Email marketing is a strategy for the promotion of commercial messages and is a great way to increase brand awareness and generate sales. With people regularly checking their emails and opening on average 34% of promotional emails Constant Contact (Jan, 2023), email marketing is an easy and affordable way to share content and messages to a mass audience at one time.
Check out some of the do’s and don’ts below that will help you reach success in the implementation of your email marketing campaigns.
A woman sat at a desk in front of a laptop on Mail Chimp, a email marketing provider
1. DO keep your emails short and concise
Statista (2021) found that on average people spend 10 seconds reading emails from brands. Therefore, is it important for the content of your email to not only draw people in with compelling copy but to be short and sweet. Recipients should be able to scan the emails you send and get the gist relatively quickly.
2. DON’T send too many emails per week
We all know the feeling of receiving too many emails from a company… it can be frustrating as nobody wants to be bombarded with promotional emails every day. We recommend a maximum of 2 emails per week, but it is always good to test what works for your audience and to adjust accordingly.
3. DO optimise emails for mobile
Email Blaster UK found that in 2018 at least 50% of emails were used on a mobile device, which is a significant amount. Therefore, it is important that you are optimising your emails for mobile use. You can make your emails mobile-friendly by:
Using device detection – many email providers such as Mail Chimp and Campaign Monitor offer device detection where emails can detect and adapt to different devices.
Length of subject line and pre-header text – It wise to check the length of both the subject line and pre-header text and keep them short and succinct. This will be the first thing a recipient will see before opening an email. If the most important messages are cut off when viewed on a mobile, people may be less inclined to open it.
Testing emails – a good way to ensure your emails are mobile-friendly is to send a test to yourself and open it via mobile.
4. DON’T forget to segment your audience
Email marketing isn’t a one size fits all, so make sure that you are tailoring your emails to specific groups. Different demographics will want to receive different information. For example, if you work in e-commerce and were building an email about the women’s online clothing sale, it wouldn’t make much sense to send that email everyone in the database i.e. men. Ensure you are sending relevant emails to the relevant people; you can do this by creating segmented lists for different audiences based on demographics or interests e.g., age, gender, location and interests such as sales, accessories, new season.
5. DO personalise your subject lines
Personalising subject lines typically includes a recipients first and/or last name. By making an email personal it can help to gain the curiosity of the recipient and thus increase email open rates. But don’t just take our word for it, Klenty has found that personalising subject lines doubles email open rates. For non-personalised subject lines, the average open rate they found was 16.67%. For personalised subject lines their data indicates an average open rate of 35.69%. So, the next time you send an email, add a touch of personalisation.
6. DON’T include multiple call to actions (CTA’s)
Depending on the context of the email, be wary of bombarding your email with too many call-to-actions. For instance, a newsletter may include a few CTA’s for people to find out more information, but for more sales-led emails 1-2 CTA’s will suffice e.g. ‘Check out our new sale’ and/or ‘Read our blog on the hottest trends this Spring’.
For more helpful tips and tricks on digital marketing, take a look at our other blogs here.
A practical guide to creating a working social media strategy
Getting to work on a client’s social media gives you the chance to flex your creative muscles and can be one of the most exciting parts of being a digital marketing apprentice. However – without a clear plan in place, it can quickly go wrong and could cause more harm than good. If you’re wondering how to get started with creating a strategy that works, read on, as we take you through the most basic elements of a professional social media strategy.
1. Define your goals
What are you hoping to achieve with your social media posts? Engagement, following, email sign ups? Having a goal in mind as you create your content will help you communicate a clear message to your audience. If you’re working on behalf of a client, they might already have some goals they can share with you. Ultimately, social media makes up part of a businesses sales efforts and so should be trying to accomplish a goal either directly or indirectly.
2. Know your audience
Before you start posting, you need to know who you are trying to target. There’s no point in posting Love Island memes if you’re trying to sell life insurance to pensioners. You might have more than one target audience – these are known as your segments. In which case, you need to plan content that will resonate with each of these. This informs not just what you post in terms of content and tone – but where you do it. LinkedIn, for example, is best for reaching professionals. TikTok might be your best for Generation Z. Again, make sure there is a clear definition of who you or your client wants to reach.
3. Do your research
In two ways. Firstly, you need to understand the product or service you are promoting to the best of your ability. You will struggle to post genuine and engaging content if you have no idea what you’re talking about – and struggle even more to respond to any commenters! Secondly, you should take a look at what your biggest competitors are doing. In our experience, this is the best starting point for your own strategy. What do they post, when, and how is it working for them? This should inform what you then decide to post. Is there anything your competitors could be doing better, allowing you to fill in that gap in your own content? You might want to compile your findings to help you with the next step.
Social media is an important part of a digital marketers career.
4.Create some guidelines
It is best to write down in a document some clear guidelines for the content itself. The client might already have these in place – colour palettes, logos, and so on. You could even go a step further and create some ready-made templates for social media. This might make your actual content creation a lot quicker in future. When you’re doing this, you should keep the previous steps in mind, thinking about target audience and goals. Do this for all types of content – don’t forget the importance of blogs and articles, for example, for directing traffic to websites and creating content that can easily be shared across platforms.
5. Write your plan
This is the most important step, and is about you writing a detailed plan for content.
There are lots of free templates online or you can create your own. You should schedule ahead in blocks where you can, leaving some room for “reactive” content (responding to events that might happen spontaneously). At minimum, you want to define an exact post topic, a basic description, the platforms you want to post to and when. You can go a step further and define more details such as exact captions, links or images to be used. Depending on your client, this might be a two-way process. Planning in this way not only allows you to organise your own workload, but makes it easy to communicate your plans with a client.
6. Take advantage of the data
Plans are dynamic – they should be constantly updated based on the feedback you receive. Data comes in the form of client feedback – comments or direct messages, or if you want to get more technical, unsubscribe rates as an example. This can be positive or negative but can help you understand how people are reacting to your social media presence. Helpfully, most social media platforms also allow you to access actual statistics regarding individual posts or whole profiles – you should take time to review and understand the most important of these to know what content is doing well for you and what you can disregard. Then revise your plan based on this! And the cycle repeats.
You should now know everything you need to get started with a thorough and effective social media strategy. Understanding the main components of digital and social media strategies in this way isn’t only helpful in your job role – it is one of the core competencies you need to be able to demonstrate as part of the Level 3 digital marketing apprenticeship. Following the information laid out here, you should be able to meet that criteria. Found what you’ve read helpful? Why not read more helpful digital marketing tips and tricks over on our blog.
Level 3 Apprenticeship Digital Marketer – What You Need To Know
As a digital marketer, you’ll be
focussed on driving brand awareness and increasing brand reach through focussed
digital campaigns and monitoring social interaction and to get there you should
consider an apprenticeship!
But what are the main components to ensuring apprenticeship success in this highly competitive industry? Well….
Digital Marketing
Digital Marketer Apprenticeship: Lets Break it Down – 4 Key Elements
Undertaking this apprenticeship in Digital Marketer means that you embark upon a 2 year, structured programme which will incorporate 4 elements; Summative Portfolio; Synoptic Project; Employee Reference; Interview. Taking each turn below we break down the requirement and expectation of each section.
1.Summative Portfolio
is a collection of real-life projects, displaying the application of all the knowledge, skills and behaviours set out in the standard. You’ll be required to demonstrate a variety of competencies which include:
Written communication – highlight your ability to connect with a range of audiences
Research – analysing/interpreting data to inform decision on long- and short-term digital campaigns and strategies
Technologies – can confidently use different digital tool across different social platforms
Data- Monitor and analysis data that provides useful and helpful insight
Customer Service: can respond efficiently and effectively to queries across online and social platforms
Problem-solving: can demonstrate structured techniques to problems and can establish adequate resolutions
Analysis – ability to create and understand basic dashboards
Implementation – can design and implement campaigns across various digital platforms
Specialist areas – can demonstrate expertises in areas such as search Marketing, SEO, email etc
Digital tools – can demonstrate effective usage of tools across campaigns
Interpret and Follows – follows latest digital trends, can follow marketing plans, understands good industry standards and practices
Looks a scary list, but don’t worry as your manager and training provider will be on hand to help your through and make sure you hit all the required skills. Boom!
2. Synoptic Project
This is your opportunity to shine. Here you’ll be tested on your knowledge, behaviours and competencies against a set project carried out in a controlled environment. You’ll not expected to hit all the Knowledge, skills and behaviours, aim to touch on some of the important elements. The reason you are required to do this is to ensure there is consistency across all your work increasing the accuracy of the final assessment mark – can’t be a bad thing!
3. Employer Reference
This gives the assessor your manager’s perspective on how you have performed in the workplace and how you have demonstrated your learning to your everyday tasks and behaviours – might be a good idea to bring in gifts to your manager 😊.
4. Interview
Finally, after all the above has been done and dusted you’ll have your professional interview, but don’t fret! This is an opportunity to wow the assessor, provide further information and to discuss the evidence supplied in more details. Top Tip: Prepare – read through your summative portfolio, go over your synoptic project and swot up on the employee reference.
After completion of the interview,
you can sit back and await your result.
What’s Next For A Digital Marketer?
Apprenticeships provides a solid foundation for the role that you have studied. It offers significant opportunities for career advancement and further studies. Upon completion, apprentices can register:
On The independent Register of IT Technicians,
providing recognition of their competence in applying technical skills in a
business environment whilst signing up to a professional code of conduct and
behaviours.
Join as an Affiliate
(Professional) member of the CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing).
Digital Marketing Terms
Last But Not Least
Tthere was a lot of information there. But if working in Digital Marketing as a Digital Marketer is what you’re after then hopefully the above gives you a snapshot of what’s involved. We’ll shortly be adding this L3 apprenticeship to our ApprenticeTip.com portfolio but until then search our website for all apprenticeship opportunities and be sure to sign up to our newsletter so you’ll be first to know when we go live.
Interest in the world of Digital Marketing is growing, and as a Digital Marketing Apprentice, you will be expected to interpret and follow the latest developments in technologies and trends. Staying at the forefront of the developments in your industry will be vital for your business. It will also help you to be at your creative best when contributing ideas to marketing strategies for campaigns. Not to mention, it’s one of the key skills you’ll need to be able to demonstrate as part of your apprenticeship. But, with so much information out there nowadays, where’s the best place to start?
Dedicate Time to Reading / Listening to Your Favourite Publications
How you decide to organise your time is up to you. However, as someone who has also completed a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship, dedicating fifteen minutes each morning to reading an article from a marketing magazine or listening to a podcast really helped me broaden my knowledge. Some of the publications I enjoyed for staying up to date with current trends were Marketing Week, The Drum, and the Shopify Masters podcast.
If you’re specifically looking for UK-based publications, these include:
Although, if your role involves looking after territories beyond
the UK, such as EMEA or the US, I highly encourage you to explore some of the
publications dedicated to serving those areas.
Attend Industry Events
You might be lucky enough to have this one sorted for you by your employer. Whether it’s listening talks from industry professionals; going to workshops or seminars held by your company’s partners; or getting to attend industry festivals; there’s a wealth of opportunities out there for you to improve your marketing knowledge.
As someone who’s in the early stages of their career, you’re more likely to have time dedicated to your personal development. Therefore, you’ll have more time to explore events like these. They are a great way to get under the skin of the marketing industry as well as potentially contribute towards some of the Off-The-Job time that you need to log as a Digital Marketing Apprentice. Not to mention, it’s a great way to get networking outside of your organisation.
There is no better way to interrogate the methods of your
competitors than listening to them talk about their own marketing strategies.
If you don’t like the idea of going to in-person events, then Figaro Digital
host some really insightful virtual seminars.
Encourage Knowledge-Sharing Sessions Within Your Organisation
It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in your day-to-day work and the work of your team. In fact, sometimes we’re so focused on what we’re working on as individuals that we might not even know what other people in your team are working on.
Suggest to your Line Manager that you’d like to carve out 5 minutes of a team meeting to discuss campaigns that the team have seen and enjoyed this week; or things people have read that they found interesting. It can operate as an open forum or people can come with pre-organised topics. It’s up to you decide which format best works for your team. You might be surprised at some of the ideas sparked by simply talking about things. Bring on the brilliant campaigns of the future!
If you work in a department that does a lot of testing, why not set up a forum to share your work with the wider business. Or if you get an invite to a presentation being held by another team, go! You never know what nugget of knowledge another team might have. And it’s very likely that it could lead to the breakthrough you’ve been looking for, for your own strategy or creative brief.
These are just some of the ways that you can make staying on top of marketing trends easier for yourself as you go through your Digital Marketing apprenticeship. Give these tips a try and see what else you can find along the way.
If you’re working in the digital marketing space, building a customer relationship may be more important than you realise. Understanding your relationship with your current and potential customers is a must. With the ever-evolving social media space, we have more opportunities than ever to interact with a potential customer. These Customer Relationship tips may be just the thing to get you started!
Short and Sweet:
When interacting with your public, it’s best to keep it short and sweet. You don’t want to waffle on with a prospective customer. Keep messages short and precise with key information straight away while answering their query.
If you send a message to a customer and it is a long and drawn-out paragraph detailing various things which are unrelated to the original enquiry, you’re going to lose their interest quickly. Keep a message short and concise, you don’t need a large amount of text to be able to effectively help someone. If you have a website with a FAQ page, you can send them there as it will have the answer of their query.
Keep it Professional:
You’re working for a business, so you need to keep messages professional. Don’t open your replies with “What’s up mate” or use words like “innit”. This customer is looking to you as a voice of the business, you need to ensure you speak to them as such.
You want your customer to see you as a
professional point of contact. This way in the future they’re more likely to
want to enquire with you if you gave them a positive experience when trying to
interact with you and your business.
Keep in Touch:
Keep in contact with your customers. If a customer bought an item from you, then send them a quick email asking if it’s working well for them and if they like it. This can then open for questions about the product which you can answer directly for them. Keeping in touch and showing your customer that you care will go a long way in building a relationship with them.
Credit to iStock Photos and Marco VDM
Helpful and Efficient:
A customer is interacting with you in the hopes that you are going to answer a query they have. Failing to do so will have a negative impact on their view of you and the business you work for. Any question you’re sent needs to be responded to, ensuring your brand isn’t falling behind is an important area for digital marketers.
Make sure that your answer is concise
and is a direct answer to their question. Customers speaking to you are looking
for a full answer to their question, nothing else.
Personalisation is Key:
Customers want to feel like they’re
being spoken to, not responded with a generic pasted answer. Simply starting a
message with “Hi (Their name)” can go a long way in making your customer feel
like you are writing this answer for them instead of selecting a ready-made template.
Make sure to customise your text in a
way that will be perfect for them. If someone asks “Do you know how many dog toys
you have in stock? But I don’t like red toys” then make sure to give them a
selection that fits their criteria or find the total stock count without the
red items. Make sure to fulfil the entirety of the request to show the customer
you will go out of your way to help them.
Conclusion:
As you can see, building strong customer relationships can take a lot of work. Hopefully, these Customer Relationship tips will go a long way in helping you build your brand!
If you’re interested in more information about becoming a Digital Marketer, click here. You can also get in touch with any questions you might have.
An apprenticeship is a paid job where the employee learns and gains valuable real life experiences for a company and within the industry of their choice.
Alongside is the job-training, where as an apprentice, are expected to spend at least 20% of their weekly working hours completing and attending classroom-based learning with either a training provider or university as well as the duration of the programme will vary depending on the apprenticeship level. At the end of the programme, the apprentice will receive a nationally recognised qualification.
Secondly, what is Digital Marketing?
Digital Marketing, also known as online marketing, is the component of marketing that uses different types of digital communication (this include search engines or online platforms such as Facebook and Instagram) to connect potential customers to a brand, product or service in which they may have shown previous interest in.
So either you are thinking of starting an apprenticeship or have started your journey as an apprentice already, these tips will surely come in useful at any level!
Here are 5 tips to keep in mind when embarking your apprenticeship journey straight from an apprentice alumni, who have successfully graduated and have received their Digital Marketing Certificate within the last year at Apprenticeship Now.
Tip 1: Learn the role!
Finding out as much of the apprenticeship programme and the role is just as important as your CV. To increase your chances of getting the role, expand your knowledge and experiences by doing courses online or even applying for a junior role for a startup. The more experiences you have related to the role, the higher the chances you are being qualified for the role. I recommend completing an online course called ‘The Fundamentals of Digital Marketing’ from one of the leading companies in this space called ‘Google’, this will not only teach you all the basic knowledge but will also give you examples of how those can be applied in real life.
Tip 2: Never be afraid to ask questions
If you are struggling at something, be it at work or an apprenticeship task from the university or training provider, keep in mind that there is always someone to ask for help, there will always be someone assigned to look after you, either guide/manager from your assigned company or a training coach/professor from your training provider or university. Whoever it may be, they will be more than welcome to support whatever it may be.
Tip 3: Don’t get intimidated or be overwhelmed by the abilities of your colleagues
Remember, this may be the start of your professional career so you are not expected to know everything and you are certainly not expected to produce nor have the same capabilities or knowledge as someone who has been in the industry for years. Know that you do not need to rush things, take things slowly and you will get to that point soon enough.
Tip 4: Remember, you are still part of the team
Whatever stage you are in your apprenticeship, do remember that you are still part of the team and even though you may not have the same responsibilities as your colleagues, they will see you as a valuable member of the team who produces huge impact in every task you are set.
Tip 5: Observe your collegues and network
Watch how your team members interact with each other and clients, how they handle workload and separate work/life balance. You can learn a lot by watching, listening and talking to them. It is essentially a cheat code, rather than learning through trial and error, you can learn straight from them.
So you’ve just started your Digital Marketing apprenticeship, and you’ve been tasked with producing a blog post to help with a client’s SEO… But you have no idea where to start? Fear not, we have created the ultimate Digital Marketing guide to Maximizing a blog post for SEO
SEO can be a very confusing thing to get your head around to begin with, especially if you’ve only just started your digital marketing journey. It’s crucial to remember that SEO is constantly changing from industry to industry, so it’s unfortunately not a one size fits all solution.
That being said, SEO does not have to be all doom and gloom, and there are a few easy steps us Digital marketing professionals can take to optimize your content so that it reaches more people!
1) Digital marketing basics – How do search engines work …
Lets go back to the Digital Marketing basics and look at how search engines work.
There is 3 main processes:
1) Crawling: When someone first enters a query into a search engine such as Google, the search engine will use computer programs known as Crawlers, Spiders, or other bots to pull together relevant information on the internet
2) Indexing: The Crawling bots will then source a mixture of sites, images, maps, videos, and other forms of content and media and produce a list (or index) of sources relevant to the search
3) Ranking: The search engine bots will then look at the relevant results and rank the content in order of relevancy and deliver it to the searcher, this will be based on a mixture of keywords, titles, Paid/organic content, and several other factors
2) How do blog posts help SEO in Digital marketing?
Whilst on your digital marketing journey, it is likely that your clients will ask you to work on their SEO through blogging for them. Some of the main reasons that businesses start and maintain blogs include factors like:
Increasing traffic to websites or social media pages
Good quality blog posts help with search engine ranking
Blogs can result in increased brand awareness
Conversions (Sales, Email subscriptions, Signing up for events..)
Product launches or feature releases
Educational or step-by-step instructional content (Such as infographics or e-books)
When producing high-quality content, blogging can have great long-term impacts and can be a great way to keep traffic coming through to your website for months and years after publishing. High traffic rates can help with SEO by building authority for your website (which we will discuss later in this article) and can help you rank higher on search engines like Google and Bing. This can help you provide great results to your clients throughout your digital marketing journey
Hubspot studies also show that:
Companies who maintain a blog receive 97% more links to their website.
Marketers who prioritize their blog are 13x more likely to see positive ROI.
B2B marketers who blog get 67% more leads than those who don’t.
Websites with blogs have 434% more indexed pages (hint: this is huge for SEO purposes.)
Did you know that HTML and other back-end coding of your website are super important when it comes to SEO?
Throughout your Digital Marketing journey, you may be required to manage your clients website, whoch means you may need to understand the code on the back end of the website to help you maximize your SEO performance. A great place to learn more about simple HTML is Free Code Camp
This is a resource I found helpful when starting my Digital marketing journey, as understanding the basics of coding such as HTML and CSS can make a big difference when it comes to SEO.
But, if you are a beginner, or running a website yourself, a few good places to start are:
Title elements:
Using the HTML5 title element can help search engines determine what content your website provides.
For example:
<title> How to maximize a blog post (4 steps for beginners) <title/>
Here I have embedded my title within the <Title> Element in the HTML code on the backend of my website. This will help Search engines understand what my content is about and therefore bring it up in relevant searches.
According to Moz“Google typically displays the first 50–60 characters of a title tag. If you keep your titles under 60 characters, our research suggests that you can expect about 90% of your titles to display properly.”
Text elements:
Relevant body text should be embodied within the text element in HTML with specific keywords (which we will discuss later) so that search engines can determine what your blog post is about
For example:
<text> Here is a paragraph as an example of how to use the text element within HTML, Using this Element along with relevant Keywords can help search engines determine what your site is about and help it rank highly within Search engines <text/>
Relevancy is important when it comes to SEO, so make sure your body text is relevant to your audience and buyer personas, and that relevant keyword are used.
Meta Descriptions:
Meta descriptions are a HTML attribute that gives Search engines a summary of a web page. Many search engines will present the meta description in search results, just underneath the title.
Although Google has confirmed that Meta Tags don’t have an impact on a site’s SEO, they can increase click-through rates. For this reason, it is worth including them in your HTML
For example:
<head> <meta name=”description”
content=”Here is where you will write a description of your site, blog post or content to be read by search engines and visitors.”></head>
According to Moz – “Meta descriptions can be any length, but Google generally truncates snippets to ~155–160 characters. It’s best to keep meta descriptions long enough that they’re sufficiently descriptive, so we recommend descriptions between 50–160 characters.”
Image Alt attributes:
If you use images on your website, it is important that the coding behind them is relevant.
Images within your website/ blog posts should always have Alt text (alternative text) included within their HTML coding, Alt text is an alternative text that is shown when your website has trouble loading your images to website visitors for certain reasons (i.e poor connection)
Search engines aren’t able to see images the way humans do, so adding Alt text to your images explaining what the image shows allows the search engine to determine what the image is, and can help with SEO ranking.
For example:
<img src=”SEO.Jpeg” alt=”This is where you describe your image”>
The alt element also makes your website more accessible for people who have sight difficulties, as it allows screen readers to provide a description.
To write a good alt text description, make sure you provide a specific description that isn’t too lengthy, but not too vague. You also want to include at least one keyword, but not too many as this can flag up as spam for keyword stuffing (which we will discuss in the keywords section)
4) Use Relevant Keywords
Next, let’s talk about keywords. Keywords themselves are their own topic, so today we will brush over the Digital marketing basics of what keywords are, how to use them, and what to avoid.
What are keywords?
Essentially, your SEO keywords are the words and phrases included in your web content that make it possible for people to find your sites and blog posts on search engines such as Google and Bing.
Implementing good Keywords is important for SEO performance. Without them, your customers will land on the many other pages of your competitors on the internet, rather than yours.
Like most things regarding SEO, Keywords can take a lot of trial and error to find out which words work best at bringing traffic to your website.
Because of this, it’s important to spend time throughout your Digital Marketing career doing in-depth keyword research to find out what sort of words your customers and buyer personas are searching for to find content similar to yours.
A great place to start with Keyword research is by using tools such as:
Google Keyword Planner This tool allows you to input information on your website and pull up analytics on what keywords are working well for your site, as well as what ones to include in the future
Word streams Free Keyword Tool will suggest keywords relevant to your site and show you how competitive they are
Bings Webmasters tool provides several SEO tools, including keyword research tools and analytics
Long-tail keywords
Keywords must be reviewed on a regular basis, and high-volume, competitive keywords that are used by many other businesses similar to yours, can often be replaced with long-tail keywords to target more specific customers.
Long-tail keywords are highly specific and targeted phrases that are commonly searched by your customers.
For example, let’s say you run a Gourmet Bakery based in Kensington, and are releasing a new Blueberry Muffin on your menu. The competitive Keyword – “Blueberry Muffins” could be turned into a long-tailed keyword by changing it to “Gourmet Blueberry Muffins in Kensington”.
These specific phrases are designed not to bring in just any visitor to your site, but exactly the right visitors, who are looking specifically for your product or service. Therefore, it is worth including Long-tailed keywords in your blog posts to reach out to customers who are highly interested in what you have to offer.
How often should I use keywords?
Keywords should be included throughout your content at a normal cadence, that does not seem robotic to the reader. They should appear naturally within your writing, Image alt text, headings, and meta tags.
You mustn’t overuse keywords as this can appear as Keyword stuffing and could flag up as spam, meaning that Search engines will not show your site in search results.
5) Build Authority
When search engines are going through the indexing phase, they take into consideration 3 things. A sites Relevance, a site’s bid value (only necessary if you are using Google Paid ads, which we will discuss in another post), and Authority.
Authority is important as it can change whether your website and content will rank at the top or the bottom of google.
Authority is based on several things:
How many links you have to your blogs that are talked about and shared on social media often
Content that is referred to other websites or blog posts, otherwise known as backlinks. The more backlinks you have from good quality relevant sites, the higher you will rank on search engines.
Content that is cited by other works (for example press links)
Gaining authority is not something that happens overnight, and takes some work. You can help your clients gain authority through your digital marketing efforts with SEO, as compelling, unique, and high-quality content is more likely to be shared by other content creators and social media users than a website alone would.
You can measure your web site’s authority by looking at the link volume, page views, and time spent on different pages of your site.
You can use tools such as Moz’s link explorer to help you discover backlinks to your site, as well as help you discover links that may be damaging your site authority.
This is also a great tool that provides an estimated rank of your site’s overall authority on the internet by looking at the number of unique websites that have backlinks to your content.
Another great way to monitor backlinks is to set up a Google Alert for any mentions of your site throughout Google.
For more Digital marketing and apprenticeship tips and advice, be sure to check out our other blog posts by clicking here
You can also find more information on our social media pages:
The need for digital marketing has never been greater! Companies are always on the lookout for the next employee who will help them become the most sought-after.
Most people just think of a digital marketer as someone who just manages social media or writes a couple of blogs. These are tasks a digital marketer does but the job involves much more. Dependent on the type of digital marketer you decide to be there are many great benefits to joining this industry. You’ve come to the right place, if you’re looking to get into this industry or if you’re curious about its benefits.
1. Graduate marketing salaries are higher than the national average
Digital marketing jobs tend to be well paid. The average starting salary for a digital marketing graduate is around the £24,000 – £26,000 mark. In the field of digital marketing, the demand consistently outweighs the supply. So, this average will only increase as you develop in your career.
2. Stand out from the crowd
Instead of doing a course or a degree in digital marketing, an apprenticeship gives you real hands-on experience. This will give you knowledge and experience you can’t learn in the classroom.
3. Progression
After completing a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship, you can progress in more ways than you might think. In many cases, apprentices can receive promotions within their current employers or even be placed into higher-level apprenticeships. Having a qualification and work experience will make you more attractive to other employers if you decide to apply for high-level positions. The possibilities are endless when it comes to digital marketing, whether you want to be a digital marketing executive, manage a marketing team or open your own company.
4. Flexibility
People with a digital marketing career have a lot of flexibility in their work. Project deadlines are usually present in these kinds of jobs, so you can devote as many hours as you want to work. There is no need for digital marketers to work 9-5 as they can work from home, office or wherever they feel comfortable. Digital marketing careers include email marketing, referral marketing, content marketing, search engine marketing, influencer marketing, pay-per-click marketing, etc. For newcomers and those interested in pursuing a career in digital marketing, a digital marketing career offers a variety of options.
5. Number of roles
Another reason to choose a digital marketing career is that it provides numerous roles. The marketing strategies and techniques used in a digital marketing career vary according to the client’s needs and requirements. To add, another great benefit is once you’re in the digital marketing space it’s much easier to switch sectors, for example, moving from social media to programmatic advertising.
6. Constantly expanding
There is no doubt that digital marketing is an industry that is growing rapidly. In the last few decades, the internet has become an active component of people’s lives. A way of looking at it is that this is only the beginning of the internet. Businesses, blogs, websites, journals, and a lot more will continue to flourish as long as the internet is there. Digital marketing will continue to grow as long as there is the internet. It will allow as many people as possible who are passionate about marketing. Since digital marketing is such a vast industry, the number of digital marketers present isn’t even half of its potential.
Here is a link to a blog that includes the growth statistics surrounding digital marketing.
Conclusion
There is a lot of potentials for newcomers to invest in this industry, making it a good choice for those wanting to pursue careers in digital marketing.
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Career opportunities in the Digital Marketing world
There are many opportunities and room for advancement in pursuing a career in digital marketing. But is the field ideal for you?
55% of the marketing is digital; the need for digital skills and expertise is very high in demand. This makes a career in this field both secure and full of potential.
Why pursue an apprenticeship in digital marketing?
The truth about what employers are looking for
Ideally, employers would want both degrees and experience. A recent survey by recruitment specialists Universum found that 58% of leading employers value work experience among graduates more than grades or the name of their university.
Work experience advantage
University graduates may need to enhance their CVs and make special efforts to differentiate themselves from other applicants. You can distinguish yourself from the competition by completing an apprenticeship. An apprenticeship qualification demonstrates your commitment and time-management abilities. Employers will be able to tell how committed you are to your career because you’ll be working a full-time job in addition to studying for a qualification.
Earn while you learn
An apprenticeship will do the exact opposite of the debt you’d accrue while studying digital marketing at university. Particularly when they are provided by reputable businesses, apprenticeships pay a respectable and frequently competitive salary.
Contrary to what many people think, big corporations like Google, Facebook, and WISE are also taking advantage of apprenticeship programs.
Entry Requirements
Whilst entry requirements may differ for Level 3 Digital Marketing Apprenticeships across different agencies/companies, Multiverse entry requirements are GCSE English & Maths 4-9 (C-A*) or equivalent.
Knowledge Standards
Understand the principles of all of the following specialist areas: search marketing, search engine optimisation, pay-per-click, e-mail marketing, web analytics and metrics, and mobile apps, and understands how these can work together.
Understand and respond to the business environment and business issues related to digital marketing and client needs
Follow the required security levels necessary to protect data across digital and social media platforms.
If you are interested in finding out more information about apprenticeships, click here.
Looking to or have chosen the Level 3 Digital Marketing apprenticeship? Well this article is for you. With all the basics you need to know when making the first steps towards your career.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is the use of digital channels including online video, display ads, search engine marketing, paid social ads and social media posts. It is the promotion of brands to connect them with consumers using different forms of digital communication. There is no doubt that with it’s real time results and direct impact that it has grown rapidly against ‘traditional marketing’ which includes TV, magazine ads, billboards and direct mail.
What is a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship?
As all apprenticeships, you will be learning whilst earning. You will study alongside your job role, working towards a qualification recognised by your industry. A digital marketing apprenticeship can be used in a variety of different industries from fashion to media to law. You will gain many transferrable skills during your time within the apprenticeship which can lead to even more opportunities within your career path.
What do Digital Marketing Apprenticeships involve?
This will vary by the company you are working for and the apprenticeship you choose, however typically you will cover the following topics:
Market Research
SEO
Communication and Customer Service
Social Media Marketing Management
Planning and Budgeting Digital Marketing Campaigns
Email Marketing Campaigns
Content Marketing Campaigns
Throughout the apprenticeship you will gain an understanding of the below technical skills, this will be beneficial not only for your employer but for your final grade in your apprenticeship as you will demonstrate these competencies within your portfolio.
Written Communication – is able to apply a good level of written communication for a range of audiences across different digital platforms.
Research – is able to analyse and contribute to short term and long term strategies of campaigns.
Technologies – is able to demonstrate and apply effective use of digital technologies to achieve marketing objectives.
Data – is able to review, monitor and analyse online activity and provide recommendations and insights.
Customer Service – responds efficiently to enquiries using online platforms.
Problem Solving – is able to apply structured techniques to problem solving, and analyses problems and resolves issues across a variety of digital platforms.
Analysis – is able to understand analytical data and use the appropriate tools.
Implementation – is able to build and implement digital campaigns across a variety of digital media platforms.
Knowledge within Specialist Areas – SEO, PPC, E-Mail marketing, web analytics and metrics.
Digital Tools – is able to apply and understand the latest and most effective tools to use in campaigns.
Interprets and Follows – has knowledge and use of the latest news and trends in digital.
Entry Requirements
You will typically need to be over the age of 16 years old and have completed and passed your Math and English GCSE or equivalent. More information on this can be found on the .gov website.
Conclusion
The digital landscape is an ever-changing field and therefore so is digital marketing. The industry is dynamic; consumers, technology and competitors are constantly evolving. Embracing, understanding, and adapting to that change continuously presents exciting career opportunities. You can find more information from our current and previous apprenticeships on our website or can browse our apprenticeships here.
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