Marketing Advice from Professionals to Their Younger Selves

We asked digital marketing professionals what marketing advice they’d give to early marketers.

There’s a lot to know if you want to build a career in digital marketing. There are so many different domains, and they all seem to intersect with one another. Once you learn about one marketing domain, you realize that you have to know all about another area that affects it.

Taking On Projects as a New Digital Marketer

For example, if you have learned a little bit about web design social media, you could look at your local coffee shop’s website and see areas that could be improved. You approach them with a proposal to change their site’s design to make it more current and do some social media work to generate more engagement. After using your charm to win over the owner, you get to work. 

Redesigning Your Local Coffee Shop’s Website and Social Media

You develop a modern design for the website and great social media assets to publish over the next three months. All looks good, and the owner is happy. But after making the changes to the website, you learn that people are complaining that it loads very slowly and web traffic actually decreases. You also see that the social media posts aren’t generating as much engagement as you’d hoped. 

What Happened?

Why is this? The skills you had when you originally approached the coffee shop were primarily design related. You knew how to make a good looking site and eye-catching social posts. What you didn’t realize at the time was that there are technical areas of a website and social media that you weren’t aware of. Things like search engine optimization (SEO) or the way social media sites rank content all need to be considered when making changes on behalf of a business. 

If Only You Had Known…

If you had known that making changes to their site could negatively affect their search engine ranking or load time, you would have been able to not only make a well-designed website but a user-friendly website as well. Likewise, if you knew how hashtags affect the rankings of different posts, you could have leveraged them to increase the number of people who could see and interact with them. 

How Can You Learn What You Need to Know in Digital Marketing Before You Make a Mistake?

There’s so much to learn in digital marketing it can be overwhelming to know where to start. But you’re not alone. There are thousands of other people who are navigating their way around the same complicated industry. We’re all learning and realizing things that could have helped us if we had that knowledge earlier. 

Where People Come to Get Real-World Experience in Digital Marketing

At Acadium, we meet these people who are beginning their careers in marketing. Some of them are recent graduates who realize that digital marketing is a lot different from what they learned in college. 

Others are already professionals but are transitioning to digital marketing. 

Both types of people signed up for Acadium, however, for similar reasons. They wanted to connect with mentors who would allow them to get the real-world experience they needed. It’s best to learn by doing, and the mentors on Acadium were willing to help these recent graduates and career changes in exchange for a fresh perspective and helping hands with their marketing projects. 

Learning from Those Who’ve Been Where You Are Now

We’ve had the unique opportunity to meet so many people coming to our platform with little to no experience and leaving with jobs, businesses, clients, and opportunities. We wanted to know what advice they’d give to themselves when starting their digital marketing career.

Here’s what they had to say.

What’s Your Advice for Someone Looking to Secure an Apprenticeship Through Acadium?

Elijah Shoesmith

“Complete as many courses as you can to stand out and show your desire to learn. There are free courses on Acadium in various digital marketing areas, including social media marketing, content marketing, analytics, SEO — and how to become a freelancer.” 

Venetia Reddy

“Enjoy the process. The apprenticeship flies by, and there’s so much you can learn from your mentor’s audience and accounts. But more importantly, you have the opportunity to learn about the industry your business mentor works in. You also gain valuable social media skills at the same time. Take advantage of it.”

Marketing Advice for Those Who Are at the Beginning of Their Career

Acadium Plus Students Say

Acadium Plus helps you get hired. Every student in the program completes a remote apprenticeship to gain real-world experience and transition into a full-time career. We match every student with a dedicated mentor from either a hiring partner or an industry-leading business from our marketplace. These mentors are digital marketing professionals and give you the skills and experience needed to get career ready.

Jonathan Beer

“I got into marketing when I was working at Disneyland and was able to shadow their marketing director for a couple of events. One of the things I wish I had done was take on more opportunities while at school. I skipped out on doing really focused internships or extra training or anything in school because I was super sure my classes would teach me everything I needed, which… not quite. So definitely keep your eyes open and get those extra opportunities in when you can!”

Acadium Ambassadors Say

The Acadium ambassador program is designed to give top tier apprentices concrete experience in content marketing and personal branding. They join a community of other ambassadors where they can expand their network as well as gain access to resources to help them build their digital marketing careers.

Ilkim Ertin

“Take your chances, create your opportunities and don’t stop trying.”

Daymond Lima

“On this path, you will always have to study and catch up with the latest updates and news. To stay ahead, keep a study schedule – it can work wonders for you.”

Hava Mansouri

“Don’t take rejection personally. Your work may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay. Just keep going.”

Adam Snetiker

“Don’t doubt yourself so much. You were hired because the person who hired you isn’t a marketing expert either, so even if you have to spend a while experimenting to figure it out, you will. Once you do, they’ll likely see better results than they were getting before, which means you’ve made a positive impact on their business.”

Paulo Salomo

“You have no idea what you’re doing! So don’t expect to get things right the first time. Don’t be so hard on yourself and just learn.”

The Acadium Apprentice Community Members Say

Our community is where current apprentices can connect with one another, share advice, and share their experience using Acadium.

Rachael McLennan

“Be prepared to learn and research constantly. Set aside at least 5-10hrs per week to keep up with things.”

Allisa Bondy

“The people who you surround yourself with can help you make progress in your marketing journey. Surround yourself with people who are much better than you, so that you can learn, improve, ask questions, and in the future help those who are just getting started. 🙂”

Ali Ritter

“I wish I kept track of every website, course, book, quote, etc that helped me along the way [to becoming a digital marketer]. So that I could have a bible of resources for the future.”

Sophia Hsiao

“Learning is great but being able to apply that knowledge in a real-life scenario helps you learn even better!”

Beeru Kamberi

Learning from Professional Communities

I loved to hear the advice and insight from within our community, but I didn’t want to limit it just to our backyard. I went to my favourite digital marketing Slack communities to ask for the same advice.

RevGenius 

Martin Antonetty

“I would tell myself to stick to networking, build a reputation on [social media] that would allow me to generate connections that matter, and guide me to the point I’m at now.”

Melissa Cales

“Learn the difference between a metric and a KPI, how to select KPIs the business will care about (because the c-suite doesn’t care about your really cool Instagram Reel) and how your role contributes to revenue – even if it’s indirectly. Advocate for yourself and your professional development. Invest in yourself if you have to. Tons of companies sell themselves to candidates as having career paths and offering training, but often don’t live up to their own hype.”

Tara Pawlak

“Test and try new ideas, campaigns, channels as much as you can. Even throwing a little budget at an idea you can learn so much! try to utilize all resources at your disposal which absolutely include other colleagues in different departments – product, sales, customer success, support. They are very close to customers and prospects. Always ask for feedback. The more you learn, try and fail the more well reversed you will be in your market and experience”

Online Geniuses

Yaniss from Martech with me

“Be helpful, proactively look to lend a hand on other people’s projects, try to reach outside of your core responsibilities. You might discover that you like a different branch of Digital Marketing and that will make you look good in front of your colleagues (Which are your initial network) and your bosses (Which you are going to have to negotiate with for promotions, etc.)”

Ighodalo

“If I were to go back to the start of my digital marketing journey, I would tell myself two things:
1) There’s a lot of information out there that can be overwhelming for a newbie, so, I would advise myself to only focus on 2 to 3 pros that really know their stuff and follow their advice.
2) Get hands-on experience as early as possible. You want to be “Learning and Applying”. Whether it be working for free for businesses or getting internships.”

Ricardo Antoione

“Don’t be afraid to fail. Failing is what is going to get you where you want to be. Being afraid to ask questions isn’t going to get you anywhere. Don’t worry about your family asking why you’re spending so much time on your laptop, or of other people asking why aren’t you doing things career-wise the traditional way. Digital marketing is something a lot of your family and friends members won’t understand. Though, once you get to where you are going, they’ll soon understand why you put so many hours into your craft.”

Erkki Muuga from WebinarSoftware

“Learn SEO and start creating keyword-optimized content earlier. Attracting organic traffic continuously is a huge asset to have, but it takes time to create and even longer to start ranking in search engines. I would be way ahead of the game if I had started this earlier. Start gathering an email list earlier. That’s another thing that takes a long time to create. It would be wise to put up some type of lead magnet, like newsletter sign-up or content upgrades. Doing that earlier will just leave more time to build an email list.”

Yaniss from martechwithme

“Be helpful, proactively look to lend a hand on other people’s projects, try to reach outside of your core responsibilities. You might discover that you like a different branch of Digital Marketing and that will make you look good in front of your colleagues (Which are your initial network) and your bosses (Which you are going to have to negotiate with for promotions, etc.)”

Tanya Yablonskaya from SienceSoft

Don’t be afraid to connect with people from your industry – many good things can happen. Don’t be afraid to experiment – you can either try or always second-guess what could have happened. Invest in good writers and their education – they can make your site prosper. Set small goals for your B2B or E-commerce online shop website way to the bigger ones – but don’t forget to dream big.

Backlinks

Carla Andre-Brown – Content at Mailbird

“One thing I wish I knew when I was first starting out in marketing is that I shouldn’t be afraid to be a little personal.
When I first started with email outreach, I would face a lot of rejection because I stuck to the template I was given. Now when I’m emailing back and forth with bloggers and publishers, I really make sure I take the time to build a relationship. I tell them about what I’m learning online and share interesting articles or podcasts. The response has been a lot more positive ever since.”

Rafael Sternbach

“Master one thing first, and remain curious and open to learning constantly.”

Kat Abamonga from Galactic Fed

“Invest in learning and consistently strive to learn something new. I’ve purchased Udemy courses and learned a lot! When there are tasks that I did not know what to do, I researched those myself and studied how to do it, worked on techniques and strategies to achieve growth. Fast forward three years and I now manage the operations team at my current company.”

Andy from 6Prog

“Put time aside for reading both ‘old school’ marketing books and then the up to date techie blogs.  Marketing is never finished. Enjoy content ideation!”

Nick Becker from P2P Marketing

“Focus more on customers and other stakeholders of the company and the emotions the products your market evoke in them. While might sound cheesy, the people behind those products and sales are the best asset any brand can have. And cultivating these relationships is the fastest path to success.”

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Our marketing advice: Build your portfolio fast by completing real-world marketing tasks and apprenticeships.

Starting your career in digital marketing can be a daunting and overwhelming journey. Don’t let that stop you from joining an industry that offers variety, excitement, and endless growth opportunities. Check out The complete guide to starting a career in digital marketing if you want to get everything you’ll need for your journey. 

At Acadium, we match online business owners with aspiring digital marketers for three-month remote apprenticeships to help them launch or grow their careers in a rapidly changing job market.