How to learn digital marketing from scratch

A Digital Marketer is the amalgamation of varied roles and skill sets into one multi-tasker. This Infographic details the characteristics of a Digital Marketer, things they generally do as part of their job, the skills excellency they possess and how they think and execute different cross-platform strategies. This is a system that you can use to teach yourself digital marketing in a few months, using mostly inexpensive resources and personal projects. I’d expect that anyone could take a gameplan like this and go from zero to a hireable digital marketer in 6 months or less, so long as you work hard at it and don’t get too distracted.

Undoubtedly, Digital Marketing is a must to foot up on the career ladder irrespective of in which area you are working. That said, Digital Marketing is an extremely broad field ranging from graphic design to web development to content creation and everything in between.

A business needs to have a strong online presence these days if its leaders want to be competitive — there is no way around that rule. Yet, not every start-up and small business can afford to hire a digital marketing agency. So, how can business owners compete with little to no budget?

Two Skills you need to develop in order to learn digital marketing:

Before we jump into the nitty-gritty of things, I want to talk about the skills you need to develop if you’re going to become a marketing superstar.

Most people will tell you that you need to develop a dozen different skills to be good at marketing, but that’s not always the case.

If you’re able to develop the following two, you’re all set:

1.You should think creatively

As a Digital Marketer, you should be able to think outside-the-box. People change over the time, and you need to be creative enough to design effective product launches, marketing material, and constantly find new channels to promote your content and products.

2.You’ve to be active in analytical reasoning

A Digital Marketers should know how to interpret data to make savvy decisions – if you don’t know what the numbers and figures on your sheet mean, you could end up wasting a lot of money and time. Those are the most important skills a Digital Marketer should possess. As long as you develop critical thinking and habits that allow you to be more creative, you’ll become good at marketing.

Digital marketing components

Here are the main components of Digital Marketing:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the basic knowledge any online marketer should have. It is the technique to get traffic from organic search results on search engines like Bing and Google.

2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Pay Per Click (PPC) if done right could be the most significant drivers of growth for your business.

3. Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media is extremely important these days when it comes to inbound marketing. You don’t only have to write witty tweets and status updates but also build an audience, understand what they like, engage with them and much more. Social media platform could be a powerful lead generator.

4. Content Marketing

The purpose of content marketing is to attract the audience who will hopefully become customers. It focuses on providing value to your audience.

Thorough + Useful + Entertaining Content = Value

5. Email Marketing

It is the largest driver of revenue for most of the businesses. People will subscribe to your clothing brands for updates and discounts. If your customers find something interesting, they will click it and will buy from your website.

How to Learn Digital Marketing? Self Study

1. Digital Marketing Blogs

Digital Marketing is ever-changing and to foot up the career ladder, you need to follow digital marketing blogs. Some of the blogs that are fresh with actionable information to improve your marketing are:

• The Moz Blog
• Neil Patel Blog
• Search Engine Journal
• Kissmetrics

2. Videos

After digital marketing books, videos are the second-best way to learn digital marketing. When you learn online marketing, it is essential to understand the brightest minds in the digital industry, and with videos, the learning process is even more powerful. Digital Marketing videos will not only give valuable insights but what and why too.

3. Podcasts on Digital Marketing

If you like to learn while you workout, chill, commute from one place to another, podcasts are one of the best ways to do it. The podcasts will help you develop your digital marketing skills.

4. Digital Marketing Slideshows & Infographics

Find it easy to learn via visual presentations? Digital marketing slides and infographics is another excellent way to learn about the what, why, and how of Digital Marketing.

5. Digital Marketing Books

Books are the best way to learn digital marketing. Reading the best digital marketing books will enhance your knowledge so much so that you can handle the digital marketing of a startup and make it successful.

Some of the top digital marketing books are:

• Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation & Practice by Dave Chaffey & Fiona       Ellis-Chadwick
• The Power of Visual Storytelling by Ekaterina Walter
• Global Content Marketing by Pam Didner
• You’re My Favorite Client by Mike Monteiro

6. Free Digital Marketing Courses

There are multiple online courses where you can learn digital marketing for free (some of them are paid). Here are digital marketing courses for free that you can opt-in for building your digital marketing career:

Google Online Marketing Challenge

With more than 100,000 people from 100+ countries participated in Google’s Online Marketing Challenge, it is an online course with modules covering an introduction to Digital Marketing, search advertising, search engine marketing, video, analytics, social, mobile, and display advertising, making it one of the most comprehensive courses for beginners. This free online digital marketing course will help you with real-world experience element.

WordStream’s PPC University

Created by WordStream, it is a free online learning resource to help beginners build your digital marketing skills and PPC abilities. One good thing is that this digital marketing course is mobile-friendly so you can learn whenever you have time.

Social Media Quickstarter Digital Marketing Course

Social Media Quickstarter by Constant Contact emphasizes opportunities to integrate email with social media marketing. It provides a step by step lessons where beginners can study digital marketing tactics for Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, online listings, review, and blogging sites.

Moz’s SEO Training Course

This is one of the best courses for those who need an elementary introduction to the world of search engine optimisation. This course does an excellent job in explaining different components of SEO for beginners have no practical knowledge.