Why a New Career in Digital Marketing is a Good Fit

[Originally posted on loveatfirstaventure.com, November 3, 2020]

Ready to start your career in digital marketing? Read below on how I got started in this amazing field, and how it allows me to use my natural talents to help small, online, and service-based businesses!

If you’re interested in growing your online business, you’ve likely heard the words, “digital marketing.” It’s well known that traditional marketing includes advertising. We are all familiar with tv ads, telemarketing, and never-ending piles of junk mail. So, what is digital marketing? Quite simply put, digital marketing is connecting people with the products or services online in a meaningful way.

WHY IS DIGITAL MARKETING IMPORTANT FOR A BUSINESS IN TODAY’S CLIMATE?

Did you know that millennials spend 2.5 hours on social media per day (Source: Consumer Behavior)? With all that time spent online, it makes sense that businesses advertise to customers on the platforms that dominate consumers’ attention.

In order to sell products and services, companies are turning towards digital marketing, which encompasses:

• Content Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Paid Media
• Lead Generation
• And more!

WHY DID I CHOOSE TO PURSUE A CAREER IN DIGITAL MARKETING?

I spent several post-undergrad years bouncing from job to job. Although I learned many transferable skills, I knew I wasn’t fully utilizing my skill set. I was ambitious; I just needed to find the right career. Someone once mentioned to me that I’d be a great consultant. He listened to my skills set and suggested I work with businesses to figure out what they could do better. That always stuck with me because it spoke to some of my strengths: critical thinking, creative problem solving, and being service-oriented. 

In a quest to find the perfect career that melded my passions, experience, and talent, I decided to start a travel blog. I knew that I wanted to:

1. serve people in a meaningful way
2. express myself creatively
3. excel by using my unique skill set

I spent a year learning various aspects of the blogging business, much with the help of Matt Kepnes of Superstar Blogging (full review here). It became immediately clear to me that there are two camps of bloggers: those that earn a full time salary and those generating little to no income.

There was a difference: strategy.

The blogs earning a full-time income and more importantly, serving people with their content, didn’t necessarily have better content. But, they knew how to come up with a content strategy and engage the technical tools to quickly grow (and eventually monetize) their audience.

I had so much to say, but, being results-driven, I didn’t want to write blog posts just to decorate my homepage. I wanted people to read them. And in order to read them, they needed to rank in Google so that potential readers could find them. I knew I needed an exact content and SEO strategy to figure out what to write, how to reach the audience, and how to nurture relationships that would generate revenue.

GETTING THERE…

Taking my blog (and career) to the next level meant I’d need to obtain the skills to do so. Of course, I could learn these for free, spending several years watching YouTube videos, reading blogs, and taking free webinars. I could try out various types of blog posts and just see what happened. But that wouldn’t be efficient or a wise use of my time. Instead, I decided to go straight to the experts to learn exactly how to research, test, and analyze the data to produce the results I was looking for.

As I became engrossed in the online world, I became increasingly excited that I was onto something, career-wise. Sure, I had two degrees and 15 years of experience. I could give presentations, do long-term planning, and work in a team. Suddenly all those personality tests (i.e., Myers-Briggs) and books I had read just out of college started to make sense. I wasn’t passionate about what I was doing all those years because I wasn’t fully using my unique skill set.

Therefore, I started to really examine what makes me tick. I am wired to:

• think creatively
• solve problems
• make data-driven decisions that produce results
• increase efficiency
• go above and beyond
• help people

After some soul-searching and a lot of research, I became convinced that my unique passions, talents, and experience could combine into the perfect career as a digital marketer. First, I needed to learn the technical skills I needed.

Then, I could do what I was really meant to do: use said gifts to meaningfully serve people.

ENTER DIGITAL MARKETING.

I found Katie Jeanes’s digital marketing program at Somerville Academy about six months into my journey. Or, should I say, Katie found me through a stroke of marketing genius mixed with God’s perfect timing. After talking extensively with program advisors, I enrolled in Somerville’s full-time, intensive digital marketing diploma program. 

At Somerville, I could acquire the skills in digital marketing that would really help me make a difference:

• SEO & Content Strategy
• Paid Search & User Acquisition
• Lead Generation
• Analytics & Reporting

Aside from feeling that Somerville was a “good fit,” several other aspects of the digital marketing program caught my eye:

1. Somerville offers programs for women in tech, meaning I could be mentored by, learn from, and collaborate with female leaders in the industry.
2. I was able to work with and develop strategies to help real-life companies grow, gaining valuable industry experience.
3. Businesses across all industries need digital marketers, meaning I could use my skills in any industry worldwide. Hello, future-proofing.

I am incredibly happy to have started my career in digital marketing. With my skills and service offerings, I can help businesses thrive online while continuing to grow my blog as a passion project, serving my readers with content that matters.

READY TO THRIVE? 

In need of marketing to grow your site traffic and get more clicks, customers, and sales?

To learn how I can help you take your online business to the next level using digital strategy and digital advertising, contact me for a complimentary discovery call.