![Full Stack Digital Marketer – what, how, and why? [is it a Scam?]](https://www.mytechelite.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/full-stack-digital-marketer-880x488.png "Full Stack Digital Marketer – what, how, and why? [is it a Scam?]")
Full Stack Digital Marketer. I’m sure this term hit your mind with another phrase called Full-Stack Web Developer. If you know what’s full stack web developer then you can guess what the phrase full stack digital marketer will define.
This article isn’t about web development or website building with elementor. This is about the concept of an entrepreneur’s full stack digital marketing who wanna get FULL digital control over their business.
Related article: The Evolution of Digital Marketing
What is a full stack digital marketer?
Okay, so as you can imagine, or I’m making you imagine the idea of a full stack digital marketer, comes from the idea of becoming a full stack web developer. A full-stack developer is someone who knows everything, from HTML to Malbolge when it comes to a web development project. You go to him with an idea and he’ll know what language should be used to design that website, what to do at the front-end, what to do at the back-end, and how the databases should be prepared.
You surely understand a full-stack developer is really expensive, and often they aren’t the only premium solution for your projects. However, most of them are a joy to work with and they’re like a brother in business as they provide all those development ideas. It often makes the whole project simpler for a new entrepreneur who doesn’t have much knowledge of the coding world.
A Full Stack Digital Marketer is someone similar.
You go to him with your business or startup and he tells you what to do, how you can use social media, how you can send emails or SMS, how you optimize your business website, how do you run paid advertisements, which marketing strategies to use, how to go about the whole marketing campaign for your business – and he not only creates the strategy but also executes it alone or with his team for you.
~ WITH HIS TEAM? Then how he’s a full stack digital marketing expert?
In the case of a full-stack developer, he’ll still need help from other devs who are experts in niche fields. Similarly, a full stack digital marketer will also be taking help from a niche expert – and it’s expected. It can be a video editor who will help create the animations or short intros for the ad creatives for you, might be there’s a guy for lead generation for your newsletter to run a successful email marketing campaign, and so on. That means a full-stack marketer doesn’t necessarily need to be an expert in every field. He needs to be specialized in a couple of niches but needs basic knowledge in everything.
Opinions on becoming a Full Stack Digital Marketer
Well, it’s both YES and NO.
I hope you understood what is full stack digital marketing. Suppose a guy considers himself as a full stack digital marketer. He’s good at Content marketing, Facebook & Instagram marketing, SEO – at the same time, he’s not worthy at Email Marketing or Search Engine Marketing.
However, even if he’s not an expert on Google ads, people consider him as a full stack digital marketer. Why?
Because he has the understanding to make sure that he calls the right person, whenever he needs one to get the part of Google Ads of a project completed.
You see, hiring also requires skills and you can’t hire a niche expert if you don’t have a basic understanding of the overall topic. You can use your friend for a particular topic, but that never works the best. And more with basic knowledge in everything, you also need some key skills which establish you as the leader of yourself; as you’re handling multiple tasks here to run a business.
So yes, I will recommend to you that you become a full-stack marketer (if digital marketing is what you are learning and planning to build your career around).
Now, why did I say NO before? That NO is for 3 kinds of people.
- The one who is learning web designing: If your passion is development, you should choose the way of a full stack web developer rather than a marketing expert. Trust me, it’ll be more helpful for your career to follow your passion.
- The one who doesn’t have key business skills: we’ll be discussing it after some points. Make sure to develop these skills to run any kind of business.
- The one who is searching for a shortcut: sorry to say but, there’s not much shortcut. You need to focus on learning by spending more time. It never brings loss.
Become a Full Stack Digital Marketer
Like anything else, you will have to start from a small point and pick one of the segments of digital marketing, and then grow slowly. So the right title should be, become a marketing expert – and then if you are persistent enough, you will end up being a full stack digital marketer in a few years.
Step 1
I will start with the basics of basics at this stage.
Learn about the marketing universe.
Read more books and blogs from famous authors. Forget those academic full stack digital marketing course at this stage as the books will teach you about the world of marketing way more than any full stack marketing course. Don’t get triggered, every course is packed with specialized knowledge for a specific topic. These books and blogs will enhance your brain with general terms of marketing management rather than improving you for a single segment.
There are a lot of digital marketers who are roaming unemployed just by doing 1 or 2 academic courses. That shouldn’t happen. A live example – Google AdWords changed to Google Ads in 2018. So think about the people who completed an MSc in Digital Marketing in 2017. It’s hard for them to be updated because they relied on those degrees or courses. With that knowledge, he should’ve gathered general knowledge of the changing marketing world.
Yes, both of these options are great to learn strategies. However, when you are learning the basics, a book is the way to go. So
- Read every book of Philip Kotler
- Follow every tip of Neil Patel
- See every case study of Brian Dean
You will come to know more about the basics of marketing than 90% of the world if you can complete Step 1. Not only them, but you should also follow more. It should take you about a year to complete this step.
Step 2
If you have done step 1 right, you now will generate passion for some specific segments of digital marketing. Not every engineer is an expert on everything. Some are mechanical engineers, some are civil, some are computer specialists. You will have to find your ‘expertise’ at this stage.
What did you like most when you were researching about marketing in step 1? I am not naming any examples so people don’t think that I’m showing an unfair tendency to believe for one specific segment. Close your eyes and think about it. There should be 4-5 niches of digital marketing that you now think you would be good at, or you’ll enjoy doing those works.
Alright, let me be a little biased here. Though there are a lot of segments within marketing, the popular ones that I can note down are:
- Content Marketing: (Posters, Videos, Blog Content)
- Social Media Marketing (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube management)
- Google Ads
- Search Engine Optimization
- Email Marketing
- Copy-writing (not content writing)
- Blockchain & AI Marketing
- Marketing Strategy Buildup
The list goes on and on. Don’t spend too much time on Step 2. Close your eyes for 5 minutes & simply pick something that you like (try to avoid crowded skills like SMM as these are easy to get started with).
Additionally, you can acquire some free courses with certificates which are worth it.
Step 3
It is time to learn and apply the knowledge that you are learning on the go. After you read books & blogs and specifically learn one segment, then watching thousands of YouTube videos on that topic is not called WORKING.
Working is when you watch or read one thing and then apply that to an existing business. You need to have a business to implement the marketing strategies and tactics you’re learning.
Now normally, you don’t have a business. But don’t bother to get one easily following one of these two steps.
Offer free service
Find a local startup and offer them free work. Reach out to 100 entrepreneurs via email and offer them your free service on a 1-month, or 3-month contract. (One of them will surely agree)
If you have the required skills, you can make that entrepreneur say, “wow! thanks, dude.” Do that for a few months, and you will have a career in digital marketing with a full-time job. If it doesn’t work out, offer free service to someone else and continue the process.
Create your startup
I guess it’ll be a better option, as you’ll have full control over your social media or website, or designs. Just create a YouTube channel, or Facebook pages to practice Ad strategies. Or you may consider setting up a website with domain and hosting. Following the way, you can play with marketing strategies without a limit.
Now, that’s good and all. But you are still not a full stack digital marketer. How do we become one? You’re probably missing some key skills.
Key skills to be a good full stack digital marketer
Deciding to be a full stack digital marketer is a big move – and it’s a good one. As clients start to run through the resumes, here are a few key skills they might be looking for:
- Motivation: A good full stack digital marketer receives a bigger part of the business from the client to play marketing strategies. So he must have the motivation to get things done efficiently and work on a deadline without being reminded of what needs to be done.
- Successful Failures: Projects sometimes fail or are not as successful as wished. The best full stack digital marketers know how to control their minds during these moments and learn from their mistakes.
- Positivity: Although the full stack digital marketer often works alone, he needs to uphold a positive attitude towards their work and the company they’re working for.
- Technical expertise: You need to be a tech-savvy person. Be eager to learn different software. Use every social media, or Microsoft & Google tool. Full stack digital marketers are great at switching between a wide variety of platforms.
- Communication: You’re surely chatting with your client, or your partners in your startup to share weekly reports. So having well-rounded communication skills will ensure these meetings go smoothly.
Conclusion
This is a tough question to ask yourself at this stage if you actually wanna become a full stack digital marketer. So here are our last words.
A niche expert’s earning might rise more than a full stack digital marketer’s salary who’s a generalist. It all depends on what you want from life.
If you are an entrepreneur in heart and eventually running your own business, going for a full stack digital marketer would be ideal. If your goal is to be an average marketer and earn more throughout your life, becoming a niche expert and sticking to only one segment is good enough.
But remember, a proverb goes on,
Money can’t buy happiness.
That’s it. If everything goes well, you should be able to introduce yourself as a full stack digital marketer in about 3 years from today.
Questions? Leave a comment. And share with that friend circle with whom you’re planning to build a startup.