digital devices. Because of this, digital marketing includes a wide range of disciplines, and many digital marketers specialise in one or two particular disciplines. However, there are also now multiple marketing platforms in place that are designed to make it as easy as possible for a digital marketer to market on multiple platforms simultaneously.

For example, if businesses had to create entirely separate assets and campaigns for every channel they wanted to use, even a relatively modest digital marketing campaign would be considerably more expensive. Instead of having to learn separate tools and principles for placing ads in apps or on websites, digital marketers can sell their ads through a marketing platform that supports multi-channel delivery.

What To Learn In Digital Marketing?

Exactly what to learn in digital marketing over the course of any digital marketing degree will depend on the specific course that you take.

However, there are some fundamentals that are universal or near-universal across digital marketing courses, as they are so important to digital marketing in 2020.

For example, every digital marketer today needs to understand how to establish their own online presence. In order to demonstrate to businesses that you understand the principles of digital marketing and are able to market effectively, you will need to be able to show them that you are capable of marketing yourself. For any digital marketer, their portfolio is an important part of their CV. When applying for jobs, either as a freelancer or a salaried position within a marketing business, you will need to be able to move to them that you are capable and knowledgeable. Learning how to put together a proper portfolio is an important part of acquiring new business.

Digital marketers will also need to learn how to formulate strategies and devise campaigns. Doing this requires more than just an understanding of marketing principles. In order to identify the most fruitful digital marketing channels and the best target audience, digital marketers will also need to interpret data and make assessments based on it. This data comes from a range of different sources. Some of this data will concern the market in general, but a lot of it will relate to the behaviour of a business’s existing users. Understanding all of this data is key to decision-making for a digital marketer.

What Can You Do With A Digital Marketing Degree?

Digital marketers are needed in a variety of different contexts today. Most businesses will have a digital marketing component, even relatively small businesses. As a result, a digital marketing degree is incredibly versatile and can open the door to a career in a range of different fields.

For example, a qualified digital marketer can find work as a social media manager. Many big businesses will pay very good money for an experienced social media manager who can maximise customer engagement with their profiles and nurture their social media profiles as a constant source of new users or customers. Most people have experience using social media platforms, but relatively few people are qualified to manage corporate social media accounts.

There are numerous other specialised digital marketing roles, such as web content editor, that will see you working with one specific digital marketing channel. However, there is also a range of roles that will require you to work with multiple different digital marketing channels simultaneously.

Alternatively, a digital marketing degree could enable you to take on the role of marketing manager for an organisation. This would put you at the helm of the marketing efforts across the entirety of a business.

If you want to be working at the forefront of modern marketing, then digital marketing is the field for you. Digital marketers work with numerous technologies to enhance the power of their marketing campaigns and optimise their ROI. Data-driven digital marketing campaigns are much more powerful than the conventional campaigns that marketers used to run. Access to high-quality data sources has completely changed the game. Now that everyone has a smartphone in their pocket, digital marketing is able to reach unprecedented numbers of people.

If you are looking to progress your career or even get into digital marketing then it may be worth finding out more about the CIM Diploma in Professional Digital Marketing. This amazing qualification is not only designed for industry but is designed by business professionals to align the skills needed in today’s business world with an extremely comprehensive worldwide recognised undergraduate degree.

As digital marketing is constantly moving as are your consumer needs, wants and behaviour you will need to keep up to date with the latest digital marketing trends and insights that affect how you attract your ideal client and nurture them through to profitable customers.

Check out our Free Marketing Masterclass to give your knowledge a boost and learn about what strategies are working now in business.

Time to develop you digital marketing skills?