The 6 Stages of Learning 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 Neil Patel,
and today I'm going to break down
the six stages of learning digital marketing,
and which one are you in.
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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?
So 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And 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 repeat this video,
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,
rewind the video 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.
If you enjoyed this video,
like it, share it, tell people about it.
If you just need help with your digital marketing,
you want my company to do it for you
and you don't want to learn it,
that's okay too,
check out my ad agency, NP Digital.