4 Good Reasons to Choose a Career in Digital Marketing in South Africa

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Digital Skills are becoming an essential part of every business that wants to succeed

South Africa is a country with a very high unemployment rate, that is because there are many jobs but not enough people with the skills that employers are looking for. Currently there is a high demand for people with digital skills, just check on job sites if you do not believe me. The demand is because of the shift that is happening from traditional marketing on things like tv, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards to new media which is the internet and everything it makes available to potential customers through videos, social media sites and websites. Advertisers can now reach their customers through their phones as more and more people use smart phones and thus have access to the internet now, which was previously reserved for people with computers and an internet connection.

Firstly because there is such a high demand for social media marketers, copywriters and digital marketers, some employers are willing to hire people with no qualification and train them especially if they can prove through their social media profiles that they can  attract a lot of followers and get people to share whatever they post. The other thing one could do to convince a potential employer that they are good at online marketing is to start a blog or create a website (there are hundreds of online tutorials teaching people this online) and grow that blog so that it becomes popular. This is best achieved by blogging about things that you know about (things you consider yourself an expert in e.g fashion, cooking etc) or things that are important to you and won’t bore you after a while. Growing a blog will require you to learn about internet marketing and if you are able to run a popular successful blog it can be a huge factor on your cv. After you gain some experience you could enrol for a 1 year certificate at an advertising school such as the AAA School of advertising which requires you have 3 years working experience or a 3 year degree/diploma to enrol in their Strategic Marketing & Advertising Programme.

The AAA school of advertising which has internationally recognised courses (and I am sure other such schools) have a 1 year foundation programme to allow you to study any marketing degree they have on offer after completion of the foundation course. This means that even if you were not serious in high school you can still get a degree without a diploma or bachelors pass and don’t have to be saddened by all your friends who are jetting off to university.

At the AAA School of advertising you can choose between doing a degree & diploma for 3 & 2 years respectively or you could study part time whilst having a full time job attending school only 3 times a week after working hours for 4 years. Another popular school I keep noticing on people's LinkedIn profiles is the Red and Yellow school, check out their courses, they also offer online courses. Another way to get into digital marketing would be to study at a traditional university for a bcom (preferably majoring in marketing but you can still get in even if your major was not marketing) and do a short course on digital marketing.

You can start off as an intern, some internships do not pay but you can find internships that start paying from R3000 a month that allow you to work part-time. If you are lucky and have a good cv you will get an internship that pays above R5000 a month. Internships in digital marketing typically range from 3 to 6 months but there are outliers of course. They require that you have digital skill (obviously) and a good command of English. The great thing about digital marketing is that if you are a fast learner and take initiative you can go up the ranks pretty quickly and your earning potential will increase exponentially the more experience you have and the more digital skills you pick up. Just go indeed.co.za and search digital marketing jobs and you will see that there is huge earning potential with guys making up to and sometimes above R60 000 a month with 3 to 5 years’ experience. The typical hierarchy would look something like this; the intern earning R 0 - R6 000, the junior digital marketer earning R6 000 - 12 000, the senior digital marketer earning R10 000 - R25 000 and the digital marketing manager earning R15 000 – R60 000+. If you don’t believe me search for things like seo specialist, online marketing specialist, seo manager, digital marketing specialist and see what the range on salaries is. Online careers are on the rise, take advantage of this now and get yourself some digital skills as skill-less people will not get any jobs in this country or will find it hard to get jobs.

5. [BONUS!] You can travel and work from any location with an internet connection -

Once you have established yourself and built a good reputation for yourself in the industry you don't need to work at a job that requires that you be in an office for 8 hours. You could freelance and travel, and do all your work on the go. Most digital marketing tasks can be done on the go, it is just that some clients would require face to face meetings which can be done via Skype. As a newbie maybe this would be difficult to pull off but when you are established and your clients trust you, this is possible that is what the top guys in digital marketing have been doing for years.

Anyways I love the internet and can see the value of the internet and the growth it will still have in South Africa as the middle class increases and the poor get more excess to it through cell phones. The internet has been a big booster of the American economy as most of the company’s based in Silicon Valley are tech “internet companies”, think of billion dollar businesses such as Google and Facebook which are services some of us use every day. The internet has been the fastest way people in first world countries become millionaires for over 20 years now, it’s time we also take advantage of the internet and we as Africans must also benefit from the internet. I hope you enjoyed this article and that I have opened your eyes to different possibilities. Please SHARE THIS POST and subscribe to sa varsity student by liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter or subscribing via email to get the latest blog posts.

Bonus info: Go check out http://www.whyadvertising.co.za/ to learn about the different types of careers in advertising.