I have spent the last ten years or so of my working life employed within various different sales and marketing roles. My career so far has consisted of working for about eight years in Ireland’s ferry industry and during that time I developed a love for digital marketing. It’s not just the “marketing”/ shiny side that I enjoy but I love the impact that digital marketing has on lead-building, awareness building and sales. I really began loving digital and the impact that it could have in 2010 or 2011. This was a time that when people used words like “algorithm” they were met with responses such as algo-what? This article will discuss digital marketing as a potential career for a male in Ireland in 2018.

The Evolution of Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is a wide and loose term. The term in itself has gone through various different incarnations over the past decade. Digital marketing in its infancy consisted of an occasional Facebook post (and that was advanced), liaising as little as possible with a web developer about a website by today’s standards looks like something that a six-year-old would be able to rustle up and sending out the occasional email to your modest-at-best email database.

Over time the industries big players introduced products, then changed the rules in how those products are used and then made who saw those products as little as they could get away with.

Where Can You Work?

There is an almost endless list of places and roles that you can work in as part of a digital marketing career. In Ireland, I would think about eighty-five per cent (my estimate) of digital marketing roles are positioned in and around Dublin. Please note, not all roles are in Dublin, but the companies where you can grow and expand within your career are mostly located around Dublin.

We are very lucky in Ireland regarding the nature of the companies that have a presence in Ireland and use Ireland as their EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Asia) headquarters. The list of companies based in Dublin is simply jaw-dropping – it’s a real who’s who of international companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Trip Advisor, and Booking.com .

The Roles

The roles can vary substantially across the different companies that are available to be worked for. Roles such as account management, business development, and selling require the people doing these jobs to have great relationship building and maintenance skills.

Marketing demands more attention-to-detail and focus on pushing material that will push the company’s products.

What’s Needed?

As we approach 2019 its fair to say that an honours degree is the very least that is required to be even considered for a role in any of these companies. Typically, these companies require some form of masters qualifications and an intense passion for the company or subject.

Pit Falls to Look Out For

As mentioned above, digital marketing is a wide and loose term. There are a number of pitfalls that you must stay clear of when entering a role in digital marketing.

You can’t know everything and do everything – Digital marketing is so vast and changing so quickly that it would be impossible to know everything, about everything. It is imperative that you always set out to learn. It is impossible to know everything.

Developers can be needed, at times – Digital marketers will be involved almost all of the time, but digital marketers need to be careful not to over promise. There can be instances where complex tracking (for example) may need to be tackled by a developer.

In Conclusion

Digital marketing is a phenomenal career. The speed of change is both exciting and scary at the same time. Google is said to release a couple of new innovations every week while Facebook releases a few innovations every month. It is important for anybody considering a career in digital marketing to realise that their work will go far beyond the realm of their office walls and is something that they need to be monitoring its evolution ensuring that their company and they themselves are keeping up. It can be stressful at times, but very rewarding.