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Best Entry Level Digital Marketing Jobs For 2020

Digital Marketing Jobs

Getting a digital marketing job is the first step for starting a career in digital marketing. The good news is that there are plenty of entry-level marketing jobs you can pursue, even if you have no experience.

In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about entry-level digital marketing jobs including:

So, if you’re wondering whether digital marketing is a good career choice for you and want to find out how to land your first digital marketing job, get a cup of coffee, and let’s enter the exciting world of digital marketing.

BEST DIGITAL MARKETING JOB
The best entry-level digital marketing job to pursue in 2020 is that of a Digital Marketing Specialist. Digital marketing specialists get a higher starting salary compared to other marketing job types and the top salary once they reach senior-level positions, is higher than other jobs.

Best Entry Level Digital Marketing Jobs
Best Entry Level Digital Marketing Jobs (Click to Expand)

The above graph shows how the top digital marketing jobs compare based on the average annual salary for entry-level professionals, mid-career professionals (5 to 9 years of experience), and senior-level marketers (more than 10 years experience).

How Do I Get a Job in Digital Marketing with No Experience?

To secure your first digital marketing job, follow these four steps:

Getting your first entry-level online marketing job can seem like a big challenge, especially when you don’t have any working experience.

But that’s ok, none of the digital marketing professionals had a prior experience when they first started.

The good news is that there are a number of things you can do, to equip yourself with the necessary skills and qualifications so that when you apply for a job, to have more chances of getting hired.

Once you are in the field, with hard work and additional training, you can go from junior to expert or even manager, earn more money and deal with the more interesting aspects of digital marketing.

Step 1: Build your digital marketing skills

The first step is to build your digital marketing skills. Even if you have a degree in marketing or other related fields, this is not enough to land your first job.

We’ve been hiring entry-level digital marketers for years now and I can tell you that the last thing we look at, is the University degree. The reason is simple. University degrees are good in teaching the theory of digital marketing but when it comes to real-life scenarios, you need more than that.

We don’t expect associates to have the same knowledge and skills as experts, that’s ok since they have no working experience, but we do expect candidates to prove that they are passionate about digital marketing.

To be more precise, you cannot apply for a digital marketing job and have no website of your own. There is no excuse.

You shouldn’t’ expect to get a job and then learn how to create a website, write content, work on SEO, etc. These are skills that you can easily build while at the University of even high school using the hundreds of learning resources and online courses you can find on the Internet.

So, if you want to differentiate yourself from other entry-level candidates, show your future employer that you have what it takes to work as an online marketing professional.

Step 2: Choose your career path

Digital marketing is not a single discipline but it consists of a number of online marketing channels. Each channel has its own career path and job roles.

Digital Marketing Channels
Digital Marketing Channels

A typical digital marketing team has the following members and job roles (from right to left):

As you’ll see below, not all jobs are equal. Some entry-level jobs pay more and have bigger career opportunities so it’s better to choose your career path from the beginning.

To make your decision, consider the following:

After reading about the best digital marketing jobs, you’ll be able to answer the above questions and it will be easier to decide which path to follow.

Step 3: Do some freelancing work (even for free)

I know that it’s not easy to get hired as a freelancer if you have no experience but that does not stop you from offering your services for free. Why you should do this?

It will make a huge difference when applying for a job to have something to talk about that shows that you’re confident in your skills.

I’ve mentioned above that you definitely need to have your own website and blog but if you want to take it a step further you can build a small portfolio too.

How?

I’m sure that someone you know (friends, relatives) has a website or business. Offer to do some work for them without getting paid for it. In most cases, nobody will refuse a site redesign if its’ for free or a technical SEO review.

There are many tasks you can perform even if you’re not experienced that can help you differentiate your job application from the rest.

Put yourself in the employer mindset. Who would you hire, someone that has no experience but made no effort to learn and experiment or someone that is actively looking for ways to improve and become better?

Step 4: Prepare for the interview

Let me give you some tips on how to prepare for your digital marketing job interview. My advice is based on the questions we ask when we hire new associates but I’m sure other employers follow similar tactics.

Top Entry Level Digital Marketing Jobs for 2020

These are the best entry-level and junior digital marketing jobs for 2020.

Entry Level Digital Marketing Specialist

A digital marketing specialist is a junior marketing professional with a diverse set of skills, responsible for the online promotion of a website using various digital marketing channels.

Digital marketing specialists are usually classified into two categories:

Related Job Titles

Companies looking for entry level digital marketing specialists use these job titles:

Average Salary

The average salary of entry level digital marketing specialists is around $40K per year. This can be broken down as follows:

The average salary for digital marketing managers that reach the top of the ladder is around $86K per year, which is the highest paying salary for a digital marketing job.

Digital Marketing Manager Salary
Digital Marketing Manager Salary

Skills Needed

To work as a digital marketing specialist, you need the following skills:

In general, what differentiates a digital marketing specialist from other entry-level marketing professionals, is that he/she needs to have basic skills in a number of digital marketing disciplines and not focus on just one area.

The best way to equip yourself with the necessary skills is to follow a digital marketing course. A good course will teach you everything you need to know to secure your first digital marketing job.

Job Description

First-time digital marketing employes typically work as associates of experienced digital marketers and their assigned specific tasks to execute.

For companies that choose to outsource some or all of their digital marketing activities, a digital marketing specialist plays the role of a liaison between the company and the digital marketing agency.

To give you an idea of what employers require when hiring entry-level digital marketing professionals, look at the sample job posting below.

Entry-Level Digital Marketing Job Posting
Entry-Level Digital Marketing Job Posting

Typical Career Path

The typical career path of a digital marketing specialist is the following:

For freelancers, there is no official career path but a change in title. Typically experienced digital marketing professionals are titled Digital Marketing Experts or Digital Marketing Consultants.

The difference comes to years of experience, ability to prove their expertise through success stories, and of course a higher hourly rate for their services.

The hourly rate of a digital marketing consultant can be as low as $30 per hour and as high as $200-$300 per hour.

SEO Specialist

An SEO specialist is a person responsible for improving the rankings of a website in search engines.

The need for SEO professionals (all levels) is on the rise and one of the most popular job types in the digital marketing industry.

Related Job Titles

In the various job portals, companies or clients looking to hire entry-level SEO specialists use the following job titles:

Average Salary

The average salary of junior SEO specialists (according to payscale) is around $51K per year rising to $61K for mid-career Senior SEO specialists and to $64K for SEO managers.

SEO Specialist Salary
SEO Specialist Salary

For SEO freelancers, the average hourly rate for SEO’s with less than two years’ experience is $79 per hour, rising to $140 per hour for experienced SEOs (more than 10 years).

Skills Needed

To get a job and work as an SEO specialist, you need to have excellent knowledge of all SEO techniques and best practices.

Unlike other entry-level digital marketing jobs, SEO professionals don’t have the luxury to learn the skills while on the job but they need to know how to work with SEO in advance.

From experience, when we hire junior SEO experts, we expect them to know how to perform various SEO tasks from start to finish without needing any special guidance.

If you want to pursue an SEO career, you need to build the following skills:

The fastest and most efficient way to acquire the necessary SEO skills is to follow an SEO certification program. Good SEO courses will give you examples and step-by-step instructions on how SEO works in practice and not just in theory.

In addition, becoming SEO certified is an asset for your CV and can make a difference when applying to work as a Junior SEO with no experience.

Job Description

The exact tasks you may be asked to execute as an SEO professional depends on the nature of the business and the way the digital marketing department of a company is structured. But, there are some common tasks that apply to many SEO job postings.

Here is a real example of a job posting looking for an entry-level SEO specialist.

SEO Specialist Job Posting
SEO Specialist Job Posting

It pretty much summarizes the tasks you’ll need to perform that include:

Typical Career Path

The typical career path of an SEO specialist is the following:

Content Marketing Specialist

Another popular entry-level digital marketing job is that of a content marketing specialist. A content specialist is responsible for researching, writing, and editing content for the needs of a digital marketing campaign.

If you want to get an entry-level marketing job and have no experience with digital marketing, then this is the job type to go after.

The reason is that for a junior content marketing specialist, all is needed is good writing skills. Even if you know nothing about digital marketing or content marketing, you can still get a job if you know how to research and write good content.

It should be emphasized that the responsibilities of a content marketer do not end with content writing. In order to make a career in content marketing and go after the highest-paying jobs in the field, you need other skills as well (see below for the details).

Related Job Titles

Employers use different titles when looking to hire entry-level content marketing specialists, the most popular are:

Average Salary

The average salary of a junior content specialist is around $35K per year. It’s a low salary compared to entry-level digital marketers and SEOs but it can go up to $139K per year when you climb up the content marketing ladder.

Content Marketing Manager Salary
Content Marketing Manager Salary

An alternative to getting a job as a junior content marketing specialist is to work as a freelance content writer. Good freelancers may get $1000 for an article and depending on how fast you can produce content and how good the content is, you can make more money than getting a formal job.

As a freelancer, you can work from home, and as you get more clients you can even start your own online business.

Skills Needed

The first essential skill all content marketing professionals should have is love for writing. You’ll not be able to make a career in content marketing if you hate to write.

It is true that as you advance your career you may not have to write the content yourself but still if you’re not the type of person that likes to read and write, content marketing is not for you.

With that being said, the skills and qualifications needed for entry-level content marketers are:

College degree – To get a job in a big agency or company you’ll need to have a Bachelor’s degree in marketing, journalism, communications, or other subjects related to marketing or literature.

Content marketing certification – This is optional but highly recommended for candidates with no working experience.

A certificate does not guarantee that you’re an expert on content marketing but from experience, employers prefer to hire certified professionals because it shows that the candidate knows the basics and has the willingness to learn.

The most efficient way to get certified is to follow a content marketing course.

Research and writing skills –  You may be asked to create content on topics that you’re not an expert and thus it’s important to know how to do proper research and write high-quality content. Good knowledge of the English language is also a requirement.

SEO copywriting skills – Besides writing content, you’ll also need to know how to make it search engine friendly. This is known as SEO copywriting and it’s a subset of SEO.

Content marketing tools – All content marketing related job postings require candidates to know how to use content marketing tools. The most popular is the Google keyword tool, Google Search Console, SEMRush, Ahrefs, and Moz,

Web analysis and reporting tools – Knowing how to use Google Analytics and Google data studio although not required, it’s an additional qualification.

Job Description

An entry-level content marketing professional is expected to perform a number of tasks related to writing content.

The example below shows a typical job posting application looking for a junior content marketing specialist.

Content Marketing Job Posting
Content Marketing Job Posting

As you can see besides creating compelling content and story-telling, it is required to have a good understanding of various metrics and tools (like Google Analytics) and presentation skills for collaborating with senior team members.

Typical Career Path

The typical career path of a content professional is the following:

Social Media Manager

A social media manager is the person responsible for managing the social media presence of a company. The social media manager works closely with the digital marketing and content marketing managers to ensure that whatever is published on social media, is aligned with the marketing goals of the company.

When you get an entry-level social media job with no experience, you’ll be expected to publish posts on various social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok.

As you climb up the ladder, your responsibilities will be to design social media campaigns and analyze their impact and not necessarily creating content.

Related Job Titles

Companies searching to hire junior social media managers, use these job titles when posting a job:

Average Salary

The average salary of junior social media managers is around $40K per year.

Social Media Marketing Manager Salary
Social Media Marketing Manager Salary

In particular:

Skills Needed

To work as a social media professional you need the following skills and qualifications:

Job Description

The job of a social media manager varies depending on the needs of a company or agency. In most cases though, companies looking to hire an entry-level social media manager want someone to update their social media pages with engaging content, respond to comments, and monitor the performance of social media campaigns using various KPIs.

The job posting below is a very good example of a typical entry-level job in social media.

Social Media Manager Job Description
Social Media Manager Job Description

Typical Career Path

Unlike other entry-level digital marketing roles, the career path of a social media manager is not clearly defined.

Basically, there are two positions for social media professionals. Junior social media managers whose job is to update social media pages with content and experienced social media managers that are responsible for running social media campaigns.

So, this is a good job for those who like working with social media networks but career-wise, there are other jobs (like SEO, digital marketing manager, content manager) with better career advancement opportunities and higher salaries.

PPC Specialist (SEM)

A PPC specialist, commonly referred to as SEM Specialist or Paid Ads Manager, is the person responsible for running paid search campaigns on Google, Bing, and other networks.

Usually, employers of PPC specialists are digital marketing agencies looking for professionals to manage and optimize the PPC campaigns of their clients.

During our research, we did find a few large companies looking for experienced PPC managers but for entry-level positions, most job postings were from marketing agencies.

Related Job Titles

Other Job names related to PPC specialists are the following:

Average Salary

The average salary of an entry-level Search Engine Marketing Specialist is around $41K per year. It increases to $47K per year for mid-career professionals (5-9 years of experience) and then maximizes to $56K per year (regardless of years of experience).

PPC Specialist Salary
PPC Specialist Salary

Skills Needed

The essential skills for PPC specialists are:

A great way to prove your competency in Google Ads is to get certified and become a Google Ads certified professional.

Job Description

The job responsibilities of a PPC specialist is to manage and optimize PPC campaigns. The daily tasks include:

The following job posting summarizes what is needed to get an entry-level job as a PPC professional.

Entry Level SEM Professional Job Posting
Entry Level SEM Professional Job Posting

Typical Career Path

The career path for paid advertizing professionals is simple compared to other digital marketing professionals.

When you get the job with no experience, you’ll perform tasks assigned to you by senior PPC specialists until you show that you can handle campaigns on your own. At this point, you’ll become a PPC manager or PPC expert and continue doing the same work for the rest of your career.

Graphics Designer

Online campaigns have a continuous need for graphics whether this is a web design, ads, infographics, charts, or illustrations and they have a working relationship with a graphic designer.

Big companies and agencies prefer to have their in-house graphic designs team but small businesses usually outsource this task.

So, if you’re a skilled graphic designer (with or without experience), there is a place for you in the digital marketing industry.

Related Job Titles

When searching for a graphic design job, make sure that you check these job titles as well:

Average Salary

The average annual salary for an entry-level graphic designer is $38K.

Graphics Designer Salary
Graphics Designer Salary

Skills Needed

The most common requested skills are:

Job Description

Graphic designers are expected to create visual designs for the needs of various digital marketing campaigns.

Unlike other digital marketing jobs, to work as a web designer you need talent. Anyone can learn how to use Photoshop but to create outstanding designs to fulfill the purpose of an ad or a presentation, you need to have talent.

So, before considering making a career as a visual designer, ask yourself if you can compete with the hundreds of talented designers and if you have something different to offer as an online artist.

When you’re ready for the challenge, here is a typical job posting that summarizes what employers are looking for when hiring entry-level graphic designers.

Entry-Level Graphic Designers Job Requirements
Entry-Level Graphic Designers Job Requirements

Typical Career Path

The career path of a graphic designer is simple. You start as an associate and follow the instructions of senior graphic designers and as you gain experience, you get to handle projects on your own. Graphic designers with good HR skills can lead the graphics design team.

In a company structure, the graphics team is usually directly under the supervision of the digital marketing manager.

Online Affiliate Marketing Manager

Affiliate marketing managers are responsible for managing the online affiliate marketing program of a company. Not all companies have an affiliate program so the demand is not so big compared to other digital marketing jobs but the salary is good especially for growing affiliate programs.

Related Job Titles

If you’re interested in pursuing a career as an affiliate marketing manager, look for job postings that have these titles:

Average Salary

Affiliate Marketing Manager Salary
Affiliate Marketing Manager Salary

Have in mind that in some cases affiliate marketing professionals work with a basic salary + commission. So, the better results you can deliver for the company, the higher will be your salary.

Skills Needed

Job Description

The responsibilities of an affiliate marketer are to promote the affiliate program of the company. By promoting we mean to find new affiliate partners and work with them to increase their sales.

Big affiliate programs offer personal support to their affiliate partners and this is part of the job responsibilities of affiliate managers.

Here is a typical job application looking for an affiliate marketing manager.

Affiliate Marketing Manager Job Requirements
Affiliate Marketing Manager Job Requirements

Typical Career Path

As an associate, you will be trained to find new business partners and as you become more experienced you can be in charge of a team of associates or eventually become the affiliate marketing manager of the company.

Where to Find Entry-Level Digital Marketing Jobs?

There are many websites you can use to find entry-level digital marketing jobs and work for a company remotely (from home), work as a freelancer, or work in an office with the typical 9 to 5.

If you want to work for a company (either remote or physical presence), the best places to find an entry-level marketing job are:

If you want to work as a remote freelancer and get clients directly, the best sites are:

When you apply for a job on any of the above websites, make sure that:

You apply fast – Digital marketing jobs are in high demand right now and once you post a job, you get tens of applications within a few hours. Employers may not review all applications if they find what they want so the faster you can reply the better.

You can monitor those websites daily and prepare your draft answers in advance based on the requirements of existing job postings. This way when it’s time to apply, you’ll adjust your replies and submit your application.

You answer all the questions – Read carefully the job requirements and answer all raised questions. Employers look at these details. The first impression counts and if you fail to follow their instructions it is unlikely that your application will make it through the screening process.

Be honest – When asked to describe your experience, don’t lie. Don’t forget that besides the written application, you’ll also need to pass the interview and if you’re caught lying about your skills or experience, you’ll have no chances of getting hired.

Digital Marketing Jobs: The Bottom Line

Working in the digital marketing industry is a great career choice. There are hundreds of entry-level digital marketing jobs to choose from and the demand is constantly rising.

The best entry-level job for marketing professionals is that of the Digital marketing specialist. Digital marketing professionals get higher salaries and have more career advancement opportunities compared to other marketing jobs.

The post Best Entry Level Digital Marketing Jobs For 2020 appeared first on reliablesoft.net.

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