Digital marketing is talked about as a profession nearly everywhere now, especially how you can do digital marketing from home and how it can make you rich.
With all the fuss about this job, is the reality of being rich as a digital marketer really as easy as it is advertised?
No. It’s not easy to be a digital marketer and be rich. But it’s certainly not impossible as well.
In truth, digital marketing can certainly make you rich, even a millionaire, but it will require a lot of hard-working hours, persistence, and determination.
Table of Contents
- What Does A Digital Marketer Do?
- How Much Does A Digital Marketer Earn?
- Can Digital Marketing Make You A Millionaire?
- Top Most Profitable Digital Marketing Niches To Work In
- Final Verdict
What Does A Digital Marketer Do?
Digital marketing is a broad term. Chances are, if you’re still researching this job you may not really know what it actually requires.
Digital marketing is basically marketing products or services on the internet. This opens up many sub-niches a digital marketer has to work in since there are tons of outlets on the internet to market your product.
To name a few, here are some roles of digital marketing:
PPC/CPC Ads: Managing online ad campaigns of a company e.g. Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc.
SEO: Managing the SEO of a company’s website to improve traffic and help the business reach its potential target market.
Email Marketing: Managing the email marketing campaign of a business by generating a list of emails for the business’s target market, creating emails, and sending them out using email software.
Content Writing: Writing informative content and persuasive copies to attract the target market towards the business’ products.
Basically, anything that involves marketing a business’ products on the internet is under digital marketing. This is why different digital marketers have different skills to offer. Some excel at email marketing campaigns and PPC ads while others are more effective in content writing and management.
Of course, the more roles you’re adept are, the more chances you have of being rich. Most digital marketers have good knowledge, experience, and skills in at least SEO, Content Writing, and Ads Management.
How Much Does A Digital Marketer Earn?
Since digital marketing involves many niches to work around, the earnings of digital marketers are highly variable.
According to Talent, entry-level digital marketers earn around $50K/annum, experienced digital marketers earn around $60K/annum, and the best professional digital marketers earn around $107K/annum.
Of course, your pay varies on a lot of factors. Especially as a digital marketer, it is mostly dependent on how many skills you can offer an organization. If your experience involves managing almost all profitable channels of digital marketing, you’ll be one of the most valuable assets for a company which would ultimately lead to higher pay.
Can Digital Marketing Make You A Millionaire?
Yes. Digital marketing can definitely make you a millionaire, but it won’t be easy.
Becoming a millionaire as an employee of an organization will be extremely unlikely. To become a digital marketing millionaire, you will have to invest in passive outlets of income.
The most popular outlets of high income for digital marketers are freelancing services, managing their own blog, creating their own agency/business, or selling digital marketing courses.
Top Most Profitable Digital Marketing Niches To Work In
Working as a digital marketing employee can only help you make it into 6 figures. And even for that, you will need to have a skill set that you’re adept at. And this skill set needs to provide value to a business to enable them to pay you a big check.
The best way to gain the right experience in the right fields of digital marketing is to work around the most profitable digital niches.
This will provide the best value to a business and will also help you earn high profits by working on these skills by yourself, as a solo freelancer or a businessman.
Here are the most profitable digital marketing niches that you should become an expert in if you want to be a highly rich digital marketer.
1. SEO Expert
SEO is the most in-demand skill for businesses which is why it pays you handsomely if you can do it right.
SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization. An SEO expert basically helps a website be optimized for search engines. How does this help a business (website)? Here’s a summary.
An SEO expert tunes a website to be the best in SEO, which results in that website ranking higher on Google SERPs. Since Google is the biggest outlet for consumers to find businesses, a website ranking high on Google will attract more and more customers, leading to higher sales and profits.
And since businesses understand this and put emphasis on marketing through Google SEO, they pay SEO experts highly for optimizing their websites.
To become an SEO expert, you will need to understand SEO and be educated with all the SEO updates Google roles regularly. The best practice as an SEO expert is to start your own blog, implement your SEO techniques there, and then use that as leverage to land clients and companies proving your proficiency at SEO.
How much does an SEO expert earn?
On average, an SEO expert earns around $55K as an employee, while around $100/hour as a freelancer.
2. Content Writing and Management
Whether it’s for marketing or creating a website, every business needs content. And, most importantly, content sells.
Good content writing helps websites with better SEO and all general marketing e.g. email marketing, social media marketing, etc.
This is why content writing is a highly-paid job as well- especially creating content strategies and managing the content needs of a business.
One of the highest-paid sub-niches of content writing is copywriting, which involves writing ad copies for businesses that helps them sell their products and services.
All businesses today need content for their digital presence, this is why content writing and management is one of the most essential skills for a good digital marketer.
Here is an indepth guide on content writing business for you.
How much does a content writer earn?
As a freelancer, a copywriter earns around $30/hour on average. As a content manager employee, however, content writers earn around $66K/annum.
3. PPC Specialist
PPC specialists specialize in running and hosting PPC (pay-per-click) ads. PPC ads are all over the internet to attract the potential target of a business to their landing page. Now a business can either post their own PPC ads to market their business or host PPC ads on their own website to earn through ad moderators e.g. Google AdSense.
Either way, PPC campaigns can generate a large amount of revenue for businesses, where the whole credit goes to the PPC expert managing the campaign. This is why, as a result, PPC specialists enjoy high incomes.
How much does a PPC expert earn?
As an employee, a PPC specialist earns around $50K/annum, while as a freelancer, their rates fall around $30 an hour.
4. Sell Courses
Digital marketing is in high demand, and the umbrella of digital marketing covers many skills like content management, PPC management, email marketin, etc.
If you’re a professional digital marketer and consider yourself an expert in some digital marketing skills, the best outlet for earning higher incomes for you would be to create a passive income outlet by selling courses.
In these courses, you can teach digital marketing skills, and since there is a high demand for digital marketing, there is ultimately a high demand for digital marketing courses as well, putting you in a great position to sell courses.
You can either sell digital marketing courses by advertising them on your blog, on a Youtube channel, or by uploading them at Udemy or Skillshare.
How much can you earn selling digital marketing courses?
Top digital marketing ‘gurus’ earn passively around $2000 a month on average selling digital marketing courses.
5. Create a business – a blog or an agency
If you’re looking to be a millionaire as a digital marketer, you need your own business. And the best way to create a business as a digital marketer is by starting a blog.
You will definitely enjoy high incomes by owning a web agency or an e-commerce store and putting your digital marketing skills over there to earn high profits, however, all those ideas also involve risky investments which you may not be ready for.
The best way to grow into a business is by starting a blog. Costs of starting a blog are as low as $50 in the first year, you can implement your digital marketing skills to earn through your blog, and ultimately, you can easily transform your blog into a business- even an agency or an e-commerce store.
How much can you earn through a blog?
Bloggers earn around $50K/annum. The best thing about a blog isn’t really the income though, it’s how the blog acts as your profile and the potential business outlets it provides.
Final Verdict
With that being said, digital marketing can definitely make you rich.
However, the key to being rich as a digital marketer involves determination and hard work- acquiring knowledge and skills from different digital marketing sub-niches and putting them to use to earn higher incomes.
While ultimately to be a millionaire, you would need to start a digital marketing business.
Interested in more? Check out 7 Ways To Sell Digital Marketing Services.
