If you want to know how to become a Digital Marketer, this blog is all you need.
Table of Contents
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According to the Statista report, as of the beginning of 2024, the global internet user count has reached 5.35 billion. This indicates that over two-thirds of the world’s total population is now over the internet. And any business big or small, if they want to grow, and acquire these people as customers, they need to do digital marketing!
LinkedIn claimed in one of their reports that right now there are 860,000 digital marketer jobs available globally. Plus, there are digital marketers who earn salaries above ₹55 lakh in India and US$180,000 in the USA.
Intrigued? Keep reading further! This article on ‘How to Become a Digital Marketer’ offers a step-by-step roadmap that will help your journey into the world of digital marketing, regardless of your academic background.
Reasons to Learn Digital Marketing
The global digital marketing market size reached a value of US$363.05 billion at the very beginning of 2024. But guess what is projected to happen over the 8 years?
According to Expert Market Research’s analysis, the digital marketing industry will reach a valuation of US$1099.33 billion by 2032. That means the digital marketing field will expand almost 3 fold over the next 8 years.
At the beginning of this decade, there were just 2.1 million digital marketers around the world. But, the World Economic Forum predicts that the number will grow to 7.2 million by 2030.
Even the influence of generative AI on digital marketing jobs is very negligible because digital marketing is mostly related to gaining attention from people online. And it could only happen if there is a sense of connection, relevance, and affection built around the marketing pitch, which AI can never do.
Given the significant investments in digital marketing funnels and plenty of job opportunities, choosing a career in digital marketing is a safe bet. If you’ve already searched for how to become a digital marketer and landed on this blog, you are definitely on the right career track.
What Does a Digital Marketer Do?
Digital marketing is not just about running ads. That’s the common misconception people have about it. In reality, it’s more like a set of skills and an approach that can drive online engagement and sales for businesses.
So the skills a digital marketer has to hone are not definitive. They need to learn every method that could help businesses increase website traffic and product awareness. However, learning one or two skills is enough to get you a job, you can learn the rest of the aspects while working in one of the segments of digital marketing.
Here is the wide range of tasks a digital marketer generally takes on throughout his career journey:
- Creating blogs, videos, and content strategy for online media channels
- Developing Ad copies, campaigns for social media marketing
- Design and implement Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies
- Design and audit Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaigns
- Analyze PPC campaigns and optimization
- Tracking social media campaigns and fine-tuning them for better performance
- Managing email marketing campaigns
- Collaborate with tech, social media, content, SEO, and CRM teams
- Manage marketing funnel
Skills required to become a Digital Marketer
In the previous section, we learned the importance of being a marketing generalist as a digital marketer, possessing knowledge about various digital marketing practices. However, when starting out, you don’t have to be a jack-of-all-trades. Instead, focus on developing a strong foundation in key areas.
You can begin by exploring roles such as content strategist, content marketer, SEO expert, social media marketer, etc. These positions focus on specific skills, such as content marketing, SEO, or social media strategy. Once you get started in any beginner-level marketing role, you can work your way up to become an all-rounder as a digital marketer.
That being said, just to get an idea of what skills you exactly need to learn, we went through a couple of digital marketer job descriptions. Here are the skills required for a digital marketing executive at Flipkart:
Here’s another snapshot of the digital marketing executive job description from Meesho:
Now if you read both the sections, you can figure out that there are certain common technical skills and transferable skills. They are as follows:
| Technical Skills | Transferable Skills |
| Search engine optimization and search engine marketing | Creativity |
| Social media marketing | Attention to details |
| Data analysis | Content writing |
| Campaign planning and execution | Planning |
| PPC | Team Spirit and management |
| Email marketing | Design thinking |
| Funnel management | Analytical thinking |
Moving forward in this How to Become a Digital Marketer article, let us try to comprehend whether it is hard to become one.
Is It Hard to Become a Digital Marketer?
LinkedIn claims that digital marketing is one of the most searched skills in the jobs space right now. That fact itself speaks volumes about digital marketing as a career choice. It’s not a highly technical skill. You need knowledge about certain platforms, and a greater ability to convince people to look into the product or service your company is offering.
To become a digital marketer, you must be more creative and have an understanding of consumer psychology. So asking ‘Is it hard?’ doesn’t make sense, it is a blend of multiple skills which can be mastered if you have intrinsic motivation to learn marketing.
Besides there are plenty of professional digital marketing certifications available, which can enable you to learn digital marketing from scratch within a period of a year.
It doesn’t matter if you are from a tech background or a non-tech background, digital marketing has something to offer for everyone. And if you have the willingness to learn it is one of the easiest skills you can pick up. Follow the step-by-step roadmap given below to become an efficient digital marketer.
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How to Become a Digital Marketer: Step-by-Step Roadmap
Begin your exciting learning adventure into digital marketing with this simple step-by-step roadmap:
Step 1: Learn Fundamentals of Marketing
From a layman’s perspective, you must be wondering why marketing is a necessary business component. Think about this: how people would get to know about your product? Without targeting a particular customer persona, can your product reach the people who could buy it?
The answer to all of these questions is marketing. Marketing involves constant research and analysis of consumers, studying their shopping habits, and strategically placing the desired product in front of them.The 7P’s of marketing (product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence) form the fundamental core of marketing.
Perceive the meaning behind all these factors, and go through the basic principles of marketing. This would produce a burning desire for pursuing a career in this field. We would recommend you to go through this Free Digital Marketing Certification Course to understand the fundamentals of today’s new-age marketing.
Enroll in Digital Marketing Institute in Delhi to learn more!
Step 2: Understand the Basics of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is about presenting people online with your product. Online channels allow marketers to achieve that. However, for that purpose, using marketing tools, digital marketers have to analyze how customers move and track their online journey. In essence, that’s something you must learn to become a marketer.
Below are the digital marketing channels that fuel online marketing:
Step 3: Master Key Digital Marketing Tools
As you get more acquainted with digital marketing tools, the easier your journey with digital marketing will be. Google Ads and Google Analytics, for example, enable marketers to track and quantify the way their digital marketing campaigns operate.
Tools like Ahrefs, and Semrush are critical for businesses to figure out important keywords, analyze backlinks, and optimize SEO for their pages to rank on Google SERP. Additionally, Mailchimp is a crucial tool to reach customers via email marketing.
Below are some of the important digital marketing tools:
| Aspects | Marketing tools |
| SEO | AHREFS, Semrush, Moz, Google Keyword Planner, and Google Analytics |
| Social Media Marketing | Hootsuite, Buffer, and Bit.ly |
| Email Marketing | MailChimp and Marketo |
| PPC | Google Ads |
| Analytics | Google Analytics |
| Marketing Automation and Funnel Management | CRM |
| Productivity | Google Sheets, Excel, Trello, and Slack |
Step 4: Master Art of Creating Effective Copies
The possibility of a digital marketing campaign being successful relies on the quality of the copy. In order to become a good digital marketer, essentially you should comprehend how to make people feel positively about your product, how to find the right target audience, and how to make them resonate with your product.
The social media posts or ads, landing drip emails, simple content marketing blogs or videos—everything is driven by good copy. That’s why you must learn the art of creating an effective copy.
Enroll now in the Digital Marketing Training in Hyderabad to gain in-depth knowledge about Digital Marketing!
Step 5: Learn Data Analysis
Measuring how your marketing campaign works is very essential to optimize and produce positive returns for a business. That’s where data analysis becomes critical. You need to learn how to make use of data and gather insights to make the right marketing actions.
You will need to learn Google Analytics, reporting tools, and the art of using spreadsheets too.
Step 6: Gain Knowledge about Marketing Funnel, Marketing Metrics and KPIs
The business metrics, digital marketing funnel, and KPIs are all terms that you will be dealing with commonly as a digital marketer. You will have to understand and learn these terms to do digital marketing in the right way.
Step 7: Acquire Design Thinking Skills
From social media posts, blog images, and video advertisements to email campaigns digital marketers have to collaborate with graphic designers and get work done from them, that is appealing enough to attract people online. That is the reason why as a marketing aspirant, you must gain a know-how about visual designing and design thinking.
Step 8: Become Customer-Centric
At the heart of any marketing effort lies the motive of getting customers hooked on your product, and instilling a sense of belonging in them so that they will buy it. This can only be accomplished if the marketing team targets the correct consumer base and uses the appropriate graphics, or video ads that target their persona.
That’s why every digital marketer has to develop a customer-centric approach. So if you want to get into this field, you will have to learn the art of understanding customer views and aligning your campaigns accordingly.
Enroll now in the Digital Marketing Courses in Pune to gain in-depth knowledge about Digital Marketing!
Step 9: Prepare a Digital Marketing Portfolio
Creating a digital marketing portfolio can be quite a challenging task. You cannot just mention the projects that you did; you will have to exhibit your processes that show your planning, strategic thinking, and outcome. Did you develop the strategic plan for a digital marketing campaign? Did you happen to write the copy? All these details need to be specified.
Also, your portfolio must contain quantifiable data.
For example, I drove 2000 leads via an email marketing campaign in Q1.
Justifying an ROI becomes critical for most digital marketing jobs. So you need to put the right data over your resume and digital profiles like LinkedIn, Indeed, Naukri, etc.
Below are the factors that you must highlight in your digital marketing portfolio:
- Business and Marketing acumen
- Showcase planning and strategizing of marketing campaigns
- Showcase you know data analytics
- Sprinkle critical digital marketing keywords into your resume
- Have your claims backed with data
Enroll now in the Digital Marketing Institute in Mumbai to gain in-depth knowledge about Digital Marketing!
Step 10: Start Applying for Jobs & Prepare for an Interview
Once you learn all the above factors, your question about how to become a digital marketer has almost been resolved. All you have to do now is start applying for jobs. Connect with marketing managers over LinkedIn, ask for referrals, and start applying for job posts over multiple job boards.
Meanwhile, begin your interview preparation. Understand all the fundamentals of product placement, sentiment targeting, customer acquisition, etc. Go through the most commonly asked digital marketing interview questions upfront, to grab an idea of what kind of questions you will face in an interview.
With some interviews down the line, you will get that first digital marketing job.
Digital Marketer Jobs Available Right Now
Digital Marketing has become an important part of businesses, and the demand for digital marketing experts is increasing day by day. This growth could easily be seen in the number of jobs available.
According to data obtained from the LinkedIn job board, there are currently 25000+ jobs available in India.
In the United States, there are 91,000+ jobs available.
One thing to keep in mind is that these numbers are from LinkedIn only. If we consider other platforms like Naukri.com, Indeed, and Glassdoor, there can be more significant digital marketing jobs out there.
Digital Marketer Salary
Digital Marketer Salary in India
According to Glassdoor, the salary for a beginner digital marketer ranges from ₹5 lakh to ₹12 lakh in India. The average pay lies around ₹8 lakh.
However, with experience of a few years, the salary could easily go above 30 lakh rupees.
Digital Marketer Salary in the USA
According to Glassdoor, the salary for a beginner digital marketer in the USA ranges from US$67,000 to US$120,000. The average pay lies around US$98,000.
The highlight is that, with experience of a few years, the salary could easily go above US$150,000.
Conclusion
In this How to Become a Digital Marketer article, we discussed what exactly digital marketers do, why digital marketing is a good career choice, what skills you need to become a marketer, etc. We also went through a comprehensive step-by-step roadmap guide to answer your query about how to become a digital marketer. In the end, we covered jobs available right now, and salaries for digital marketers as well.
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How to Become a Digital Marketer FAQs
What do you need to become a digital marketer?
To become a digital marketer, you need to understand marketing fundamentals. This includes learning about branding, target audience analysis, campaign development, and the marketing funnel. Additionally, expertise in Digital Marketing tools and platforms, such as Google Analytics, SEO tools, social networking platforms, and email marketing software, is essential.
How do I start a digital marketing career?
Learn concepts such as branding, target audience analysis, and campaign planning. Take professional certification courses that will help you master skills such as SEO, social media marketing, content marketing, or paid advertising. Identify where your interests and strengths lie. Do your marketing project. Then start applying for jobs, and eventually, you will become a digital marketer.
What is the qualification for digital marketing?
There is no such thing as a qualification for a digital marketer. There are MBA programs that will help you learn digital marketing. But they are not necessary to get a job. If you have skills or a professional certification, you will be able to get a job.