If you’ve been following the trends lately, you might be aware that digital marketing has been gaining popularity quickly. A decade or two ago, it was mostly young people who spent a significant portion of their leisure time online, but the times have changed, and currently, it is difficult to find someone who doesn’t check Facebook at least twice a day.
However, COVID-19 pandemic changed the situation completely. People are isolated in their homes, and as a result, they started spending more time on the internet. Even people who previously did the shopping only in brick and mortar stores were forced to order products from the web. It is expected that in the post-COVID-19 times, the situation will not reverse.
If you are not yet sure as to what career you would like to pursue, you might be considering the field of digital marketing. Seeing that our society is getting focused on the online landscape more and more each day, it would be a smart choice, as the industry is constantly expanding. Still, if you don’t have much time, you might be wondering if you need a university degree to work in this field. If that’s the case, don’t worry, in a moment, we’ll provide you with an answer.
Is a University Degree Necessary to Work in Digital Marketing?
The short answer is: no, most digital marketing companies don’t require a university degree from job candidates if you have the right experience. If you don’t have any experience, then a degree is pretty much a must, though these days, you could even get your PhD degree online. Sure, you might occasionally find a job ad that will mention that candidates with university degrees only need apply, but in a great majority of cases, you won’t be judged on the basis of your formal education, but rather, your skills.
However, just because you don’t need a university degree doesn’t mean that getting one would be a bad idea. In a moment, we’ll go over the recommended courses that would be an excellent starting point and which would make your job resume more appealing to the potential employers. However, before we begin, let’s consider which university degrees, apart from the ones directly connected to marketing, would prove valuable in your digital marketing career.
- Computer science degree. Work in digital marketing involves a great deal of data. Often, its quantity means that a human could not analyze it, but it doesn’t mean that an algorithm wouldn’t excel at the same task. Apart from that, the technical knowledge of search engines and social media would be invaluable while trying to promote brands online.
- Journalism degree. In the struggle between the machine and the human, the former is often the winner. However, it doesn’t matter if you are focusing on content marketing, creating ad campaigns, or trying to draft the best copy possible for an email campaign – you’ve got to be a skilled writer, and you need to have a natural curiosity about the world. Journalism studies will help you develop both of those essential skills.
How to Develop Your Digital Marketing Skills?
As we have mentioned previously, some of the necessary skills might be acquired with the help of online courses. These two are especially worth recommending:
- Fundamentals of digital marketing. This one can be skipped by those who are already somewhat experienced in digital marketing, but when it comes to beginners, this course is an excellent source of basic knowledge. It won’t be enough to help land you a job, but remember that every journey has to begin somewhere. You will need to go through other courses as well, but we think that the Fundamentals of digital marketing is an excellent starting point.
- Google Ads Course. Once you are familiar with the basic terms, we recommend another course that will teach you how to promote brands on the internet using ads. Whereas the previous one was focused on the basics, the Google Ads course will introduce a little bit more challenging concepts. After finishing the course, you should update your resume, as for some employers, it will be enough of a sign to give you a chance.
Conclusion
The automation threatens many industries, which is why currently, younger people are wary of pursuing a career in a field that is likely to disappear in a few years’ time. For those who don’t want to take chances, digital marketing might seem enticing – even though some aspects of the job might soon indeed be automated, removing humans from the process altogether seems unlikely to happen in the next few decades. On top of that, most employers don’t really care if the job candidates have any marketing-related degrees, as long as they have the skills.