by The best way to learn digital marketing is by joining offline digital marketing courses. But if you are not yet ready to join any classes or not sure which digital marketing course is best for you, here is a way to learn digital marketing for free.
What is Digital Marketing?
Have you ever wondered how you get ads on YouTube and Instagram, how brands reach their potential customers via Intenet?
This is one example of digital marketing. Digital marketing is a concept of advertising and marketing via digital media and online channels like SEO, SEM, Paid Ads, Social Media, Email and Whatsapp.
Brands hire digital marketing experts, social media marketers and SEO experts to run and manage their digital marketing campaigns to promote their products, services and brands.
Now you must be wondering, how to learn digital marketing?
How to Learn Digital Marketing?
Here are some ways for you to learn digital marketing and begin your career path:
1. Enroll in an Online Course
Signing up for an online digital marketing course is one of the best ways to learn according to the Emeritus Impact Survey.
- First, it will expand your knowledge of the field
- Completing an online course will provide you with a certificate to add credibility to your portfolio
- Finally, it can prove your skill and dedication when applying for jobs within the field
2. Learn from the Experts
Reading will always remain one of the best ways to widen your horizon in any subject. Here are some of the best digital marketing books for those who wish to go beyond the basics:
- New Rules for Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott
- The Art of SEO by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, and Jessie Stricchiola
- See you on the Internet: Building Your Small Business with Digital Marketing by Avery Swartz
3. Subscribe To and Read Blogs
Digital marketing is a dynamically evolving field and hence, your knowledge faces the risk of becoming obsolete very quickly. To stay on top of things, one must subscribe to digital marketing blogs like the ones mentioned below to learn more on the go:
4. Create Your Own Blog
Creating your own blog is a fun way of learning about digital marketing. In addition, it will provide you with the practical experience you need to show on your resume. While creating and working on your blog, you will learn some of the most crucial aspects of digital marketing, like SEO and social media marketing.
Note: The blog you create does not need to be about digital marketing. It can be about anything you are passionate about. The idea is to use digital marketing tools and strategies to create and promote the blog.
Can You Teach Yourself Digital Marketing and Learn It for Free?
Of course, you can learn digital marketing through online courses, YouTube videos, webinars, podcasts, and blogs. But bear in mind that these resources are only a starting point. You will require practical experience to grow and thrive in your digital marketing career.
What are the Skills Required for Digital Marketing?
According to McKinsey, over the last four years, all global advertising growth has come from digital advertising, while spending on traditional channels has decreased. With that in mind, in order to thrive as a digital marketer, you will need the following skills:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Deriving, keeping track of, and conducting an analysis of organic or unpaid traffic patterns is SEO. On the other hand, acquiring traffic with the help of advertising that is paid is called SEM. As a digital marketing professional, you must have a basic knowledge of both SEO and SEM. These are basic but vital concepts in digital marketing. You can push the appropriate content to the right target audience with SEO and simultaneously narrow your audience.
2. Social Media Channels
Social media platforms have unique algorithms, allowing businesses to target their content to a specific audience and procure accurate data. You must only post relevant and top-quality online is top-notch, along with a knack for social media strategy. In addition to this, skills like engaging with your audience are significant.
Pro Tip: Each social media channel has its own language. For instance, Instagram is a highly visual medium while LinkedIn is for professionals only. You must be able to assess which social media channels make sense for your brand and strategize accordingly.
3. Design Skills
There is something known as design thinking which refers to finding solutions to various problems through a practical and creative process. User experience is crucial to succeeding in digital marketing, for which design thinking is pivotal. Keeping aside this approach, even having basic knowledge of design skills can enhance content. Thinking, planning, and a basic understanding of design software are all essential to being a digital marketer.
4. Strategic Planning
It goes without saying that as a digital marketing professional, you must know how to create marketing strategies. Some of the critical requirements for this is a great amount of extensive and meticulous planning. Also, always remaining up-to-date on the trends that are emerging is a given in this industry.
5. Data Analysis
Analytics will always be an essential part of the strategies that you develop. Analyzing the data mined from your campaigns will aid in making more informed decisions. The first step is to gather and use the accumulated information to find solutions and make decisions. After this, you analyze the data to further understand customer behavior and provide solutions to boost traffic and conversions. Therefore, you should know how to gather and use the data to your advantage.
Reasons to Learn Digital Marketing
At the beginning of this blog, we delved a little into why digital marketing has become exceedingly essential. Apart from that, it is a field that will continue to evolve through the years, and its importance will only grow.
Another reason you should learn digital marketing is that it pays well. For instance, $63,984 is the average salary that you can expect in digital marketing in the United States. In addition, $100,128 is the salary professionals with experience make, and $45,000 is what a professional in an entry-level position makes according to Indeed.com
Since there is no sign of internet or social media usage declining, the demand for this field is only expected to scale. So what are you waiting for? Explore the digital marketing courses hosted by Emeritus today!
Why learn digital marketing?
Digital marketing is the future of marketing. In the coming days, customers will use mobiles, the internet, and other digital devices to engage with brands, research products, read reviews online about brands and their products or services.
Considering this fact, major small and big companies will start investing in digital marketing to generate leads and get new customers. This trend will create huge demand for digital marketing professionals who can manage digital marketing campaigns.
Not having the right digital marketing knowledge will push you 5 years behind from now.
Digital marketing is a growing field in India, and the demand for digital marketing professionals is expected to continue to rise in the coming years. Here are a few reasons why digital marketing is a good career choice in India:
- Growing Importance of Online Presence: As India’s internet penetration continues to rise, businesses are increasingly realizing the importance of having a strong online presence. Digital marketing is essential for businesses to reach their target audience, promote their products or services, and ultimately drive sales.
- Diverse Opportunities: Digital marketing is a broad field that encompasses a variety of roles, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, and more. This diversity of roles allows individuals to choose the area that best aligns with their interests and skillset.
- High Demand: As businesses increasingly shift their focus to digital channels, the demand for digital marketing professionals is growing rapidly. In fact, according to LinkedIn, digital marketing is one of the top 10 most in-demand skills in India.
- Flexibility: Digital marketing is a highly flexible career choice that allows individuals to work remotely or from anywhere in the world. This flexibility is particularly beneficial in today’s environment, where remote work has become more common.
- Growth Potential: As businesses continue to increase their digital marketing budgets, there is a significant opportunity for digital marketing professionals to grow their careers and take on more senior roles.
In summary, digital marketing is a good career choice in India due to its growing importance, diverse opportunities, high demand, flexibility, and growth potential.
1. You can learn digital marketing from blogs
Digital marketing is not a very difficult topic if you have basic computer skills and basic marketing knowledge. To learn digital marketing you can start reading various digital marketing blogs and tutorials.
Reading digital marketing blogs can help you understand concepts, theory and also will make you aware of various terms used in the digital marketing field.
Start first by understanding digital marketing basics like what is digital marketing and how digital marketing works.
Then move to specific topics like SEO, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram marketing, LinkedIn marketing etc.
Since digital marketing is a vast topic, I would recommend you to first start with one topic and finish that topic before you move to the next topic.
2. Learn digital marketing from online courses
Online courses can be very useful for learning digital marketing from home. If you are unable to go to class due to a busy schedule or other reasons, you can start learning digital marketing from online video courses.
Typically online video courses cover theory and some practical knowledge. You can’t learn complete digital marketing from online digital marketing courses.
Since there are many paid and free online courses, start first with free digital marketing course and then see how it works for you. Don’t invest money in paid courses before taking a free trial of courses.
3. Attend digital marketing seminars or workshops
If you are new to the digital world and not able to decide how to get started in the digital marketing industry, you can start attending digital marketing workshops and seminar in your city.
First, attend a free digital marketing seminar to get a feel of it and meet the trainer. You will be able to get some knowledge about the digital marketing industry, career scope, topics and other essential details.
Try to attend more than 2 or 3 such seminars if you have time and meet trainer personally to get more details.
Benefits of attending digital marketing workshops:
- You will get to learn about new things happening in digital marketing
- You will learn some new topics and current trends
- You will get an opportunity to meet digital marketing trainer
4. Join the digital marketing classroom course
As I said, digital marketing is not difficult to learn, but you can’t learn digital marketing completely without joining classroom training. To become a digital marketing expert, you must learn digital marketing from the genuine institute by joining the right digital marketing course which is suitable for career goals.
I know there are many digital marketing institutes and many digital marketing courses and finding the right course is not an easy task.
Here is how to make a decision
- Search on Google about digital marketing courses and classes in your area
- Make a list of popular classes and courses available
- Research about the institute, trainer and training quality
- Don’t depend on brochures only. Always call, speak and meet institute owner or faculty.
- Read Google reviews about the institute
5. Don’t watch YouTube videos
Yes, this is very important for you. If you really want to learn digital marketing properly, first stop watching those digital marketing tutorials and other videos who claim you can learn digital marketing by watching their videos.
Such videos will confuse you and you will spend time in trying to understand what they are saying and then finally end up paying for some basic course or hosting account.
Ideally, you must first take a free online course and learn basics and then watch YouTube videos related to specific topics or to upgrade your knowledge.
Conclusion
If you think, learning digital marketing is difficult to learn, it’s not. You can learn digital marketing in less than 3 months if you have a systematic approach. If you waste your time in just reading some random blogs, watching random videos and joining only free courses, you will not be able to learn complete digital marketing.