How to Take Your Marketing Career Digital

There are some disciplines that stay the same, decade in and decade out. Marketing is not one of them, with once traditional measures being transformed into something almost unrecognisable to veterans in the field. If you find yourself with a degree in marketing, but you’re not sure about the lingo and channels prevalent in 2019 – let’s look at how you can bring your career into the future by immersing in some key digital upskilling.

Learn from a leading SEO agency

Every successful marketing plan will have a dominant SEO focus. Working alongside an SEO consultant has the potential to drive incremental revenue, but it can also heighten your understanding of the digital performance your business is capable of. Any reputable SEO agency will take you through the proposed strategies and subsequent learnings, so insert yourself in that process and see what you can learn along the way. This is advice you can apply to all of your consultants, as the data-rich reports and specialist insights will allow you to see how the moving parts come together.

Build your customer segmentation

You have likely built out your customer segmentations over the years, continuing to add a deeper level of detail to the shifting personas that resonate with your brand. It’s time to take these insights a step further and build digital campaigns that will target them where they are and in a way that they will interact with. Social media can be particularly creative in this space, and a great way to test a new channel with a formula you already know. Create an ad set using Ads Manager, and then popular each targeted group with the information you know to be true about your customer segments.

Take on formal or informal training

It’s never a bad decision to return to your studies, especially when it can take your career to the next level. What professionals seem to forget is that marketing training and learning has evolved beyond the typical classroom setting. One can pursue short and long term courses in any capacity, with remote engagement suiting a variety of lifestyles. Expand your marketing knowledge to include CRM, SEO, social advertising, email marketing and content marketing. As we’ve seen in recent years, trends move quickly in marketing so it’s beneficial to find a learning style you like in what will be an ongoing pursuit of knowledge.

Find a mentor

There is something to be said about positioning yourself as an expert in a niche market. You’ve probably come across these individuals in your career, and now it’s time to learn from their wisdom and expand your expertise. Finding a mentor is quite a personal exercise, and you shouldn’t be making any rash decisions with who you choose to learn from. There is also the reality that your intended mentor may not be in a position to lend time furthering your career, so discuss the commitment arrangement up front first. Many of us would think it logical to locate a mentor who operates successfully within your industry, although there is something to be said about engaging a mentor that is removed from the industry so that no biases and preconceived constraints will influence their guidance.

Statistics will tell you that you will have up to four career changes in your life. If you are looking to stay in the same pool but simply change lanes, digital marketing is a great way to build on existing knowledge and flex your industry experience. It’s also a great way to position yourself to existing and future employees as a professional with a multifaceted handle of the marketing landscape.

This article was produced for Career FAQs by Suzanne Elly