- What Is a Digital Marketing Coach?
- What Does a Digital Marketing Coach Do?
- What Is The Difference Between a Digital Marketing Coach and a Consultant?
- How To Start a Career As a Digital Marketing Coach
- Digital Marketing Coaching Certifications
- How Much Do Digital Marketing Coaches Make?
- Learn More About Digital Marketing
One of the less common career choices for digital marketers but still worth exploring is that of a digital marketing coach. Let’s examine what a digital marketing coach is, how it differs from other specialists, and what it takes to become one.
What Is a Digital Marketing Coach?
A digital marketing coach helps organizations or individuals design, set up, and execute digital marketing campaigns. The coach provides personalized advice, training, and support to help clients achieve their online marketing goals.
A coach will meet with the client, discuss their marketing needs, explore their constraints, and create a plan for the way forward.
What Does a Digital Marketing Coach Do?
One of the main tasks of digital marketing coaching is to understand the client’s business and find ways to use digital marketing to generate more sales. To do that, the coach must know how to perform certain tasks like:
- Conducting market research and creating buyer personas to identify a company’s target audience.
- Perform competitor analysis to understand the digital marketing landscape for the specific niche.
- Propose and agree on digital marketing goals with the client.
- Craft a comprehensive digital marketing plan to reach their agreed goals.
- Design and implement strategies for various online marketing channels, including SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing.
- Monitor the performance of the various campaigns and create reports for the client.
In addition to handling the marketing, a coach may also be involved in training the client’s marketing or management team on digital marketing topics.
This could involve training on technical aspects like technical SEO or organizational aspects like setting up a marketing team and creating procedures and manuals for the internal workings of a marketing department.
In general, a digital marketing coach is the go-to person for advice on anything related to a brand’s online presence.
What Is The Difference Between a Digital Marketing Coach and a Consultant?
A digital marketing consultant does the same things as a coach, but the main difference is that a coach may also handle implementing a digital marketing strategy.
A consultant usually advises and guides on what to do, and an internal team or other marketing specialist implements it.
Other than that, both professionals aim to help their clients make the most of their digital marketing efforts.
How To Start a Career As a Digital Marketing Coach
Becoming an online marketing coach involves several steps related to technical training, gaining the necessary experience, and building soft skills to help you carry out your job successfully.
If you want to start a digital marketing coach business, these are the six steps to follow:
- Develop Your Digital Marketing Skills
- Master Essential Tools and Project Management Skills
- Define Your Target Market
- Create a Business Plan
- Develop Coaching Packages and Procedures
- Market Your Coaching Business
1. Develop Your Digital Marketing Skills
The first step is to develop your technical digital marketing skills. You need to know how digital marketing works and what each main channel does.
You need to become an expert in many areas since your job as a marketing coach is to help your clients utilize ALL online marketing channels to get the best possible results.
If you’re starting now, focus on SEO and content marketing. These channels can bring real value to an online business. They are the hardest to master (both in terms of time and effort), but they can generate the best long-term results.
Then, learn about PPC marketing and platforms like Google and Facebook Ads. Paid marketing can produce faster results and is essential for all businesses nowadays.
Once you feel confident with the above, expand your skills and move on to social media, email, and influencer marketing.
If this sounds like a lot, don’t be disappointed; there are many online digital marketing courses you can enroll in and get the necessary training in a structured approach.
2. Master Essential Tools and Project Management Skills
To be an effective digital marketing coach, you must know how to use various digital marketing tools.
Familiarize yourself with tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Looker Studio, Semrush, Ahrefs, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Mailchimp. You’ll need these tools to monitor the performance of your campaigns and create reports for clients.
Besides tools, each client you’ll work on is like a small (or large project). You must know how to create a project plan, set milestones, and track progress. You don’t need to be a certified project manager for this task, but you must know the basics, like creating a plan in Google Sheets.
3. Define Your Target Market
Once you have built the necessary skills for the job, the next step is to think about which customers you want to serve, i.e., to define your target market. You should choose a specific niche instead of going generalized for many reasons.
Many digital marketing agencies, freelancers, and consultants go after the same clients. To increase your chances, you should focus on a specific niche where you can stand out as an expert. Working with many clients in the same niche will give you an added advantage in understanding their specific challenges and opportunities, and you will reduce competition.
This specialized approach will allow you to offer targeted and tailored services to meet the unique needs of that particular market, enhancing your reputation as a go-to expert.
4. Create a Business Plan
The next step is to create a business plan. Starting an online marketing coaching business is no different than starting any other company.
You still need to create a business plan, register a business entity, consider your offering’s unique value proposition, create financial plans, and do anything else you might need to ensure the smooth running of your business.
5. Develop Coaching Packages and Procedures
You must develop service packages and procedures as part of your business plan. Service packages are similar to digital marketing packages. You must decide what kind of services to offer and your pricing models.
Create packages that cater to various client needs and budgets. Two or three packages are enough; otherwise, you will confuse clients and add unnecessary complexity.
Additionally, establish clear procedures for onboarding clients, conducting coaching sessions, and providing follow-up support. Outline the steps clients can expect from start to finish, including initial audits, goal-setting, and progress tracking.
6. Market Your Coaching Business
A business needs clients, and as a digital marketing coach, you must market your services online to get the attention of potential clients.
By reaching this point, you should know what to do. After all, this will be part of your job when dealing with client projects.
Things like social media marketing, SEO, blogging, and community building are crucial for your business’s success and a good opportunity to test your knowledge.
Digital Marketing Coaching Certifications
Getting a digital marketing certification is one way to reassure potential clients that you’re the right person for the job.
Completing the certification process will allow you to test your skills and gain the confidence to present yourself as a digital marketing expert.
Some of the most popular choices recommended for online coaches are:
Digital Marketing Certification by Reliablesoft costs $149 and covers all digital marketing disciplines with practical advice and examples.
Google Digital Marketing & ECommerce Certification costs $294 and includes lessons on digital marketing and ecommerce.
Meta Social Media Marketing Certificate costs $295 and is geared more toward social media marketing with Facebook and other Meta platforms.
For more options, read our digital marketing certificate programs guide.
How Much Do Digital Marketing Coaches Make?
The average hiring rate for digital marketing coaches is between $100 and $500 per hour. How much you can charge for your services depends on your experience, type of project, duration, and location.
For example, if you get hired to work with an Ecommerce business in the US, you can charge a higher rate than working with a family business.
My advice is to be flexible with your rates. It’s much easier to secure clients with a low initial fee, and as you deliver good results, you can safely increase your rate.
Remember, you are hired to help a company make more money, and nobody will have a problem paying a high rate if they can get the desired results.
Learn More About Digital Marketing
If you’re convinced that becoming a digital marketing coach is a good career choice for you, start learning more about digital marketing using the following resources:
