Specialisms within the Digital and Media Marketing industry

There are a lot of different elements and therefore a lot of specialisms within the Digital and Media Marketing industry. Therefore, this is an industry with a niche for every type of graduate. Take a look at the sectors below and see which one’s for you.

Online Marketing

This covers things such as search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), pay-per-click (PPC) and social media.

SEO is all about making sure your website comes top of search engine results so prospective consumers see your site first. Ways marketers can engineer this is to use specific keywords in their websites so the site seems more relevant to the right search results.

SEM is all about the utilisation of search results for marketing purposes (for example, adverts on Google search results). The text you see in adverts on search pages needs real skill to craft: with a single digit number of words to sell your company, you have to make the most of them.

PPC is the industry standard way of pricing advertising, the more clicks an advert receives, the more popular and successful it is, the more the advertiser has to pay. It also falls under the Online Marketer’s aegis to manage social media. They’ll be creating campaigns, promoting posts, replying to consumer tweets and raising the profile online. 

You’ll like this role if you: 

• Love posting updates to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc.
• Put yourself into marketing roles for your society, for example crafting slogans and social media updates.
• Enjoy customer facing roles.
• Want to see real world results from your work.

Online Content

Content is a key marketing tool that has really come of age in the last few years. Content can be articles, videos, stories and blogs, and they’re all used to execute the brand’s social purpose.

For example, Coca Cola will use Youtube in a very different way to John Lewis: Coca Cola will look to do something fun and quirky, while John Lewis will be all about nostalgia and pulling at heart strings. Therefore, it’s down to the content creators to produce the most relevant content to promote the brand effectively.

Platforms and capabilities are changing all the time and a content producer needs to stay on top of trends to make sure their content is where the consumers are.

You’ll like this role if you:

• Love writing. This is where English Literature grads and student journalists can shine.
• Love trying new things, from technologies to phones to writing styles.
• Already have personal blogs on sites like WordPress and Tumblr, and more importantly, tailor your writing to whoever you think is reading.

Web Development

While at first sight this sector looks like it should belong with Technology, increasingly, the coding and designing of websites is moving away from the domain of computer programmers and towards Marketers.

The creation of e-newsletters, formatted emails, microsites and open source platforms often requires the use of HTML, CSS and languages such as Javascript. Digital Marketers often now need to boast not just Word, Excel and Photoshop skills, but HTML too, in order to execute their role.

Likewise, a company’s website creation needs two teams of people – one to design the skeleton and inner workings of the site, the “back end” and one to design the “front end”, e.g. the decoration. The front end developers will work closely with the brand managers to produce images, graphics and designs which are in keeping with brand values. Both teams will be working on UX “User Experience” to make sure the site is not only easy to use, but conducive to achieving the site goals such as increasing sales or driving shareability.

You’ll like web development if you:

• Love online consumer sites such as Net-a-Porter, ASOS, Amazon and Uber.
• Have an eye for the aesthetic - whether it’s adjusting Instagram filters, designing PowerPoint presentations, or designing University Society flyers and websites.
• Have a knack for making complex ideas simple, and communicating them – are you someone who spends a lot of time planning an essay to make sure its structure is as effective as possible?
• Are a languages student. Languages students often have a knack for programming languages which also have syntax, structures and instructions.
• Enjoy using programmes like Matlab and LaTex in your degree.

Learn the skills you need for marketing and PR.

Analytics and research 

This niche is where all the detective work and conclusions are done.

Organisations monitor the usage of their site in order to inform their business decisions. They can do this to an incredible extent – sites can know when and where their users visit their site or use their app. They will know how long the user stays there, where they go on from the webpage, they can install cookies which follow the user around the web so that when the user returns, their experience of the website is completely tailored.

The sheer volume of information is known as Big Data and this huge repository of data is an invaluable, albeit unwieldy, resource. It is up to the Analytics team to communicate their customers’ behaviour to the business. They need to implement metrics, but, more importantly, they need to work out which metrics are important.

For example, what is more useful to know: the number of views a Youtube video has, or the average length of time a viewer spends watching it? What can each metric tell you, and what can it not? It will be up to the analysts to decide. Consequently, it’s a role that needs a commercial mind as analysts need to tap into the consumer pulse, understand it and measure it.

You’ll like Analytics if you:

• Keep an eye on likes and follows on your social media – and adapt your content accordingly.
• Like taking raw data and turning into something real and communicable – like graphs.
• Ask “why” something is happening. Perhaps you wonder why a meme goes viral, or why teenagers are turning away from Facebook – or finding out if they are.
• Find yourself excelling in projects where you have your own role within a team, as opposed to a true team role, e.g. you’re a golfer not a footballer.
• Prefer numbers to a client facing role.