Digital marketing is a growing industry. If you’re good at it, you can make a solid career in it. If you’re great at it, you can make your fortune. In this guide, you’ll learn how to become a great digital marketer. 

Attend networking events

Every industry has its own set of networking events. Every professional in the industry usually attends at least one event a month. Subscribe to an event calendar and try to attend two or three events per year. Events are great places for learning, making connections with professionals, and recruiting new talent for your team. 

Don’t expect to get a job easily, but you can definitely learn from people running events or attending them. It’s also a fantastic way to build your personal brand with other professionals and potential clients. You never know when you’ll need their help in getting that new role or landing that next big client.

Study digital marketing 

There’re many courses you can take to learn about digital marketing. Commonly recommended starting places include Google Analytics and Adwords, which you can find in the Google Partner store on Coursera. You should also check out Udemy for its collection of classes covering basic concepts on many various topics like Facebook marketing, SEO, and email marketing. You can even study digital marketing at university.

Get an apprenticeship

An apprenticeship or junior role at a digital marketing agency has several benefits. You will learn advanced skills from experts in the industry, and you can expand your network and make connections. Most importantly, you will have access to professional clients that will give you some great projects to work on. The only downside is that these roles normally require at least two years of experience.

Set up a website and practice your skills

There are many different ways to practice digital marketing. You can start by setting up a website. Next, add some content and run Google ads to drive traffic. Landing pages are another great way to optimize conversions. Last but not least, try running some Facebook ads campaigns to generate leads for your business or service.

Does your agency need a search engine optimization (SEO) audit? Or, perhaps you have an extra ad budget that needs to be spent. You could always try and spend it on some PPC ads in order to attract new customers to the website. If you are good at what you do, people will start paying for your services.

Understand different digital products

Every digital marketing channel has its own complexities. Some of them are easy to understand and some require a lot of time before you can master them. To succeed in digital marketing, you need to have an understanding of the digital products in the industry. To get started, head to Make IT Simple and see the products they have on offer.

Learn from digital marketing brands and entrepreneurs

There are many digital marketing brands and businesses that have built famous products. In the Adwords space, MCC is a good example of this. You can also check out some other brands for inspiration including Moz, Conversion XL, WordPress (the company), and Buffer. If you’re really interested in learning from others, try checking out some podcasts and online courses.

Be creative

Digital marketing is above all else, an industry of creativity. You can come up with new ideas, test different things, and learn from your mistakes. There are many tools you can use to make this process more efficient for yourself. Try building a landing page using Leadpages or create some Facebook ads using AdEspresso.

Connect with like-minded individuals

Don’t forget to also follow people on social media that share your interests. You could always attend or help run a meet-up group in your local area. It’s a good way to network with like-minded individuals and make new friends. Every now and then you will come across someone in the group that needs a little help.

Become a member of a professional body

This is one thing you should always aim to stay up-to-date within the ever-changing world of digital marketing. Become a member of a professional body like AMEC or IAB, which provide industry insights and advice. There are also many communities online that provide some great resources for marketers. The Digital Marketing Subreddit is a great example of this.

Stay up to date on the state of digital marketing

As a digital marketer, you need to understand the latest industry trends and updates. To help, become friends with some of the best blogs in your niche. The likes of Search Engine Journal are great for content-related news and Moz has a few amazing resources as well. Additionally, check out the offerings from the Google webmaster blog and Facebook Business for more insights into some of the best digital marketing products.

You can learn a lot by looking at various case studies online. Taking inspiration from other companies is another great way to come up with new ideas and test them on your own company’s website. If you need any help, Search Engine Journal can help you with SEO.

Practice continuous learning

As a great digital marketer, you need to be constantly learning more about the industry. The best way to do this is by reading books from various authors and taking online courses. You can also read blogs like Moz and Search Engine Journal as they usually provide great advice for new marketers.

Learn how to drive traffic to your website

As a digital marketer, you need to know the ropes when it comes to driving traffic to your client’s website. You can learn a lot by studying some basic SEO tactics, or even buy some PPC ads on Facebook. The latter is an excellent way of testing different ad formats and seeing what kind of traffic they get.

Become an expert at creating landing pages

In the past, you would simply have to know how to create an HTML page and then use it in combination with some simple code. Fortunately, today there are tools like Leadpages that can help make this process much easier for you. If you’re really interested in learning this, try building a landing page based on your own product idea.