Imagine, you are learning a skill that is essential for every business today, small or big, local or international – for everyone. Digital marketing is that skill. It’s not just a job, but a career path that combines creativity, data analysis and strategic thinking. As the world is getting digital, the demand for digital marketers is increasing.

When I started working in 2000, the concept of Digital Marketing was not developed so much. This is probably because people in India are still not used to doing digital transactions. Digital Marketing was then focused on the technical side.

But the time has now changed. Digital marketing is now a full fledged carrier.

📘 Building the foundation (the foundation)

Before building any house, the foundation must be strengthened. Even before entering into digital marketing, some basic ideas and skills will give you a lot of progress.

🧩 Basic Concepts (Core Concepts): Learn these ideas:

🔻Sales Funnel: It is a step-by-step process of inserting the customer from one side like a stick and throwing it out on the other side.

• 📢 Awareness (awareness): People can know about your brand.
• 👀 Interest (interest): They want to know more about your product/service.
• ⚖️ Consideration (consideration): They compare between you and your opponent.
• 💰 Conversion (conversion): They buy.
• 🤝 Loyalty: They buy again and again and ask others to buy.
• 🛒 Call to Action (Cta – Call to Action): Telling your audience what to do. Eg- ‘Buy now’, ‘Learn more’, ‘Register’.
• 💹 Return on Investment (ROI – Return on Investment): Calculate how much profit you are getting against the money or time you are spending.

⚙️ Required Skills (Essential Skills): Skill will be needed with the idea

To become a good marketer you need these skills:

• Analytical Skills (Analytical Skills): By looking at the data, you can understand what is working, what is not working.
• Communication Skills (communication skills): able to write and speak clearly and interestingly.
• Creativity: Creating new ideas and interesting content.
• Interest and desire to learn (Curiosity & Willingness to Learn): The digital marketing field is constantly changing, so there is always an interest in learning something new.

🚀 Learning shortcut (the ‘shortcut’ to learning):

There are no magic shortcuts, but there are smart paths. Don’t try to learn everything together, nothing will be skilled! Instead, choose a specific branch (eg social media marketing) and learn 80% of that stuff well. The remaining 20% will be learned slowly. Be skilled in one thing and go to another.

🌿 Different Branches and Your Personality (Branches & Personality Fit)

There are many branches of digital marketing. Not all branches are equally suitable for everyone. See which branch matches your personality.

🕵️♂️ Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Detective’s Work

• Being SEO Techniques to bring the website to the first page of Google.
• Suitable for whom? Those who are patient, love to solve puzzles, are interested in data and minor technical matters. If you are a Detective (The Detective) be, that CLUE If you like to find out, then SEO is for you.
• Daily work: Keyword Research (Keyword Research), Content Optimize (Content Optimize), Backlink Analysis (Backlink Analysis), Technical Audit (Technical Audit).
• Necessary tools: Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Ahrefs, Semrush.
• How to start: Open a WordPress blog and try to rank your blog on Google.

🎥 Content Marketing – Storyteller’s Work

• Content Marketing Gaining customer trust by creating valuable content (writing, video, infographic).
• Suitable for whom? Those who love to write or make videos, like to tell stories and look forward to helping people. If you are a Storyteller (The StoryTeller) If so, this is for you.
• Daily work: Writing blog posts, creating video scripts, creating content calendars, researching various topics.
• Necessary tools: Google Docs, Grammarly, Canva, Buzzsumo.
• How to start: Start a blog or YouTube channel on any topic of your choice.

🦋 Social Media Marketing (SMM) – Social Butterfly or social butterfly work

• Social Media Marketing – Promoting brands and building relationships with customers on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc.
• Suitable for whom? Those who love to mix with people, keep trend news, like to post creatives and are interested in working with pictures/videos. If you are a The Social Butterfly Be, from the flower to the flower, then SMM is for you.
• Daily work: Scheduling posts, responding to comments and messages, running ad campaigns, managing community.
• Necessary tools: Meta business suite, canva, buffer, hootsuite.
• How to start: Offer to manage your family’s small business or friend’s page for free.

🎯 Pay-Per-Click (PPC) / Paid Ads – Tactical Player Work

• Pay-per-click (PPC) – Bring instant results by spending money on Google Ads or social media ads.
• Suitable for whom? Those who love to work with numbers and budgets, like to take risks and want to see results quickly. If you are a Tactical Player (The Strategist) If you love to play chess or chess, then PPC is for you.
• Daily work: Creating ad campaigns, setting budgets, doing keyword bidding, writing ad copy, doing results analysis.
• Necessary tools: Google Ads, Facebook Ads Manager, Google Keyword Planner.
• How to start: Take Google’s free certification course and run an ad campaign for yourself on a small budget ($5-$10).

🗺️ The action plan

After selecting ideas and branches, now it’s time to get down to real work.

📚 Step 1: Self-Learning

• Free Resources:
  • GoogleS Digital Marketing Courses (Digital Garage): Best free resource.
  • Hubspot Academy: There are great courses on inbound marketing, content marketing.
  • YouTube: Follow the channels of marketers like Neel Patel, Matin Khan, Sunny Mehmood.
• Paid Resources:
  • Udemy, Coursera: You will get good courses for deep knowledge in specific subjects.
  • coursedemy: A popular platform for doing digital marketing courses in Bengali.

🖼️ Step 2: Build Your Portfolio (Build Your Portfolio)

How to make a portfolio without experience? Create your own experience!

• Start a blog: Open a blog about your hobbies (such as reading books, traveling, cooking) and try to get traffic from Google by SEO. This will be your best proof.
• Run a Facebook page: Manage a page for free for any small business in your area. Increase followers and increase engagement.
• Create your own website: Create a simple website in your own name and show your work, skills and learning samples there.

🏅 Step 3: Get Certification (Get Certified)

The certificate proves your skills and increases the price on the CV.

• Google Ads Certification
• Google Analytics Certification
• Hubspot Content Marketing Certification
• Facebook Blueprint Certification

🧑💻 Step 4: Freelancing or Internship (Freelancing or Internship)

There is no substitute for practical experience.

• Freelancing Marketplace: Bid for minor tasks on Upwork, Fiverr, or native platforms. In the beginning, you can take a job for less money for experience.
• Internship: Join a digital marketing agency as an intern. It has a lot of learning opportunities.

🌍 Real-world perspectives (real-world insights)

🧑🎓 A Case Study: Manik’s Story

Manik was a normal university student. He had no idea of digital marketing. He follows the following steps:

1. Education: He first completes the free course of Google Digital Garage.
2. Branch selection: He understands that he loves to write, so turns to content marketing and SEO.
3. Portfolio: He started a blog on ‘History of India’ and started writing regularly for 3 months. He learns SEO and optimizes his blog posts.
4. First Success: After 4 months, one of his blog posts came on the front page of Google and started getting traffic on his blog.
5. First work: He gets the job of writing part-time content for a small online shop showing his blog and certificate.
6. Career: Within a year, his work experience and portfolio saw him a job as a junior SEO expert.

Education: With patience and mastering a task and creating real evidence (portfolio), it becomes easier to start a career.

💡 Some tips and tricks (Tips & Tricks):

• Do Networking: Follow Digital Marketers on LinkedIn, comment on their posts. Join the Facebook group and exchange knowledge.
• Follow Industry News: Read websites like Search Engine Journal, Social Media Examiner regularly.
• Document your own work: Save the results of what you are doing (such as increasing traffic, increasing sales) in the form of screenshots. They will strengthen your portfolio.
• Don’t be afraid of failure. An ad campaign may flop, no content may go viral. Learn from them and move on.

⚠️ Avoid common mistakes (common mistakes to avoid):

• Trying to learn everything together: Nothing can be learned well in it.
• Just learning the tools: Learn the Strategy before learning the tools. Tools are just a helper.
• Drowning in additional information: Don’t get confused by watching many blogs, many videos. Choose a good mentor or two and follow them.
• being impatient: It takes time to get results especially in SEO and content marketing. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t get results in 3 months.

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🏆 Conclusion: Start your journey

Digital marketing is a thrilling and rewarding career field. There is no shortcut to success, but if you are patient in the right direction, success is inevitable. Start learning by choosing the branch of your choice today. Remember, the first step is the most difficult. Once you start, you can become a successful digital marketer.