Last Updated on 2021-03-28 by ppcguybklyn
In the United States, the options for finding digital marketing jobs are very diverse. Almost every field has companies looking for specialists. So what kind of skills and experience should we have to apply for these positions and stand out in the interviews? In this article, I have sorted out common digital marketing jobs in the United States, and what conditions should be met to have an advantage when applying.
Digital Account Manager
Although the title is manager, Account Manager is one of the more entry-level jobs in digital marketing. Most of the company’s Account Manager is responsible for acting as a bridge between customers and specialists and conveying customer needs to the corresponding specialists and informing the customer about the account planning. Simply put, this position favors project management and customer relations. It is a very common job in medium and large digital marketing agencies. The number of customers that an Account Manager will be assigned will depend on the size of the company.
Skills and experience
This position has relatively low requirements for professional digital marketing skills, usually with basic understanding is enough. However, because it is a position that directly interacts with customers, the companies generally tend to recruit people who have salespeople characteristics and are good at communicating with others. Account Manager is a good choice for those who just graduated and want to get started because the entry barrier is low. However, if you are not good at communicating with customers, you may still have to consider whether the job is suitable or not.
Specialist
Specialist, as the name suggests, is the job of specializing in operating certain digital marketing services. A slightly larger agency or company will try to separate each different service into an independent business so that the work can be more specialized and simple. Of course, if the company is not large, it is very common to merge multiple services into one position. However, in general, the Specialist of digital marketing can probably be distinguished by the following businesses:
PPC / SEM
PPC Specialists are responsible for operating paid search advertising or other paid advertising accounts, such as Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, Ad Roll, and so on. Usually, PPC / SEM specialists will also help other related businesses that require keyword research, such as planning SEO content and so on.
SEO
The business scope of the SEO specialist is very wide. Any work that can improve the SEO ranking of the website, such as website content planning, website structure adjustment, internal and external links, and even technical SEO that requires HTML adjustment are the responsibilities of the SEO specialist.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing specialists are responsible for planning email sending schedules: what emails should be sent to those customers at what time. At the same time, basic DM and web page design are also needed to ensure that the email and the landing page after clicking through can attract enough conversions. Finally, Email Marketing specialists have to manage a very large number of customer email lists. When the company's lists have over tens of thousands of customers, they need to have basic data processing knowledge to manage these lists.
Social
The main job of the Social Marketing Specialist is to help plan the company's or client's social media content and posting timing, and sometimes help design Facebook or IG advertising copywriting, etc. This may be the most difficult digital marketing job for international students to apply for in the United States because social media posts have very large language and cultural differences. It is generally not easy to find foreigners for this position.
Skills and experience
To apply for the above specialist positions, in addition to the corresponding knowledge in these fields, the most important common skill is to know how to interpret some commonly used digital marketing metrics(click rate, conversion rate, conversion cost, etc.). And infer the possible reasons behind the performance and plan the according to optimization. So no matter what kind of specialist, it is very important to have basic Google Analytics knowledge and experience, because this is the most effective basic analysis tool.
In terms of experience, agencies usually only need to confirm that the applicant has professional knowledge. Sometimes, the applicant can still be considered for the role even if the person has no real-world experience at all. But if it is an in-house position, depending on the amount of work and the difficulty, hiring managers will prefer their specialists to have agency experience ranging from 2-4 years.Regarding the difference between agency and In-House work, check out my previous article.
Team Lead
In relatively large-scale companies and agencies, a Team Lead position is usually designed as a leader among the specialists. Generally, Paid Search Lead or SEO Lead are the most common ones. The Team Lead will manage a team of specialists ranging from 3-5 people. In addition to basic management skills, the person needs to have the best professional knowledge in the team, so that when the team members encounter problems that they can’t solve, the team lead can help. Because of this, the common Team Lead job vacancies usually require the applicant to have worked in the corresponding field for at least 3-5 years and to be able to prove to have the abilities to manage and guide junior team members.
Strategist / Analyst
If the company or the customer’s account size and data volume are very large, it is necessary to systematically analyze various performance metrics and plan effective digital marketing strategies based on these data. To achieve this, companies will hope to have a Digital Marketing Strategist or Analyst. Some companies will even further hire Paid Search Strategist or SEO Strategist that serve more specialized functions. The most important job of a Strategist or Analyst is to organize the information in the account and present it to customers or internal personnel in a systematic way so that they can know the current account performance and trends. At the same time, strategists must also be able to use their own digital marketing knowledge and understanding of future trends to help the company or customers plan general marketing strategies.
Skills and experience
In addition to having a very in-depth understanding of digital marketing, the most important skills for this position are the ability to analyze and visualize data, because the role usually deals with information about web pages and advertising traffic that can affect high revenue. The ideal candidate must be able to analyze a large amount of data, and at the same time, find the methods to improve a website or advertising account that already has a high performance. Because of this, generally, this position will require applicants to have at least 5-7 years or more experience, and the entry barrier is very high.
Conclusion
The division of jobs in digital marketing in the United States is very detailed, and you must read the job descriptions, the required experience, and skills clearly before applying. If you want long-term development, you must also consider the promotion possibility of this job vacancy and the possibility of future development. If you want to get started in digital marketing, choosing a specialist position in a certain field, and then slowly climbing up to a higher-level or management-level position, will be a more common choice. Of course, if you are very confident about contacting customers, you can start as an account manager and then transform into a digital marketing executive who is involved in every business would also be a good career development choice.
