What is online marketing?

Online marketing (or internet marketing) is about the marketing of products or services on the Internet.

Online marketing is a big subject. It incorporates many different skills / disciplines: technical, design, copywriting / content-building, PR, planning, branding, research, sales, customer service, general marketing, and so on. And it offers a wide range of different services: search engine optimization, pay-per-click, banner ads, e-mail marketing, newsletter marketing, online market research, blog marketing, viral marketing, and more.

Although online marketing can be, on the whole, split up into different areas of activity, it is common for many organizations nowadays – organizations of varying sizes – to be involved in a broad range of online activities. Although these organizations will be involved in similar types of online marketing activities, often there will be a divergence too, depending, to an important degree, on the type of work a particular organization does, and so on.

Online marketing jobs – where?

Large companies will often have a person or group of people who focus entirely, or to an important degree, on online marketing within the more general ‘marketing department’ (or  ‘sales and marketing’). Online marketing people, in such organizations, will work closely with the overall brand manager to ensure brand consistency across the company.
In smaller companies, online specialists tend to focus on a wider ranger of activities (perhaps covering both traditional marketing as well as online marketing).
And then there are the agencies who focus on carrying out online marketing services for their clients:  digital agencies,  integrated advertising agencies, web design agencies and others (with, often a cross-over of work between the different agencies).

Online marketing jobs – what?

People who work in the marketing departments of large to small-sized companies in online marketing will often have titles such as Online Marketing Executive or Marketing Executive.

In digital / integrated advertising / web design agencies, they will have job titles such as:
Brand Planner / Insight Planner (very much about understanding the brand values you want to get across online, in particular in advertising – an important part of this involves understanding your audience).
Brand Planners / Insight Planners will often work closely with Digital Planners. Digital Planners are responsible for selecting the best media with which to advertise (Digital Planners are often to be found in digital agencies, integrated advertising agencies as well as general media companies).
Account Managers (in charge of client’s accounts).
Creatives (Copywriters, Art Directors, Web Designers, Graphic Designers)
Content Writers (often people with a copywriting or a PR background)
Researchers. Researchers can be found in digital and integrated agencies, as well as in dedicated market research agencies, and so on.

Online marketing jobs – qualifications

For general online marketing / branding jobs a degree (or HNDs) in most subjects will do, in particular marketing / business studies.
For planning jobs most degrees (or HNDs) will do, in particular, marketing / psychology / stats.
For copywriting jobs most degrees (or HNDs) will do, in particular, arts subjects / English.
For art director and design jobs, in general, you will need a professional, third level qualification in whichever discipline it is exactly you want to focus on.
For research jobs most degrees will do, in particular, marketing / stats / psychology.
For technical jobs, you will need professional, third level qualifications (it will depend on the particular sort of discipline you want to focus on but typical qualifications include, for example, computer programming, engineering, physics, maths and more).

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