Digital Marketing

Many Businesses Fail for Lack of Internet Marketing

Having a digital marketing strategy is vitally important to any business regardless of the size of the business. Whether you are a big company or a small company, you need to have a solid digital marketing plan.

It is no accident that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 20% of all companies fail during their first year of business, and 50% of companies fail within their first five years of operation. Often the reason for such failure is that the company did not develop and execute a good marketing plan. Most new companies biggest problem is obscurity—not enough people know who they are. Before they are able to gain traction, and develop a solid customer base, they run out of money and are forced to shut down. A solid marketing plan can change that, and have even a new business thriving from their first day of operation.

Even long established companies need to constantly generate new customer leads. It is an ongoing challenge to make sure that people know who your company is, and what solutions your company can offer.

This is where marketing comes into play. Marketing is even more important that the actual product or service you sell. People tend to buy from companies they know and trust, and do not always go with the company that offer the best product or service.

Digital Marketing – A Powerful Tool

The internet has opened up many new avenues for businesses to better connect with their customers through digital marketing. Digital marketing is any form of marketing that is done online. Digital marketing has opened up vast new avenues for business to connect with their customers on a more individual, personal, and meaningful manner.

Digital marketing has allowed companies to have a relationship with their customers that was not possible before. A good marketing plan seeks to connect with customers in real and meaningful ways. Instead of customers being one time buyers, a good digital marketing strategy seeks to have a relationship with a customer that lasts a lifetime. Often these relationship may even last beyond the lifetime of the customer, and be passed onto the next generation.

For instance, most people still use whatever laundry detergent their parents used when they were kids. There are exceptions of course, but many of us still purchase from many of the same companies our parents purchased from. Growing up we learned to trust these brands, and as adults we trust them still.

While there is still a need for traditional marketing strategies for bigger businesses, and traditional forms of marketing are not going away any time soon, the future is online and marketing will need to continue to enter the online space. As long as businesses need to connect with their customers, there will be a need for marketers to make that connection.

The best approach to any form of marketing if when you seek to connect organically with the customers. This is even more true with digital marketing, where the potential for connection to your customers is even greater than with traditional marketing methods.

For instance, you may not even notice the billboard that you pass every day on your way to work, but a digital marketing strategy that utilizes email is hard to ignore. If annoying content is filling up the customers inbox, it gets tiring very quickly, and leads to negative reactions from the majority of customers.

Even for companies that have been around for a long time and are considered to be well established in their industry, need to have a digital marketing strategy. If they wish stay competitive in this increasingly online world, then they need to go where the customers are going. The future is online, and companies are going to need a strategy to take advantage of the digital age.

A Website

At the barest minimum every business should have a website, and some type of social media presence. The internet is where most people will find you. Very few business can afford not to have a website and some form of social media presence.

The website should be clean, fresh, modern, and user friendly. Every few years or so the website should be refreshed and made current. All of the websites features should be functional, and tested regularly for bugs and problems. Security is also a big concern, and customer information such as email, physical addresses, and billing information must be kept private.

Websites should serve some type of purpose as well. Many companies just have a website to cross it off of their checklist. A effective website should serve some type of purpose, and should be interacting with customers in a meaningful way. Some companies looking to do this cheaply just have a single page that lists their companies name, physical address, email, and phone number. All of this information can be found on a google search anyway. Websites need to serve a purpose and a good digital marketing strategy will make a company’s website central to its plans.

A Social Media Presence

A company’s social media presence can be cross platform with the biggest social media channels being used. Some of the big channels that are often used are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. A strategy that will use the big three need to make sure they are posting across all three platforms on a regular basis. When companies have social media pages, but do not post on them it actually can hurt their company in the long run.

Some experts recommend choosing just one social media channel, and using it frequently and effectively. Especially for the beginning and if you do not have a lot of digital marketing money to spare, just choosing one can be a better plan at least for the short term. After mastering one form of social media, then it would be good to go branch out to other form of social media platforms.

It is not enough to have a page on these social media channels, but the company should be engaging with their audience on a daily basis. Social media especially has the power to connect customers in a space where there are going often anyway. There are over 3 billion people on social media today worldwide, and more are getting on social media every day. Social media is where the customers are, so a digital marketing strategy needs to be there too. The social media plan should always be driving customers to the company’s website.

Free Consumable Content

A good digital marketing strategy usually entails creating free consumable content that is relevant to the customers. Content that enriches their lives or helps inform them in some way. This often takes money to hire people to create the content, or it is content that is able to be generated somehow within the company. So even though this costs money on the front end, in the long run the content will pay for itself through actual sales.

So the key is to create not just a lot of content, but content that is appreciated and used by your audience. The effects of creating free consumable content is a win for both the business and the customer. For the business it creates a steady stream of customers that will be loyal to the business form many years to come. For the customer, they are getting the benefit of free content that is helping enrich their lives.

A company usually knows a lot about the particular niche that they exist in. They have a certain set of skills, knowledge, and abilities that prompted them to open up business in the first place. Today people often consult the collected wisdom of the internet when wanting to find something out. This can be an opportunity for the customer and the company to make a connection, and a good digital marketing strategy will take advantage of this.

For example, if someone is going to remodel their home, they will often do internet search using google, yahoo, or other search engine to get ideas and prep for the project. If you have a home remodeling business, having an online presence that positions you as a trusted expert in the home remodeling space, can help turn people doing an internet search on a topic into customers.

Maybe you have a blog with a post about what to consider when thinking about a home remodeling project, you have some free resources on how to budget for your next remodeling project, and you have pictures and inspirational ideas on how to remodel your home.

If that person who is looking into remodeling their home consumes some of your free online content, they may buy some of your services because they got a lot out of your content, and now see you as a trusted source.

How Much Money Can You Make in Digital Marketing?

Many people have decided to enter into the digital marketing space, and the growth of digital marketing opportunities continues to be on the rise. The need for digital marketing will only continue to grow as well, as more and more business bring their companies to the online space. Indeed many companies are choosing to bring their entire operations online. Many business have no actual offices or storefronts, and are now entirely online.

So if you have ever considered digital marketing as a career choice, then now is a great time to make the plunge in to launch your career into the digital marketing universe. While digital marketing can be a great career choice and there is even the possibility to do it from home, it is good to know what you are getting into before you decide to make the plunge.

Our Own Earnings Proof

We don’t like to talk about things we don’t have experience in, so for full disclosure here’s a few projects Greg and I worked on together.

According to glassdoor.com the average salary for someone working as a digital marketer is around $58 thousand per year. At the low end of this range digital marketers can expect to make about $37 thousand per year. The high range for a digital marketing career is about $90 thousand per year. While there are digital marketing roles that can be in the six figure range, those roles are near the top of a company, like a vice president or other executive level position. Most career level digital marketing positions will top off at around $90 thousand.

So that should give you some idea of where you can expect to fall in terms of salary. Especially when you are just starting out it is good to know what you can expect in terms of compensation. The above salary ranges are for being an employed as a digital marketer, and the ranges for freelance digital marketers are around the same, or even greater.

However, as you grow in your role you can expect to make more money and to command a higher salary. So how much money can you make in digital marketing largely depends on you. Your initiative and your drive are the only real obstacle in determining how much you can make as a digital marketer.

For freelancers or those starting their own digital marketing company the question of how much money can you make in digital marketing gets bigger and bigger. There are multiple strategies that digital marketing freelancers or agencies can use to generate even more income for themselves or their digital marketing companies.

Starting a Digital Marketing Agency

If you have a sales background or find yourself in many networking situations, having a digital marketing agency can make a lot of sense.  With the learning curve on digital marketing being something that most people don’t have time for, most companies will outsource their web marketing efforts to an agency.

Monthly Billing – The Agency Model

Instead of doing on off jobs for clients the best solution for both the client and digital marketer is to have some sort of monthly arrangement. Typically, a digital marketer will sign a client for an entire year of services that will be billed monthly. These monthly services could range anywhere from $1,000 to $20,000 per month depending on what services are offered. Even at the low end getting just 10 clients signed on for yearly contracts at about $1,000 per month would see a revenue stream of $120,000 dollars per year. Having 10 clients is a doable goal, and the work load for just ten clients is very reasonable, once you set up all of your systems and processes. So monthly billing is definitely something that you will want to factor in to your plan if you decide to be a freelance digital marketer.

One Time Projects

While there are routine tasks that can be put on a monthly billing cycle, there are more intensive services that take much more work, and should cost significantly more. These are the one and done jobs, that once done to not take time to maintain. The most common of these tasks is building a company’s website.

For instance, a client may be in need of a website, or their existing website needs to be refreshed and redesigned. Many new clients just starting out on their digital marketing journey will need such services. Also, many established clients will need a website refresh and redesign every few years to stay completive in the online space. Depending on the size of the client and the business needs this could cost anywhere from $1,000 to $30,000. So this could be a great source of income especially when you are just starting out. As you become more established you will most likely regularly see these bigger one time jobs.

Combining Monthly Billing With One Time Projects

Some customers will not see the need to be on a monthly billing program. Some will just want a website and nothing else. So let’s just say you had 10 clients on the monthly billing and were comfortably making $120,000 from the monthly billing. Adding just 20 website redesigns or building from scratch at $5,000 dollars per customer, would net you an additional $100,000 dollars a year.

So having the just 10 clients on the monthly billing at $1,000 per month, and doing 20 websites at $5000 per site, would get you into the $220,000 range for the year. Not bad for an amount of work you could probably handle on your own, from the comfort of your own home office.

The Potential to Scale Up

Keeping these two money making strategies in mind, it is easy to see how a digital marketing business could grow. If you added just 10 employees who all did in a year what you could do alone, and paid them a salary of $80,000 per year. Then they would generate about 2.2 million dollars a year in revenue, and factoring out their salaries that would net your business about 1.4 million in profit, before factoring out the other costs in running your business.

So while running a business may not be on your horizon, this should give you an idea of the power of digital marketing either as a freelancer, or starting your own digital marketing business.

The above numbers are only for informational purposes, and the actual numbers may work out different depending your situation, so you will need to sit down with your own CPA and come up with your own numbers.

Offering Customer Financing

This is another great way that some digital marketers have helped their customers develop their digital marketing strategy. They have allowed them to finance their digital marketing campaigns. While this strategy has some risk, and it is a strategy that you will need to talk through with your CPA or accountant, this is a potential game changer to help smaller sized business use your products and services.

You can offer to finance the digital marketing services that they would need from you. So they would get the regular price if they paid for everything up front, or they could finance it and pay it over the course of time for a slightly larger price. Getting a bunch of clients like this into the pipeline can be a great strategy. It can potentially bring in revenue long after the project has already been completed.

For instance, suppose you charge $5,000 for a new website with a one year maintenance plan. The customer is a smaller company and cannot afford that large of a bill right now. However, they can afford to pay a little each month towards that website and maintenance plan, but they need their website up and running as soon as possible.

You could then offer to finance the cost for them at say 25% interest over a 12 month period. Then the customer would then pay $6,250 over a twelve month period, or about $520 per month. This is a great way of giving the customer what they need very quickly, and will provide income for your company long after the job has been done.

The only real risk is if the customer stops paying, but if you maintain control of their website for that year, then you could just shut down their website if they do not pay. In this example there is limited risk on your part as long as you maintain some control of the website for the duration of the terms of finance.

Don’t Forget to Consult Your CPA

For all of the above strategies that involve money and charging clients it is important to run it by your local CPA. Laws change frequently across state lines, and they will have the most up to date information on how to structure these income strategies in a way that is legal and fair. Your CPA should be the first person you consult when figuring out billing and financing strategies.

Great Work Life Balance

One of the best benefits of a career in digital marketing is the reported work life balance of many who are in the industry. The work that you will do is not very hard, although it can be highly specialized. Most if not all of the work can be done from the comfort of your own home, and even those that go to an office every day report higher than average job satisfaction. So if you are looking for a career that is more balanced, has a growing need for talent, and can earn a great income, then digital marketing could be a good choice for you.

Careers in Digital Marketing

The field of digital marketing is still relatively new, and as it establishes itself more job roles are becoming more concrete. There is still a lot of room for growth in this field, as digital marketers figure out new and effective digital marketing strategies, there is still a lot of fluctuation in job titles and roles. The digital marketing space continues to have great job prospects, and there is a lot of opportunity to become a digital marketer by being employed in a company or working for yourself.

Read below to learn more about some of the possible roles you can fill in field of digital marketing. Each role comes with own unique set of challenges and responsibilities. Chances are you will specialize in one of these roles, or become a digital marketing manager who oversees those who perform these roles.

User Experience (UX) Designer

The user experience or UX designer is in charge of creating and maintaining the technology that the customers will actually be interacting with. Whatever role the UX Designer plays it is important that they understand how to create and maintain all the technology that the customer will interact with directly.

Website Creation

The UX Designer are the ones who will be creating and maintaining the company’s website. Creating and maintaining a great website is not easy. For larger companies this will take a full time employee or even several full time employees. Many smaller companies will use a single freelance contractor to take care of the creation of their website, and their websites maintenance.

A properly functioning website that is attractive and easy to use is the foundation of any good digital marketing strategy. This is where the customers will interact with the business the most. If the company has a social media presence, then it should be funneling customers back to the website. The entire digital marketing strategy should be funneling potential customers back to the website. When they finally get to the website the customer should have a great and user friendly interaction with the website.

App Design

Also, a UX Designer would also be in charge of developing any apps or other widgets that customers may use to interact with the company. Apps have become extremely popular in the last couple of years and many business have developed great apps that has increased their customer engagement.

Cyber Security

Security with user information or sensitive company documentation is also a great concern for UX designers. It is important that they keep all of the security information up to date, and for larger companies web security will need to be a whole separate department on its own. However, smaller companies can usually get by with whoever is there UX Designer also handling basic security tasks to make sure customer information remains private and secure.

Content Marketing Manager

A content marketing manager is a central role on any digital marketing team. They will handle and be responsible for generating all of the content that will be used in the social media outlets, and possibly on the company’s blog. The content marketing manager will not just need to churn out content, they need to have a good understanding on how that content needs to be used (see SEO Specialist below).

The content marketing manager will be responsible for generating most if not all of the content that is developed for digital marketing purposes. They will be either creating the content themselves, overseeing a team that makes the content, or hiring the freelancers who will make the content that is used.  If you follow any of the people who are constantly talking about flipping homes for a profit, you know that they have some of the best real estate marketing methods behind their campaigns, as most of them either sell expensive seminars or mentoring programs.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Specialist

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial to know when creating content for any digital marketing strategy. SEO strategies use what are called keywords to help drive traffic to websites. Theoretically this will also help a website rank better on search engine searches when people search for these particular keywords.

SEO is where I personally got my start into the world of Digital Marketing. I was hired in late 2001 to be a sales consultant for one of the pioneers in SEO – WebGenius.  I ended up using my knowledge gained there and eventually went on to start my own SEO agency. It’s a great way to help business owners and get your feet wet in the world of Digital Marketing.

Search Engine Optimization is so important that some companies even have a dedicated SEO Specialist to make sure that all the content produced by the company will be used properly, so that is optimized to help website appear near the top of lists that are produced by search engines. This can be a tricky role since the biggest search engines are constantly changing their algorithm which means that SEO specialists need the most up to date information on what keywords to use and how to use them. The big search engines are not exactly forthcoming either with how they design their algorithms, so a SEO Specialist may need to seek outside training to keep their skills up to date and current.

By learning search engine optimization, you can run your own SEO agency and manage clients, have an e-commerce business and earn money from the organic traffic you generate, or learn affiliate marketing and make money passively by earning commissions when you sell other people’s products.

Email Marketing Specialist

Many of us have a love and hate relationship with our email inbox. Email is the primary way that many companies connect to their customers. Email is such a valuable tool for reaching out and staying in touch with customers, that many digital marketing strategies revolve around the generation of massive email lists. After a large email list has been gathered, and a process to continually grow that list has been developed, the email marketing specialist will implement their email marketing strategy to engage their customers.

This can be a tricky role because no one likes to get their inbox spammed with useless email. Even if they love the company, they will most likely not want to hear from the company every day. So the email marketing specialist will determine on what time frames their customers will receive emails, and what type of content their audience will receive.

For instance, some customers are thrifty shoppers and would love to receive lots of coupons and other offers. Other customers do not care as much about saving money on every purchase, and would much rather receive informational newsletters. There are two radically different customer groups, and a good email marketing specialist will target their email campaigns to their audience.

By far email has the greatest track record of success when it comes to digital marketing, and it is sure to play a large role in the future of the industry. A good email marketing specialist can develop engaging content that is targeted to their audience that will drive sales and traffic to the company’s website.

Social Media Manager

A social media manager is responsible for representing a company’s social media presence. A good social media manager can be vital to a company’s digital marketing strategy. This has the most potential power to drive up customer engagement of a brand, and is even better than email in mobilizing customers around a brand. Using social media as part of a digital marketing strategy is still relatively new, while email has a relatively long history in the digital marketing space.

Most companies try and keep a social media presence across multiple social media platforms. They plan out a social media strategy that posts several times a day across all of its social media platforms. The strategy usually includes talking about upcoming company news, sales, and special offers.

When used correctly social media has the potential to become the voice of a brand, and a good social media manager really can connect with their customer base. This gives a company the opportunity to connect directly with their customers, instead of having to go through an intermediary like consumer reports or review sites like yelp.

Today it is often not enough to just sell things to your customers. Today most consumers have an emotional attachment to brands that they love, and social media managers can help set that tone. As the voice of the brand they can connect and interact with their customers in more direct and meaningful ways.

Data Analyst

While a data analysis will not be on every digital marketing team, the role that data will play in digital marketing strategies will grow in the very near future. Websites, search engines, and apps tend to collect a lot of information about the people who use their platforms. All that data can be analyzed by statistical analysis and other data mining tools to help business find out more about their customers.

Most of us have had the experience of our social media platforms showing us advertisements almost as if they are reading our minds or listening in to our conversations. One of the most powerful features of data analysis is that is can be used to make predictions about what an individual is likely going to purchase next based on search history and past purchases. This can be used by companies to help position themselves as providers for perceived needs in their markets.

Data Analysts are highly trained in computer modeling and statistical analysis, and are very well paid for their expertise. They typically require specialized training that make good data analyst in high demand. Every business uses data in some way to inform their decisions, but a data analyst on the team can take the use of data to the next level.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Specialists

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are beginning to automate tasks that used to require a person. While AI is still very new and very cutting edge, many companies are already beginning to implement artificial intelligence into their digital marketing strategies. Devices like Alexa and Siri and beginning to pave the way, and are opening up new avenues for companies to market to their customers. This is still a developing field, but big tech companies are already using AI in their own companies, and developing uses for the technology to better reach their customers.

One current use of AI is to have an automated chat bot on their website. The AI chatbot can be used to directly engage with customers either as soon as they land on their website, or when the customer has a question. This is very useful because the AI chatbot can be used to funnel the customer to the appropriate person or department that can meet their needs quicker and more effectively. This cuts down on the amount of regular customer service reps that a company may need to staff, instead focusing on more specialized customer service agents.

Digital Marketing Manager

A digital marketing manager is usually in a position of strategic leadership for a company’s digital marketing strategy. They need to understand the business as well as the marketing side of the business. They will typically oversee other digital marketing specialists like the other digital marketing job roles that were mentioned.

They may or may not oversee a team depending on their role and the size of the company. A Digital Marketing Manager will oversee either a subsection of the digital marketing plan or the entire digital marketing department.

A good digital marketing manager will have a good understanding of all of the roles mentioned before, as well as have some expertise in strategic leadership. A good digital marketing manager is currently in high demand, and will continue to be so in the future.

Digital Marketing Job Boards

Digital Marketing Job Boards can be good places to look when you are looking to get into a career like digital marketing. Of course you could just go to a regular job search engine like Monster or Indeed, but these digital marketing job boards are where most in the digital marketing space go when they are looking for work. So if does not make sense to waste your time on other job boards when you could be going directly to where the best digital marketing jobs are already being posted.

You will have better results looking for your next digital marketing gigs by going to a more specialized job board where jobs will be posted that will better match want you are looking for. Doing a regular google search for a digital media job will likely produce millions of hits, most of which will not be actual jobs. So it is much smarter to try a few of these online job boards that are more specialized.

These niche job posting sites are actually more popular with business who are posting digital marketing jobs, because they know that talented digital marketing professionals frequent these sites regularly.

American Marketing Association Job Board

This site is the gateway that many job seekers have landed their first jobs I the digital marketing space. This is a nationally recognized association of marketing professionals, so this should definitely be on the top of your list when you are searching for a digital marketing job.

VentureBeat

VentureBeat is a great job board for those looking to find a job in the digital marketing space. As a large niche site for marketing, IT, and product management this is a great job board to check in with regularly. So definitely make sure you become a part of their pool of talent.

Idealist

For some reason non-profits and government agencies love this site. If you are looking for a job that combines digital marketing and non-profits then this can be the perfect place for you. Non-profits and government agencies are waking up to the reality that digital marketing is needed especially in the public sector.

AdRants

AdRants is primarily a source for news in marketing and advertising, but they have a job board that is updated regularly from companies looking for their next digital marketing specialist. So make sure you are reading them regularly to stay up to date in the digital marketing space, and check out the job boards while you are there.

MarketHire

MarketHire is another top job posting site. They pride themselves on filling roles for clients quickly, which is why they may be a good fit for you. They have incentive for matching the right talent with the right companies. So having the people over at MarketHire actively looking over candidates will increase your odds of finding the right company.

CrunchBoard

CrunchBoard is TechCrunch’s job board. TechCrunch is a leading source for technology news, and its job board is a great source for potential digital marketing gigs. TechCrunch in general should be read regularly by anyone in the tech space, especially those in digital marketing.

TalentZoo

TalentZoo was founded specifically to be a recruiting site for those in the advertising world, so this is a must visit site when looking for your next digital marketing opportunity.

Krop

Krop’s tag line is: connecting creatives with great companies. If you are a graphic designer or writer looking to get into the digital marketing industry, then this could be the job board for you.

WeWorkRemotely

WeWorkRemotely is a great source of jobs for those who are looking for work from home opportunities. This is an extremely popular website, so chances are you will find something that looks good to you here.

FlexJobs

FlexJobs is known for finding flexible part time or full time jobs, and many jobs in the digital marketing space are a good fit for flexible types of jobs. For those job that don’t require a whole digital marketing team, this can be a great way to build up your experience in the digital marketing space.

Mashable

Mashable is another news outlet catering to social media and other tech companies. It is a great source for jobs if you are a content creator, seo specialist, or UX designer.

RecruiterMedia

RecruiterMedia stands apart from this list by hosting regional job boards that often have the best digital marketing jobs on their site. If they host a regional job board where you live you should definitely check them out.

MediaBistro

MediaBistro is a job posting site as well as offering news, resources, and other content that would be of interest to anyone in the digital marketing space. They are another great resource for news and to stay current of what is going on in the tech sector.

PaidContent

PaidContent is a source of digital marketing jobs from all over the world. Worldwide it is one of the biggest recruiting sites for these types of jobs in digital content.

Digital Marketing Work from Home Jobs

Digital marketing is one of those jobs that really can be done from anywhere in the world. In fact, if you follow my Instagram, you’ll see that I do just that.

All you need is a computer and reliable access to high speed internet. The freedom of time and space that being an online worker brings is a dream come true for many. So if you do not like having to go into an office every day, and you would like to work from the comfort of your own home, then digital marketing can be a great career path for you.

Digital marketing work from home jobs basically come in three different subgroups. Depending on your experience, training, and temperament one of these subgroups could end up being a better fit for you.

An Employee

As an employee you will either work for an agency that specializes in digital marketing, or you will work with a company as part of their digital marketing team. However, you will be an actual employee of the company. Whatever benefits are offered by the company you will be entitled to those as well. They will withhold taxes for you so you will not need to worry about putting a percentage of your profits away for tax season.

This is a great idea if you enjoy being a part of a larger company that takes care of everything else so you can focus on your specific job or role. You will be part of a team, so if you love to work with others, then this will be a great choice for you.

Just know that most companies do still want to actually see their employees from time to time. While working with some type of video conferencing app will most likely be expected, most companies will want you to come to meet up in person every now and then. So if there is an occasional requirement to come into work occasionally, then depending on your needs this may or may not work out for you.

However, as more companies go more fully online this face to face interaction is becoming less and less common in work from home opportunities. You may even find yourself working with people from all over the country, and possible even all over the world.

As a Freelancer

You may find that being an employee and having an actual boss is just not for you. In this case, being a freelancer may be for you. You will need to take care of your own family’s health insurance and retirement savings. You will need to deal with taxes, and you will also need to comply with state, local, and federal law.

You will only get paid if you find clients to work for. Until you build up a steady stream of loyal cliental you will be constantly looking for work. This can be disheartening to some, but many others will find this invigorating.

If you like the freedom of not being tied down to a single company, then being a freelancer will be a great fit for you. Freelancers work largely on their own, and though this can get lonely at times, for many this is their preferred style of work. If you like being able to put your head down, get the job done, then the freelance lifestyle will be a great fit for you.

Owner of Your Own Company

If you like the challenge of starting your own company, and working with teams that you helped build, then this may be a great option for you. While this is the most risky, many people who take this route actually started out as an employee. Later they branched out as a freelancer, who eventually got more work than they could handle on their own. They then began to build a great team around them, which eventualy gave birth to a small digital marketing company.

While the potential rewards of this route are big, there is also a lot of risk involved. You will end up paying yourself a salary, and as the owner of the company you will also benefit from the company’s profit. This is a great tool to create a fairly large amount of wealth relatively quickly. But many small business fail within their first year, and many more fail at the end of their fifth year.

So if you like big challenges, creating great teams, and are not afraid to take risks, then this route may the perfect for you. Also, do not forget that many people who end up starting successful business were  once employees or freelancers themselves.

Finding Digital Marketing Work from Home Jobs

When you are just starting out finding a digital marketing job that you can do from home can be a challenge. Especially if you do not have any experience in the field. Switching jobs at any time can feel daunting and extremely challenging. The good news is that there are a lot of tools and resources out there to make the transition much smoother.

The first step is learning more about the field you would like to be in, and what role you would like to play. Reading a post like this is a great start, and will help you get a better understanding of what could be out there. Also, it gives you an idea of what type of job in digital marketing you would like to pursue.

Check out the job boards mentioned to see what are the qualifications they are looking for in your chosen role. Do your skills, knowledge, and abilities match what they are looking for? If yes, then start applying for jobs. However, most people are going to need some type of additional training to get ready to enter the digital marketing space. Especially, if they are totally new to advertising and marketing in general.

List of Free Digital Marketing Courses

When you decide to make the switch to a digital marketing career, you will most likely need to develop your skills. Since digital marketing is a component of the tech center, you will need to get used to keeping your skills up to date. People who do the best in this sector love to learn, and are always reading, researching, and taking classes to keep up their skills. Fortunately, all of these classes are online, and do not require you to go to an actual classroom.

Some of these classes are even free, and those that cost money are not that expensive. Especially when you are just starting out, you will want to take some of these classes. They are the next best thing to finding a mentor that can walk you through the whole transitional process.

A google search for a list of digital marketing courses that you could take would produce a lot of great options. While choice is great, when just starting out it can be a bit overwhelming, and it is better to have some guidance on what to choose. Try any of these courses, and you will be on your way to increasing your employability in the digital marketing space.

Google Digital Marketing Courses 

Google has a great course called: Fundamentals of Digital Marketing. They have partnered with the Open University to provide an actually accredited certificate for this course free of charge. It is a great course with 26 modules and 40 hours of content. Though it is for the beginning student of digital marketing, it can easily be leveraged into a new career. It is a great foundation to digital marketing, and is highly recommended for beginners.

SEMRUSH Academy 

SEMRUSH built bunch of very popular digital marketing tools. In an effort to help their customers use their tools, they created a series of free online courses that you can actually get a globally recognized certificate for completing the course. This is a great example of creating free consumable content, to use to create a relationship with your customers. People who take the course will be more likely to turn around and pay them for their digital marketing tools.

HubSpot Online Marketing Courses 

Hubspot is a leader in the digital marketing space with a host of tools that they have developed for their customers to use. They have created some great courses that you can actually get certified in to learn digital marketing. What you learn here you can easily use to pivot into a career in digital marketing. Besides there certificate course they also have a host of other courses that will help you get grounded in digital marketing.

Copyblogger Online Marketing Course 

Copyblogger is a trusted name in the digital marketing space specializing in creating excellent content writing to use for marketing purposes. No matter what role you will be playing in your digital marketing career, you will have the need to create or work with good copy. This could be a great course to help you on your journey into breaking into the industry. Though there is no certificate, there is a free downloadable eBook that if very helpful.

Best Digital Marketing Courses to Buy

Reliablesoft Academy 

Reliablesoft is a digital marketing agency that specializes in search engine optimizations (SEO) and other digital marketing services. The course bundle is normally priced at $312, but can often be found for much less. The course covers all main areas of SEO marketing, and would be invaluable for anyone looking to start a career in digital marketing.

Udemy Digital Marketing Course

Udemy is one of the biggest names in the online learning space. The internet truly is a place where you can learn anything. Udemy and other platforms like it are changing the face of online education, by allowing people to learn what they want, when they want it. Udemy’s course in digital marketing will cover everything you need to know in order to be a successful digital marketer. The cost of the course is $199, but if you buy at the right time you can usually get it for only $19.