Lesson 3 – What is the Best Way to Learn Digital Marketing?

Welcome to the next lesson in your digital marketing course. In this lesson let’s discuss what is the best way to learn digital marketing. Start with this video lesson:

In the next lesson, we will discuss in more detail how to create your own website or blog and start practicing digital marketing.

Buy Web hosting and Get Free Domain Name:

Having your own website is important to learn digital marketing. I recommend starting your own blog (we will discuss about this in the future lessons).

If you want a good starter hosting package for your blog, go ahead and sign up for an account from BlueHost. They also provide you with 1-click WordPress installation.

You can go ahead and purchase the 1-year plan that will cost around $65. That’s just $5.5 per month (Rs.350 per month) and you will be able to host multiple WordPress blogs with the same account. If you purchase a 2-year or 3-year plan, the cost per month is even lower.

How to Master all Digital Marketing Modules

Digital marketing has many modules inside it as you would have learned in the previous lesson. And each module is an ocean in itself. As with any topic, the best way to learn something would be to learn a bit of theory first and then practice it.

But Digital Marketing is a little different from other topics because things change very quickly and rapidly. Which means that you have to keep practicing it. With more practical experience your understanding of the digital marketing concepts will become stronger over time. But you learn and stop practicing, what you have learned will not have any value as time goes on.

For example, if you have learned something about search engine marketing the last year, by now the concepts would have changed and if you have not updated yourself, you are as good as someone who doesn’t know about search engine marketing.

Think about other areas such as the study of the human body, or the study of construction or manufacturing.

Here the concepts do not change that fast. The human body is complex, but it has been the same for 1000s of years and will be the same at least for the next few 100 years. Construction technology also doesn’t change that much. If you graduated in structural engineering, your knowledge would be good for at least 5 to 10 years even if you don’t update yourself.

However there are downsides in other areas of study. To become a doctor, you need to practice treating people. And you cannot do it on your own. You have to join a medical college which will give you access to patients along with other doctors so that you can practice it.

Similarly if you are learning about manufacturing, you have to intern at a manufacturing company to learn the practical part of it. So someone who is sitting at home can learn the theory of human body or manufacturing but to start practicing it he has to depend on others.

The Advantage in Learning Digital Marketing

Though digital marketing is changing rapidly, the advantage is that you can practice digital marketing from the comfort of your home. All you need to do is start a website and do things that you are learning. It doesn’t cost much to get a domain name, hosting and install a website on it.

You can open an adwords account, a social media page for your website, create a facebook ads account and so on. Adwords, Facebook and Bing advertising platforms come with free $50 or $100 credits that will help you try their platform before you become a serious advertiser.

Most of the digital marketing tools that are available online come with a free trial and you just need a credit card to sign up. You can try out the product and write about it on your blog. This will showcase the fact that you know how to use these tools. For example, I tried out heat maps on my website and also learned how you can use heat maps to improve user experience on your website.

Today I am considered as one of the top digital marketing experts in India but most of the digital marketing concepts I have learned is by running my own websites. I have also learned by working in other companies but I would consider that 70% of the practical knowledge I have today is from my own projects.

When you go through a paid or free training course, you will get a course completion certificate. However this certificate only shows that you have learned digital marketing.

People do not hire you for your knowledge. They hire you for the results that you can bring.

Knowledge is available online with just a few clicks and anyone can learn something from Wikipedia, YouTube or one of the websites online.

When you want to work with a company as a consultant or an employee, you have to bring results for them. And before you can work with them and bring results, you have to get hired. And c ompanies will hire you only if you show them that you can bring results.

To show them that you can bring results, you need proof. You can’t tell them that you have a certification in digital marketing – that would only prove that you know digital marketing.

If you are working in a company as a digital marketing manager or any other digital marketing role, then it is easy to show your work or project to them. However if you are just getting started in the digital marketing field, the only way to show a proof would be to show the results of your own website or blog.

If you start a website of your own and start driving traffic to it, you will not only have a platform to practice, but it also becomes a proof that you know digital marketing. When I get consultancy projects or job offers, the person who wants to hire me has already seen my website and the other projects I have done.

I get 10,000+ visitors a month to my personal blog. That becomes a proof that I can get results.
In the last few job interviews, no one asked me questions. They are hiring me for what I know and what they don’t know. Also, I never had a resume. My website and projects become my resume.

Such showcase of expertise is not just limited to digital marketing. One of my friend got hired as an iOS developer in Instamojo (I used to work in that company). He got hired because he had developed an iOS app as a freelancer. His website, portfolio and his projects became his resume.

Conclusion

I hope in this lesson you learned that you have to learn digital marketing by practicing it. So in the next lesson we will explore how to get your own domain name, hosting and install a blog on it. The blog will become your platform for learning as well as a project that you can showcase.

You can start a blog about any topic that you like. It could be about movies, motorcycles, cars, technology, meditation, health and anything that interests you. If you need help in choosing a topic, post your questions in our Learn Digital Marketing Facebook Forum.

Here are some more articles from my website that will help you get started:

I am looking forward to see you setup a blog or website of your own. And if you don’t know how to proceed, you can ask me here. You have to complete this step before we can move on to other lessons. So as soon as you are done making your blog, email me.

Keep Learning!

– Deepak