Nicola Calder, Content Distribution Manager with Indago Digital, shares insight into digital marketing for today’s up and coming marketers.
Digital marketing is a rapidly growing industry – no doubt about it. Over the 2017 fiscal year, Australian online ad spends grew by 11.7% – a jump from $799 million to $7.6 billion.
Now, according to a RMIT & Deloitte report, the Australian marketing workforce is likely to experience an 11% (30,000 jobs) increase over the next 5 years.
So why is digital marketing on the rise? Let’s start with three reasons…
Digital Platforms – As the world has been introduced to new digital platforms such as smartphones & iPads, their internet accessibility has made them ideal advertisement platforms.
Businesses will hire digital marketers to optimise their sites and marketing campaigns towards these devices. Ultimately, to provide users with a better experience.
Google, Google & Google – As Google has grown to become a digital titan over the past 2 decades, businesses want to make sure they rank in as many relevant searches (keywords) as possible.
This demand has led to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) becoming a major marketing discipline.
Not to mention the incredibly large amount of money and resources that goes into Google Ads!
More digital niches – The rising popularity of social media and digital content has generated more marketing avenues.
Social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) have created job opportunities for social media gurus to successfully market businesses.
Similarly, content marketing is a massive ‘digital niche’. Companies are embedding their marketing pitch inside their content.
A digital agency can write a blog post educating small business owners on SEO essentials.
This will advocate the agency’s expertise and help generate appeal to prospective clients.
Such roles have generated demand for copywriters and content marketers. With more and more platforms coming into play, more digital marketing roles will be sought after.
However, if a graduate is interested in a career, what types of roles and organisations could they expect to get into?
It’s almost a necessity for any large business’ marketing team to have some digital knowledge – at any level.
But more particularly, a digital marketing agency could specialise in a number of disciplines.
Have a look at the breakdown below of some of the roles and respective degrees in which the applicable skills are learnt:
- Performance Marketing: Bachelor of Commerce or Accounting
- Analytics & Statistics: Bachelor of Engineering or Life Sciences
- Design & UX Strategies: Bachelor of Design or Architecture.
- SEO: Bachelor of IT or Computer Science
- Social Media Marketing/Campaign Management: Bachelor of Communications
- Account Management/UX Research: Bachelor of Psychology or Human Sciences
Clearly, there isn’t just one pathway or career choice for a digital marketer – but that’s the beauty of it.
A career in digital marketing doesn’t necessarily mean you need to have graduated in marketing. With a wide range of applicable skillsets, there’s an option for everyone no matter what educational background you stem from.
You could be a skilled socialiser (social media/campaign manager), a great problem-solver (analytics and statistics), artistic (designer/UX specialist) or technical (SEO/Product owner).
You could have a Bachelor of Commerce – Accounting and end up as a Paid-Search Executive which involves budget-pacing (where your math-wizardry and data analysis would come into play).
Or maybe you studied journalism and PR – which would mean you’re well on your way to being a link-builder/SEO.
There are plenty of pathways to becoming a candidate of choice in the industry, however they may not be clear at first glance.
If you’re interested in a career in the digital marketing industry, here’s a couple of things you can do to make it easier:
Apply for Internships: Seek, LinkedIn, Jora and Indeed are great sites for sourcing internships in the field.
After gaining some experience as an intern you can segue into an entry-level role.
Apply for entry-level roles: Entry-level roles (such as digital marketing assistant or an SEO executive) are ideal for recent university graduates or final year students.
Most roles will require students to have graduated or at least be in their final year as a pre-requisite.
Attend digital marketing seminars: Digital marketing seminars will provide you with more information on the industry and give you a better clue as to whether this is the right industry for you – and if so,
which field is best-suited towards you. An example of such an event was Digital Cadets 2018 which was centred around industry insights for graduates.
Still interested? Applications for Digital Cadets 2019 are available here.
