What makes digital marketing a good career choice for 2021?

With all the uncertainty and challenges that 2020 has brought with it, many of us will have naturally and sensibly questioned our next steps and if our future career plans have been impacted by the global pandemic. Many thriving and stable industries a year ago have crashed to a halt this year and face a huge upward slog to recover. But there are some sectors have seen tremendous growth. 

• Opportunities

It might not necessarily be the dream job that you aspired to while at school but when you consider the opportunities in this dynamic field you would be hard pressed to see that a digital marketing career offers nothing but a positive outlook. E-commerce was already growing at a rate of knots; the pandemic has only exacerbated that. With numerous online start-ups launching every day and traditional businesses now transferring more and more of their business online, the number of digital marketing roles on the market is increasing hugely as companies look for people to help them reach out to the ever growing online community and grab the attention of their target audience.

• Evolving roles

The digital marketing job role is one that is constantly evolving as new and different platforms are introduced on a frequent basis. While the challenge is to monitor new trends and how they impact discoverability of the company you work for and the strategy you have in place – pretty much on a daily basis – what this does also mean, is that no day is ever the same. The breadth of digital marketing specialisms is growing all the time and will allow you to gain expertise in a number of different areas and the opportunity to move into different roles and different fields as your career progresses.

• An exciting arena

Digital marketing changes – quickly. Tools and strategies that were leading five or even two years ago are not anymore. Online platforms take different shapes with each shift, and that requires companies to adjust their marketing. This cycle creates a great need for digital marketing skills. Spending budgets for digital marketing are set to increase in the next five years as the dominance of online advertising continues. New technologies are sprouting left right and centre, making digital marketing a must-have for businesses and an exciting time for anyone entering the world of digital marketing.

• Data driven

While traditional marketing still has its place in the world, digital marketing is quickly taking over thanks to affordability and analytics. If data is your thing, then digital marketing is a career path you need to explore. Marketers are now able to see exactly where people are coming from, what they’re doing on the website, which tactics produce the highest ROI and analyse what your competitors are doing with quick and simple reporting methods. There are numerous SAAS (software as a service) marketing platforms that can be used to improve efficiency, including Ahrefs to help with SEO to rank higher and get more traffic (click here for Ahrefs pricing), Get Response or Mail Chimp for email automation, Google Analytics (obvs)for campaign management and Hootsuite for social media management. This data-driven approach makes it easier for professionals to prove their worth, and for leaders to see which strategies are most effective. Successes can then be replicated over again, eliminating the guesswork for future campaigns and making it a highly rewarding role to be in.

• Digital skills gap

Take a look at LinkedIn and you’ll see that the role of “Digital Marketing Specialist” is one that is sought after and is among the top 10 most in demand jobs, with 1000s of roles available in South Africa alone. Not taking into account the many more companies from further afield that offer remote working as an option.

It’s not surprising the number is high, with so many facets to digital marketing strategies, many companies face a digital skills gap that they need to fill in order to ensure their online strategy is headed in the right direction. With not enough professionals to fill the jobs available, it’s a great opportunity for people entering this field to secure a job role quickly and a strong reason for people considering their career options to look at digital marketing as a viable prospect.

Rhys Hughes: Muve Media & Marketing