5 Things You Must Do After Completing Your Digital Marketing Course – A Step By Step Guide

So you have completed your digital marketing course. Wonderful! Three cheers for that.

No doubt that you did an excellent job by selecting digital marketing as your career path. And trust me; this is going to take you a long way.

So next what? What to do after completing the digital marketing course? How to excel in the digital marketing industry being a fresher?

Well, if these are your questions, let me tell you what you can do after learning digital marketing and what should be your game-plan.

Moreover, you should have a clear vision of where you want to reach and what you want to gain from digital marketing in the next three years down the line.

I am pretty much sure that you have heard of many people in the digital marketing domain, who are incredibly successful and making millions of bucks every month. But have you ever thought about how they started, what they did in their initial days of digital marketing? Did they plan it, or did they join the digital marketing industry accidentally? What made them so successful that they are now the inspiration for millions of people like you? And finally, what is that guru-mantra that you can learn from them to be successful in digital marketing?

Okay, let me tell you the five things you must do right after you complete your digital marketing training, which will not only kick-start your career but also create wealth for you.

The First Move: Join a Digital Marketing Company and Start Your First Digital Marketing Job

What can I do with a digital marketing certificate? Can I get a job after the digital marketing course?

If these are your questions after completing the digital marketing course, then let me tell you that, yes, you can get a  job right after you finish the course.

Getting a digital marketing job is relatively easy, but growing fast at a pace that would make your colleagues jealous of you won’t be that easy.

And here, I am going to show you that.

So let’s see how you can get your first digital marketing job and later on how you can accelerate your career growth.

• Create a detailed curriculum vitae (CV) and try to include all the things that you have learned in your digital marketing course.
• While creating the CV, use keywords like “digital marketing jobs”, “digital marketing fresher jobs”, “digital marketing career”, “digital marketing company”, “SEO”, “social media”, etc. to make it search-friendly. This, in return, will help many internet marketing agencies find your CV easily on the web.
• If you have done a few digital marketing certifications, make sure to mention them in your curriculum vitae.
• Upload your digital marketing CV on all of the job portals and update them often to be on the top of the results when companies search similar profiles like yours. This will significantly increase the chances of getting interview calls.
• Next, make sure to utilize Linkedin. Create a Linkedin profile and mention your subject matter expertise and core strengths.
• Ask your university and institute faculties to write testimonials about you on Linkedin. A few good of them can quickly end your job-hunting process.

If you do the things I mentioned above, you should get your first digital marketing job in a few weeks. But as I said earlier, your eye should be on accelerating your growth, and getting a job is merely a little step towards it.

So what should you do next?

Well, change your attitude toward work.

Don’t count your job as merely a work; instead, consider this as a place to learn. And you have to learn things quickly, faster than your colleagues. So, be curious, attentive, and systematic about learning.

Now that you got your job, you will have some money to invest in further learning. So spend it prudently on learning some add-on skills that are crucial in digital marketing, like, WordPress, Photoshop, content writing, video editing, etc.

Next, do a few specializations and certifications on SEO, Google Ads, Facebook marketing, inbound marketing, email marketing, etc. which will further skyrocket your growth.

In your job, whenever you get opportunities, try to prove your expertise by delivering results better than expected from you. And you can do that only if you build parallel skills that are essential in full-stack digital marketing.

Don’t be stingy in educating others, even if they are your colleagues. Remember, there is nothing better than teaching others if you want to expand your knowledge.

Lastly, don’t be just an executor of processes, be a thinker instead. Develop your thinking power, brainstorm about things, produce new ideas frequently and don’t hesitate to put them on the table.

So start and iterate them, and soon you should start noticing a steep growth in your digital marketing career.

The Second Move: Start Your Digital Marketing Blog

The second thing that you should do after completing your digital marketing course and joining a company is starting a blog.

You might be seeing a lot of digital marketers around you who are very good at their job, but when it comes to running their own internet marketing blogs, they step back. Be careful. Don’t fall into this category of digital marketers.

Remember, your aim shouldn’t be limited to doing a 9-to-5 job. Instead, you should focus on building your identity on the web. And what could be better than blogging when it comes to creating a personal brand.

Now that you are working as a digital marketer in a company, and drawing your salary, invest a fraction of it into creating a blog. Remember, you can start a blog at a shoestring budget, so don’t give excuses like you can’t spend much money and time on blogging. In fact, it’s all about your attitude and aptitude.

Moreover, if you don’t want to continue being the frog of the well, come out of your comfort zone, and nail it. Unless you start creating content that helps others do something, your identity will be buried beneath the grave.

At this point, you might think that who is going to read your content, or what you will write about, or what if you make mistakes. However, you should understand that every content has its readers; you just have to master the art of connecting with them. And mistakes are part and parcel of any business, and blogging obviously is not out of this game.

So how will you start blogging?

Let me tell you.

1. First, decide the niche of your blog. And as you have completed your digital marketing course and are now working on it, you should start a blog on digital marketing itself.
2. Decide the blog name, and purchase the domain and hosting server for it. Initially, you should buy a shared hosting as it will cost less, which you can upgrade as you grow financially later.
3. If you are too tight on budget and don’t want to spend a penny on the domain and server, you can still start a blog. Visit WordPress.com and create it for free.
4. Next, create a logo for your blog. For this too, you will find plenty of online logo designing tools and services which you can use to create a logo. Besides, if you know Photoshop or similar tools, you can custom-design a logo that suits your brand.
5. At this point, you are done with gathering the assets you need to start the blog. Finally, install the WordPress on your server (if you have purchased one), and you are good to go.
6. Now that your blog is all set, create your first article, and publish it.
7. Use social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, and Instagram to promote the article you published. Use proper hashtags to multiply its reach. However, be careful of spamming social sites.
8. Other than social media, you should also use websites like Reddit, Growthhackers, etc. to amplify the visibility of your content.
9. While using social media, be generous and humble. Share contents from other digital marketing bloggers, and focus on building relationships with them. This will, in the long run, help you expand your skills, build a community and support system that will stand beside you through thick and thin.
10. Besides, writing content for your blog, you should also regularly contribute to other blogs as a guest author to expand your readership and visibility.

Iterate the steps; sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth.

As you have just started your blog and creating contents, don’t expect too much from it at this stage. At the very least, you must spend six months to one-year creating contents, and gradually you will notice things are working in your favor. And that’s the time you should monetize your blog and start making money out of it.

Besides money-blogging, over the course of your blogging journey, you will learn hundreds of things that will further expedite your digital marketing career growth.

The Third Move: Start Your YouTube Channel on Digital Marketing

Now that you have started blogging after completing your digital marketing course and joining the company, you should now parallelly begin your YouTube channel as well. YouTube is a powerful platform for everyone, and as a digital marketer, you can use it to spread your wings further afield.

“Creating videos for YouTube is costly.”

It’s a fallacy.

Starting a channel on YouTube is entirely free, and further, you can use your smartphone to shoot videos and host them on the YouTube platform.

Why YouTubing being an internet marketer?

Well, if you want people to know you and your talent, and moreover, if you like to boost your professional growth, then you must use YouTube along with blogging. This powerful combination can supercharge your digital marketing career and lift it to a whole new level.

Furthermore, apart from your day job, if you want to try your hand at freelancing in digital marketing, your first step should be towards building your knowledge, popularity, and authority. And YouTube is the platform that can offer you all of them.

What types of video content should you create being a digital marketer?

This isn’t as difficult as it seems from outside. Especially for a seasoned digital marketer, this is a no-brainer. But as you have just started your career in digital marketing, you can shoot simple videos about several internet marketing tools, techniques, and strategies as you are learning and applying them daily in your job.

So how can you start on YouTube?

Let’s see.

1. First, open a new account on YouTube else use the one that you already have.
2. Ideally, you should use your blog name as your YouTube channel name. This is advisable because this will allow your blog as well as YouTube followers to know who you are in real-life.
3. Next, upload your logo on YouTube. You may consider using the same logo you created for your blog on YouTube else you can use your headshot as well.
4. Create an exciting channel art that illustrates you, your brand, and your talent. You may use tools like Canva for doing this.
5. Write a brief description of you, including who you are, what you do, your skills, achievements, awards and accolades, etc. for the about section of your YouTube channel.
6. Don’t forget to link to your blog and other social media outlets from your YouTube channel.
7. Now that you are all set to kick-start your YouTube journey shoot your first video using your smartphone and upload it.
8. Use a descriptive video title using the most relevant keyword and write an optimized video description as well.
9. Next, add a few tags that meticulously describe the video.
10. Lastly, create a custom thumbnail for the video and finally publish it on YouTube.

Repeat the process; step seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth.

In the long run, you should develop your video editing skills that you will require in editing videos for driving the best results.

When you continue YouTubing along with blogging, you will be able to attract the eyes of many content creators and companies, which in return will fast-track your career growth.

Besides, as you grow your YouTube channel at some point in time, you will be able to monetize your videos and make money from YouTube.

The Fourth Move: Start Trading Your Skills

So far, after finishing the digital marketing course, you have joined a company and started your digital marketing blog and YouTube channel.

Now that you are learning new things and expanding your expertise quickly, you should now start trading your skills online.

There are dozens of online marketplaces on the internet, where you can find countless freelance jobs related to digital marketing. If you see them carefully, you will discover that these jobs are mostly on keyword analysis, WordPress optimization, sales-copy writing, backlink building, social media promotion, etc.

So, if you want to trade your digital marketing skills online, then the sky is the limit.

So now, how will you start your freelancing career?

Before starting, you must decide the volume of freelance work that you can take and successfully deliver on time. Remember, quality and commitment are everything in the freelancing world. And if you somehow slip from there, it’s going to be really tough for you to recover. So be careful from the very beginning.

Now, if you are ready, let’s see how you can start freelancing in digital marketing.

• First, open your account on PayPal or similar websites and add your bank account to receive payments online.
• Select 4 to 5 freelance marketplaces where you want to work, and create your freelancer account there.
• Complete your profile by filling in the details a particular freelancing site asks for.
• Add your PayPal (or other) account with the freelancing websites for receiving payments after a job is delivered.
• Select the type of jobs you want to do as a digital marketer.
• When some freelance websites allow you to bid on projects you want to work on, some let prospective clients find you directly. So based on the site you are using, you have to follow its process.
• While communicating with a client, be polite, helpful, and proactive. Let them know that you are keen to work and capable of delivering the results that they are expecting from you. Be careful, though. Don’t commit overenthusiastically, which is hard (or impossible) to match thereafter.
• When you get a project, give your hundred percent and deliver on time.
• As you deliver the project, ask your clients for reviews. If they are happy with your job, they will surely write a few kind words about you. This, in return, will help you earn the confidence of a lot more clients.
• After the project is delivered and the client clears the payment-lock, you should receive it in a few business days.

Freelancing on digital marketing is indeed lucrative. If you work sincerely, you will be able to build a clientele that will not only give you new projects regularly but refer you to other prospective clients as well.

The Fifth Move: Start Your Digital Marketing Business

After completing the digital marketing course, if you continue working on the first four steps as discussed above for the next three years down the line, you will accumulate immense skills in digital marketing. Besides this, you will be able to build a blog and a YouTube channel with tens of thousands of followers, apart from having many happy clients earned through freelancing.

Now when you reach that phase of your career, you should make a long jump to reach the next stage of your life, which begins your entrepreneurial journey.

Here you, as a seasoned digital marketer, have three ways of doing business.

The Agency Model: You can start a digital marketing agency. Here, you will be doing similar things that you have done so far being a freelancer but at a much larger scale.

You have to build a team of experts having varied skill sets, including SEO, SEM PPC, social media, email marketing, content writing and marketing, graphics designing, etc. Apart from them, you also require business development professionals who will onboard new clients regularly.

This model needs your direct involvement, and you may have to spend a good amount of your time every day to ensure its growth and profitability.

The Affiliate Model: Start an affiliate website business. Using your previous experience of running a blog and making it a real success, you can quickly build up a few niche websites with tons of traffic from search engines, social sites, and other online outlets.

Next, you can sell relevant products from reputed brands being an affiliate and make money.

This requires a relatively small team of a handful of content writers, designers, and marketers, along with you leading the entire team. Usually, you don’t need a business development professional, as here your primary focus should be on creating content that will add value to its readers who then, in return, will purchase from you.

The Auto-Pilot Model: This is, by far, the most exciting one for the majority of the marketers. In this model, you are going to create a few high-value digital assets that will extensively empower the customers, and in return, you will make money.

Setting up an autopilot website is a complex process. Besides, you must have your own digital assets like online tools, software, or self-paced online courses that will truly put a dent in your niche. However, if done correctly, this requires the minimum day-to-day involvement while making huge income month after month.

The Mix Model: Adept entrepreneurs with long years of experience in digital marketing don’t restrict themselves in doing one type of business; instead, they run multiple businesses successfully.

In this model, you will start an agency business along with a few affiliate and autopilot websites. When this is the most profitable one, this requires a lot of managerial expertise other than hard-core digital marketing skills.

Over to You

So, if you have completed your digital marketing course or just about to finish it, don’t let your mind go blank and don’t be overwhelmed. Think calmly and prioritize the things you have to do.

First, get a job right after you finish the digital marketing course.

Second, after 3 to 6 months of experience, start your digital marketing blog, and continue creating high-quality content from then on.

Third, after 9 to 12 months of experience, start the YouTube channel on digital marketing, and publish informative videos as frequently as possible.

Fourth, after 12 months of experience, start freelancing on digital marketing. Build loyal clientele that you will need in the future.

Fifth, after 36 months of experience, quit your job, make a jump, and start a digital marketing agency.

Finally, after having 60 months of experience, start your dream affiliate and autopilot websites along with running the digital marketing agency business.

Now, if you have gone through this post carefully, you shouldn’t have any doubt further about what to do after your digital marketing course is complete. However, I would like to know what you intend to do after learning digital marketing.

So now, let me know your plan of action, and where do you see yourself in the next five years as a digital marketer?

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Soumya Roy

Founder, CEO at PromozSEO

Soumya Roy is the Founder, CEO of PromozSEO Web Marketing Academy, a leading digital marketing course in Kolkata, India. He is a seasoned digital marketer and coach with over 13 years of extensive experience under his belt. In his long years of experience, Mr. Roy has worked with 100s of brands of different sizes, and mentored and trained more than 7000 professionals and corporate clients.
Being an entrepreneur and digital marketer, he loves to share his knowledge and experience in topics related to internet marketing, SEO, SEM, social media, content marketing, branding, entrepreneurship, and many more.

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