How I landed a career in Digital Marketing

We meet so many graduates who want to get into digital marketing.

Many of them don’t realise how broad a field it is and are unsure of what area of marketing really interests them; one marketers’ job might differ dramatically from another, although the aim of the game is the same; to sell and make money.

I am the Marketing Manager here at Inspiring and have been working in the sector for the past two years, with experience in an agency as well as in-house. (see our article about the differences, here).

I didn’t consider marketing as a career whilst at university, though I didn’t truly understand what it entailed.  I discovered marketing as a career choice whilst in my first full-time job post university and haven’t looked back since.

Here is how I bagged my first job in digital marketing, which got my career off the ground.

Graduating and getting my first full-time job

Post-graduation, I had a vague idea that marketing was a form of advertising and it involved being creative and strategic.

I didn’t realise how vast marketing was, how many skills it encompasses and what a challenging job it can be.

My first full-time job post-graduation was as an Office Assistant for a loan company. It consisted primarily of scanning in customers’ bank statements, trying to convince people to take out a loan and informing people when the debt collection agency was  getting involved. It was mind-numbing and I knew I needed to discover where I wanted my career to go, at least for the next six to 12 months.

The truth is, university doesn’t prepare you very well for the job market. It gives you skills, but your learning has barely even started, and you possess very little commercial awareness which is so important for the working world. Only work (whether it be voluntary, part-time or freelance) can really give you this.

So, I used my crappy stop-gap job at the loan company to soak up as much knowledge as I could in order to find my next opportunity.

At my job, I sat with the PR team, the SEO team, the financial modelling team, the analytics team, the customer service team and sales team. Just for 30 minutes a day. I learnt so much. I learnt that the world of data science really is a complicated minefield which helps drive business decisions. I also learnt it was not for me. I learnt that working in sales wasn’t just phone bashing – it actually takes patience, understanding and empathising with people to succeed.

I learnt that SEO was (and still is) an important part of marketing. I learnt that PR and marketing are their own disciplines, but overlap, and that having technical knowledge on PPC, design and even coding would be beneficial for a marketing role.

Getting my first job in Digital Marketing

I started studying SEO. I went through the Moz SEO for beginners’ course, watched loads of marketing learning videos and started my own blog. Three months later, I landed my first Marketing Assistant job at an agency.

There, I got to work with a variety of clients and gain experience working to deadlines under pressure. My role was an SEO content writing job and I gained coverage in several newspapers and high authority websites such as The Express, Huffington Post and Property Week.

But it all felt too restrictive. I loved writing but I didn’t want to write content all day. I had the drive to have a more varied job. I wanted the full responsibility of a companies’ marketing strategy, so I moved into my next role as Marketing Executive of Inspiring Interns, where I single-handedly manage the marketing strategy.

From agency to in-house marketing 

I was certainly thrown into the deep end but luckily, I am a good swimmer.

Ideas for our marketing were flying in from every side. Marketing is one of the most collaborative positions in a company and you’ll find that everyone has their own ideas and advice. Cutting yourself off from your team is harmful, so embrace any willingness to pass you advice.

The sales team who deal with your clients and customers have incredibly valuable knowledge. I learnt that a good marketeer listens to colleagues and customers and uses this in order to drive decision-making.

My advice for budding marketers 

Sure, read up on SEO, PPC and paid advertising.  Try and learn MailMerge, advanced Excel and basic design skills on Adobe design suits. All of this will look great on your CV, but don’t do as I did and run before you can walk. Understand the basic elements of marketing to drive your work.

Marketing can feel overwhelming; it is multi-faceted and there are so many marketing channels, you can’t master them all.

But, there are some simple key elements you should keep in mind when going to in your first Marketing role:

It’s crucial to understand your target audience

Marketing is all about getting the message of your brand out there to the people who will be receptive to it. If you are marketing a new app, your target will probably not be people over 65, who are less likely to use apps. Figuring out your audience and understanding their needs is the first step.

Figure out where the people in your target audience congregate and what channels you can use to reach them

Once you know who you’re targeting, the next step is getting your advertisement in front of them. Consider the age, gender and interests of your customers and where you can find these people online as well as in person. For example, if you want to target young women aged 18-25, Instagram would be a good bet.

What are the problems your customers face and how you can solve them

What is your business all about? What problems can it solve and how are you better than your competitors?

What makes your company unique

There are probably several companies existing out there doing the same thing as you, so how is your company unique? Reinforce this message in your marketing.

Think about how you can collaborate with your colleagues to solve these goals.

Spend time with others in your new company to understand their goals and how they interact with customers/ clients. Marketers work closely with analytics, sales and developers.

Content is important so get good at creating 

In our content-saturated world, the best content stands out and can attract business to your website and improve your search engine ranking. Read, read, read and practise writing at every opportunity.

So there you have it. Marketing is a creative, diverse and ever-changing industry to enter, but it is not without its challenges. Marketing requires you to be constantly learning and engaging with technology, business and new trends. However, when you overcome challenges, it can be an incredibly rewarding field.

Written by Ella Patenall 

Check out our marketing roles here. For more information on marketing, see our blog posts on what is digital marketing, and what is social media marketing.