Here’s a blog post especially for you graduates who are looking to start a career in Digital Marketing and desire to set yourself apart in a competitive employment market where employers are looking for real skills and some experience.
For our agency FIRST, the most valuable people are those who are ‘T-Shaped’. These people can think strategically and have a wide range of digital skills and expertise, but in addition have a passion for and deep specialist expertise in a particular digital discipline.
If you are serious about getting your first (or second) digital role – here is some further digital marketing training to undertake and blogs that will help you keep up to date with the latest. (Note: I use www.feedly.com as my preferred feed reader)
At FIRST, everything we do is focused on helping business increase online sales and revenue by improving the customer experience through data & analytics. While there are many resources around, these are the ones we find valuable and I am sure most employers would also. I can guarantee that your job prospects will be so much better for investing the time in learning and understanding the below than had you not.
I recommend training in 4 core disciplines:
- Strategic Digital Thinking
- Analytics
- Conversion, A/B Testing and Online Customer Experience
- Performance Advertising (Google AdWords / Facebook Advertising)
Strategic Digital Thinking
Recommended sites to follow:
- Adobe Digital Marketing Blog http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/
- CMO http://www.cmo.com/insight
- CMO https://econsultancy.com/blog/
- Forrester Research blogs.forrester.com
- Gartner Blog http://blogs.gartner.com/digital-marketing/
- Google’s Blog https://googleblog.blogspot.co.nz/
- Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/
- McKinsey http://www.mckinsey.com/insights
- QuickSprout by Neil Patel https://www.quicksprout.com/blog/
- The Altimeter Group http://www.altimetergroup.com/
- Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/
Digital Marketing Training Courses
- MarketMotive http://www.marketmotive.com/
Analytics
Recommended Analytics Training:
Google Analytics Individual Certification & Training
- Google Analytics Academy Videos https://analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com/explorer
- Google Analytics Individual Qualification Study Guide https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/6083717
Recommended sites to follow:
- Analytics Pros https://www.analyticspros.com/
- Analytics Demystified http://analyticsdemystified.com/blog/
- Avinash Kaushik’s Blog http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/
- Kissmetrics https://blog.kissmetrics.com/
- Luna Metrics http://www.lunametrics.com/
- Kevin Hillstrom: Mine that Data http://blog.minethatdata.com/
- Official Google Analytics Blog http://analytics.blogspot.com
Recommended practical work:
For your own site, a friends site, or a small business:
- Set up Google Analytics, including goals, events and/or eCommerce tracking.
- On a regular basis review the data, find and share insights with the site owner to increase website performance.
Conversion, A/B Testing and Online Customer Experience
Recommended Conversion Training:
Optimizely Platform Certification
- Optimizely Academy Traininghttps://learn.optimizely.com/hc/en-us
Recommended sites to follow:
- Click Tale Blog http://blog.clicktale.com
- Conversion Rate Experts http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/
- ConversionXL http://conversionxl.com/
- Convert.com http://blog.convert.com/
- Crazy Egg Blog http://blog.crazyegg.com/
- Formissimo Blog http://www.formisimo.com/blog
- Optimizely.com Official Blog http://blog.optimizely.com
- Unbounce Blog http://unbounce.com/blog
- User Testing Blog http://www.usertesting.com/blog
- VWO Blog https://vwo.com/blog/
- Which Test Won http://whichtestwon.com
Recommended practical work:
For your own site, a friend’s site, or a small business:
- set up www.Optimizely.com and run some tests (free for up to 50,000 unique sessions per month)
- set up www.inspectlet.com to get heatmaps, clickmaps and video recordings of user behaviour (free for up to 100 recorded sessions) or use www.crazyegg.com for $9USD per month
Performance Advertising (Google AdWords / Facebook Advertising)
Recommended Performance Advertising Training:
Google Adwords Certifications
- Adwords Fundamentals, Search Advertising, Display Advertising
- Training modules here: https://support.google.com/partners/topic/3204437?hl=en&ref_topic=3111012
Facebook Training:
Recommended practical work:
For your own site, a friends site, or a small business:
- Setup and run an Adwords account ($500+ budget)
- Setup and Run Facebook advertising ($500+ budget)
Search Engine Optimisation
Recommended SEO reading:
Google’s webmaster Guidelines: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769
Google’s SEO starter guide
MOZ.com’s Search Ranking Factors https://moz.com/search-ranking-factors/survey
Final thoughts
By doing these things, you will involve yourself in the digital marketing community and keep up to date with the latest concepts and trends in digital marketing. You’ll get the needed training with practical applications and some hands on ‘work experience’ that will be very valuable.
Even more than that, it shows to a future employer that you are a self starter, can work autonomously, have a passion for the industry, a thirst for learning and you will do what it takes in a role. All of these attitudes are perhaps even more important that the skills themselves.
Do you have any favorite free online marketing courses, classes or resources you want to share? Let us know via careers@firstdigital.co.nz so we can share them.
