There are many places to go with a digital marketing certificate. This can be an excellent gateway to a new profession or in service to an enhancement to a career you have already built. Many professionals in digital marketing say that the only way to truly get ahead in the field is by experience beyond what is learned in the classroom. Therefore, a certificate can be a great gateway to the marketing profession, offering some key skills that you can advance with entry level digital marketing jobs.
It is clear that this is a profession that is not going anywhere anytime soon. Every business, organization, and even non-profit needs marketing to survive, make sales and get funding. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that there will be a minimum of an 8 percent increase in digital marketing jobs between 2018 and 2028. A digital marketer is often considered a digital marketing generalist.
There are certainly many hard skills required for such a position, but also additional skills including communication, critical thinking, and complex decision making. Successful professionals will also know how to create effective branding strategies, use the most up-to-date relevant software, understand the role of content, and how to create it with effective strategies, as well as having a handle on some of the most up-to-date SEO strategies.
Let’s take a look at some of the digital marketing entry level jobs available, including to those who have just completed a certificate program:
Marketing Manager
This is someone who creates content just like a digital marketer, but they also often oversee the entire marketing department of a company, or are in charge of all of the communication. This particular title is someone who most likely focuses on larger scale marketing campaigns and are less likely to spend their days creating social media content. They may not even touch SEO and instead focus on the management of campaigns, sending emails related to sales, and communicating regularly with customers. They are often responsible for working within partnerships. They are generally skilled in all aspects of digital marketing, however, so they know how to understand all of the moving parts. Their salary is, in many cases, able to push up against six figures. A certificate in digital marketing can be a good addition for this job, many people, however, have a bachelors or beyond.
SEO Specialist
Search Engine Optimization is the name of the game in marketing, and therefore, this role is critical to many businesses and organizations. So, what does it mean? This means that the words that make a site easy to use are placed in the forefront of the website. This specialist is always conducting up-to-date research to ensure they are finding the most current keywords that will be found by consumers who are searching the internet. These professionals are proficient in tools that include google search console and google analytics.
Content Strategist or Content Marketer
This is a position that often is geared towards both editors and writers, but the skillset is beyond creating content. These professionals have a handle on content strategy and focus on what is known as “inbound marketing.” They are responsible for attracting new users and getting their email addresses. They do this by using ebooks, blog posts, multimedia content that may include infographics or videos. So basically, they not only create the content, but they build the strategy around it. In some cases, they don’t even write the content and focus exclusively on strategy.
Social Media Manager
This position is often referred to as social media coordinators. They spend their days developing complex strategies using social media as the primary tools. They collaborate with a number of other professionals including content creators, designers, ad managers, among others. Their primary goal is to attract new users, whereas the role of a “community manager,” is to moderate the users that are already there. Social media managers create branding, often utilize storytelling, among other techniques to reach people. a certificate can be beneficial for this position, as well as an advanced degree.
Digital Marketer
Among entry level jobs in digital marketing, you will find digital marketer is probably the most ubiquitous. This is often a job found at a startup company that is just beginning or a company that is in the early stages of building a team for marketing. This is someone who does a number of tasks from writing social media posts or newsletters sent out via email to building partnerships to manage paid ads. This is someone who must make complex decisions all day long and be flexible enough to switch gears on the fly when an original idea is not showing abundance.
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Best Digital Marketing Bachelor’s Degrees
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