Entering Digital Marketing With Zero Investment

“Pritesh, I need help. How can I learn and enter into digital marketing?”

This is probably the most common question that I receive in my DMs as well as in person when I meet people. I can totally understand the reason.

For those who have landed on this website for the first time and don’t know about me – I built several digital products and scaled them. Apart from that, I am a freelance digital marketer managing a full-time job in the same industry.

I will tell you my journey in a nutshell:
Content Writing > Social Media Marketing > Video Marketing > WordPress > SEO > Content Marketing > Email Marketing > Products

I have mentioned my story in a detailed manner in the “About” section of this website. I didn’t spend a single Rupee on learning these skills.

I spend heavily now. But that’s because I reinvest to grow. But it’s not at all necessary to spend so much to get your first paycheck.

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Learning digital marketing is easy but getting results by consistently applying those skills is challenging.

Digital marketing is a fairly new career stream and not many people are aware of the potential. There is no formal education and it becomes tough to convince parents.

While entering this field of online marketing, remember 2 important things –

• You need to be extremely passionate about marketing because you need to find your own answers all the time.
  • Each and every business is different and there is no fixed way for anything. No matter how expert someone claims to be, that person is not aware about the challenges faced by your business. Simple.
• You don’t need degrees, certificates or even courses. Applying skills practically is the only solution.
  • None of my clients or employers asked for any certificates till date. My portfolio worked. ALWAYS.

Start Your Journey In Digital Marketing

Phase 1: Find Your Strength

Digital marketing is too vast. Of course, you can try to do everything. But you can’t specialize in everything.

My personal recommendation would be to pick up one skill and becoming highly specialized in that. I made the mistake of trying to do everything. You can avoid that.

Now understand yourself and make a decision ~

• Are you a creative person? If you enjoyed drawing or writing during your school days without any restrictions then you can opt for –
  • Graphic Designing
  • Video Editing
  • Web Designing
  • Content Writing
• Are you strategic person? If you loved to play strategy games and creating strategies in your childhood then you can consider entering –
  • Funnel Building
  • Email Marketing
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Are you an analytical person? If you loved playing with numbers and getting insights then you have some options like –
  • Web Analytics
  • Social & Search Ads
  • Data Analytics

A digital marketer with coding knowledge is a killer personality. Coding knowledge is not necessary but if a digital marketer understands code then it’s a cherry on the ice.

Should you try to learn everything? Depends on your goal.

Are you looking for a job or freelance projects? Just learn one skill and go ahead.

Are you planning to launch a startup or expand your business? Learn the basics of everything.

Phase 2: Start Learning

• Offline institutes – There are several offline coaching classes that teach the basics of digital marketing. If you need personal support then you should opt for an offline institute.
• Online courses – If you prefer to learn at your own pace then you can join an online course.

Offline institutes generally charge heavy fees while online courses are free as well as cheap. But it depends on what you prefer.

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Important – No one will teach you in-depth digital marketing. They will just teach your concepts and tools. You need to apply those skills later.

I have never done any course. I purely learned the concepts from YouTube videos and blogs to apply those skills to my personal projects.

Best way to learn – Observe how brands and businesses work on their digital marketing. Ads and content are all around you. Try to understand their funnels and how they target you.

In fact, ads can be fun if you start learning from them. I wrote a dedicated blog about it.

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Phase 3: Start Applying

Every digital marketer has a different journey but if you ask me, I will tell you a simple and free way to learn multiple skills together.

You just need 2 things initially –

• WordPress Website or Blog – To test and play with your online identity
  • Skills acquired: Website Technicals, WordPress, Web Designing, Search Engine Optimization
• Social Media Pages – To promote your website content
  • Skills acquired: Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, Online Selling

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All of these things are totally free if you are just starting.

If you are ready to invest then I would recommend getting a hosting plan and a custom domain name. It looks professional and doesn’t cost much.

In this way, you can keep on learning every module of digital marketing on your own – ads, affiliate marketing, email marketing, lead generation, and so on.

Keep polishing your skills and become a master of them.

Phase 4: Start Making Money

Done with learning and practicing your skills? There are various ways to use digital marketing skills.

Here are some common ways how digital marketers make money –

• Job – Just like there is no formal education for digital marketing, there is no limit to earn in a job as well. These jobs are fully online and you join as an in-house marketer for a company. Unlike IT, there is no salary range. People earn millions through jobs as well.
• Freelancing – Once you master a skill, you can help business-people to grow their businesses online.
• Content creation – Blogs make money, YouTube videos make money, podcasts make money. Content makes money.
• Sell products – This is my favorite way. Build some products and become a master of your will. You sell products and the whole profit goes into your pocket. Products can be anything – ebooks, software, subscriptions, etc.

Overall, the digital marketing space is becoming crowded day by day. It seems extremely easy but it is not.

It looks fascinating to make money online by creating posts for social media and blogs. Anyone can do that, right?

Apparently, no.

It requires years of patience and problem-solving ability to evolve and grow with the skills. No doubt, the demand is going to increase with time.

With more businesses coming on the Internet, digital marketing skills are never going to get saturated.

Best wishes for your journey.

Cheers!

P2