Why digital marketing is proving a satisfying second career path July 28th, 2023
Why digital marketing is proving a satisfying second career path
Gone are the days when people remain in one profession, and even at one company, for their entire careers. Statistics reveal that the average person makes a career change at around age 39, and a digital marketing job could be just the choice for you, says Charles Edelstein of Executive Placements.
There are many reasons cited in the research for making a career change. The experts at Apollo Technical, for example, list just a few of these as:
• needing to earn more;
• wanting to do more meaningful work;
• requiring more competent management;
and
• believing that better work-life balance would be possible.
What is digital marketing?
IT guru Neil Patel describes digital marketing as the use of a range of digital channels to promote the products or services that a business is offering. Channels include the likes of search engines, social media platforms, email, mobile apps, and websites; and forms of digital marketing include search engine optimisation, pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing, and content marketing.
Two statistics stand out in Patel’s article on the subject. They are the fact that the global digital advertising and marketing sector is poised to reach a spend of US$786.2 billion by 2026, dominated by click through and display advertisements; and the digital marketing industry in the US alone is already worth around US$460 billion.
Yes, the static billboard advertising of decades past has been replaced by advertising on mobile devices (smart phones, tablets, digital screens) to ensure that the product or service being sold lands up in front of its ideal target market. Patel writes that there are approximately “5.31 billion mobile phone users worldwide, 4.95 billion internet users, and 4.62 billion social media users,” although you probably need little convincing of the impact of these numbers.
According to recent data released by mobile industry insights company GSMA, mobile phone subscribers stand at 46 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, while smartphone adoption is at 64 percent. Mobile technologies and services contributed over US$130 billion to the region’s economy (eight per cent of GDP) in 2021, and Africa is likely to add 120 million new mobile subscribers by 2025 – taking the total number of subscribers to 615 million (50 percent of the region’s population). With more than 40 percent of its population being under age 15, first-time youth consumers with a mobile phone will continue to drive growth in this sector for the foreseeable future.
Reasons to make this your second career
When transitioning to a second career, following a short phase of study perhaps, you’ll want the profession that you’ve chosen to be seem as highly desirable to the general business population as it could possibly be. Patel advises that digital marketing helps companies to reach a wider audience, is much more tailored, data-centric, and cost-effective than other forms of advertising, and couldn’t possibly be more engaging, competitive and measurable –until it makes new advances with the latest technologies.
Whether you take on a permanent digital marketing job at another company, or go on your own as a freelancer, there’s no denying the degree of demand for digital marketing specialists. In fact, a LinkedIn article has estimated that we could be seeing as many as 860 000 global openings for this kind of work (both permanent and contract) in the five years ahead.
Further, online training portal for career change CareerFoundry reckons that this kind of work welcomes a diversity of individuals, was named by Glassdoor as one of the 50 best jobs in the US last year (i.e. in 2022), allows individuals to shape the future by increasing client revenue and performance, and permits each individual to select whether a small NGO, big corporate, sole tradership, or marketing agency is their ideal base to work from.
So, if this is your calling for a second career, now’s the time to book a course, draw up a CV and portfolio, and begin the interview process. Remember – most jobs today have a significant online component, meaning many of your already honed skills and attributes will be easily transferable into this vibrant and rewarding new career.