How to Learn Digital Marketing - The 6 Stages of Digital Marketing.

Are you finding digital marketing hard to learn? Well, it's because you aren't following each of the stages. Probably wondering what the heck are each of the stages? Well, hey everyone, I'm Usman Waheed , and today I'm going to break down the six stages of learning digital marketing, and which one are you in. So, I'm going to break down the six stages and then I want you to tell me in the comments below, what stage are you at?  

1.     stage number one

The Generalist Learner. You're exploring a lot of different principles in digital marketing. Social media, paid ads, SEO, content marketing, email marketing, even niches like e-commerce and B2B although they're not really niches. At this stage, you're mapping out the universe of digital marketing and probably deciding what really matters to you. 

2.    Stage two

 Successes And Failures. You start testing your tactics in the real world businesses. You'll fail, learn from your mistakes. Keep risk low by working with clients pro bono or for lower cost, and then they'll pay you when you become a real pro. Have your own projects and don't worry too much about focusing on just one discipline of marketing, and try to explore as much as you can in the disciplines that are the most attractive to you.

3.    Stage three

 Niching Down. Some businesses are really hard to do digital marketing for. A classic example of this is hard for beginners is B2B. B2B for me, funny enough, is easier than B2C, but I know how to do both really well at this point because I've been doing it for 20 years. You can do some things really easy in digital marketing while others are very hard. For example, you may be great at copywriting, but you may hate managing paid ads. This is the time when you specialize in one area of marketing and even one specific type of client. For example, you can specialize in paid ads for local doctors. You can learn how to create tons of value for your clients while spending the least amount of time and money to do that.  Another example of this is focusing on Facebook Ads, just for D2C e-commerce companies. You see how I got really specific here? I'm not talking about Amazon, I'm talking about direct to consumer e-commerce companies and only doing the Facebook Ads. That itself is art and science, right? You may have to learn how to create really funny videos like the Harmon Brothers or Bacon & Eggs like they do to create that conversion rate that you need for D2C. 

4.    Stage four

 The Portfolio. At this stage, you're already comfortable with working on a niche and area of marketing. You'll start documenting all the wins and building your portfolio that you can showcase to other potential clients. The goal here is to stack up as many possible wins as possible and create a library of all the tests and successful things that you've done, that you know that'll work for other businesses that you can just rinse and repeat. Consider them your bag of tricks. You're building up this bag of tricks and you want to make it bigger and bigger. So that way, as you go to a new business or take a new job, you can continually just implement them. 

5.    Stage five

Scaling Up. Right now, you've done a lot of work in your field, and you're really looking for opportunities to scale. This is typically when you start hiring and automating a lot of the repetitive stuff. There's a lot of tools out there like UiPath that can help you automate marketing processes. I know a lot of marketers don't talk about it, but trust me, it can do wonders for you. And you want to have a clear idea of your workflows, and have the ability to have other people do it for you. Scaling up is a skill like any other that you need to roll up your sleeves and take lots of action. 

6.    Stage six

Authority. By now, you've worked with tons of clients in your space, it's time to become authority figure by speaking at conferences, writing tons of content, shooting videos that help your audience, build up your brand on social media, spend some considerable time and money building up your website authority, acquiring backlinks, and covering as much ground as possible in different topics related to your niche. So, now that you know the stages, and you're focusing on learning digital marketing, figure out what stage you're in, and move from one stage to the next. If you need to repeat this Article, because you don't need to do stage one and then jump to stage six. You want to do them in order, and if you do them in order you're going to be better off. And that's how you'll learn digital marketing better. Now in the comments below, tell me what stage you're in. And if you have to, repeat the article to recap on the stages so then that way, you know which one you're in, and let me know so that way I can create more content for you that helps you with where you're at.

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