How we reach consumers is changing. In this attention based economy, simply posting on your social media account or on your website is not enough. You have to pick the right audience, drive the traffic to the right places, make the right offers and cultivate the leads through to buying.
This is why, more than ever, a career in Digital Marketing is one of the most forward looking skills you can have. And best of all it can be acquired in a few short months without a painstaking and costly university degree.
Here's a useful guide for you to pick the right school to learn this important skill. We'll walk you through what you should look for, what you should learn and what kind of job you can get afterwards.
Many companies will need someone to write their content, run their social media, update their websites and in general deal with their inbound marketing activities. As someone who picks up this training, you can step into any of these jobs pretty quickly. However, to ramp up your chances of a job, try to write some content on a blog or website for yourself, have a social media account and keep abreast of all the trends in the industry. Employees like to see that even if you did not have a job before, you have actually written content, even for yourself.
Search Engine Optimization is the core to Digital Marketing. And of course your school must absolutely offer this course. With SEO you can know how to write with the correct keywords, how to structure your content on a website and how you can be more successful in getting people to link to you. A good school will teach you about keyword research, interlinking, outbound and inbound linking and content organization.
Some schools might teach you how to manage a social media campaign only. But it's also vitally important to know how to post, what to post and when to post. Additionally you need to know how to write to the correct audience - which on social media can be vast. Be sure to look at the curriculum carefully to ensure that they teach this. Employers are not just looking for a social media "manager" but also someone who can come up with great ideas to attract new followers and likes.
Content marketing is the art of writing content that helps potential customers with a problem, but also introduces them to your product or service. This is the core of inbound marketing and has now turned out to the main way of attracting buyers to what you are selling. Be sure that the school you are deciding on has people experienced in content marketing.
This course teaches you to not only recover from bad information about you or your business online, but how to control the information in the first place. After all, if someone searches for your organization by name and you cover the entire first page of Google, then you absolutely control your reputation by default before anyone else can.
My mentioning that you can do this in your job interview will add to many points in your favor when an employee decides among candidates. So please make sure your school offers this course.
Covering not only the basic technical skills like HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP, the web development course will make sure you're comfortable with Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix and other web hosting services. Because to be a well rounded Digital Marketing professional, you need to be able to build new web pages, add content and make sure they are ready with the right Search Engine Optimization.
Finally, you do not want to have teachers that just know the theory of Digital Marketing. Your instructors should have real-world knowledge in all the topics we covered above.
They should be working or have experience for several years. This way you have people mentoring you that have a solid work ethic, share real tips learned in the trenches and help you prepare for a rewarding career in the field.
If your school is any good, employers will always be contacting them for good students. Check out the school's website carefully for the mention of Job Placement assistance or Career Counselling.
This guide was brought to you by Chandigarh Institute of Digital Marketing with campuses in Chandigarh, Ambala, Panchkula & Mohali.