From Film Production to Digital Marketing: My Journey of Growth

What first got me into digital marketing was my love of growth and development. I made it my goal since the pandemic to build myself up again and grow into a new field. Digital marketing is all about growing and developing a brand and that’s what I enjoy about it most because I can apply my love of growth and development to a brand.

I first discovered the bootcamp in early 2023. I had been travelling around at the end of 2022; travelling has been a passion of mine for many years now but when I got back to the UK, I didn’t have anywhere to go and I was unemployed. Universal credit put me in contact with some people who put me in contact with the digital academy. My aim was to learn new skills and start a new career path in this changing world. I began by completing the six week digital gum course, and then a year later, I began the longer sixteen week course to acquire new skills. On both courses, I worked with a real life client who wanted to grow their brand and obtain new traffic into their website. I am still working independently with the client from the sixteen week course and they are now offering to pay me for my services, making them one of my first customers.

My ultimate goal for going on the bootcamp was to get a job and eventually start a career path that I enjoyed, and I am on the way to doing that as I have now got two customers that I am currently working independently for to grow their brands.

I couldn’t have gotten to this point without the digital academy to grow my confidence to the point that it is. A typical day at the bootcamp was meeting and greeting the other attendees of the course and the front of house staff. We would then spend time being taught about the topic of today's subject, for example - email marketing, web/ UX design ect before applying what we’ve learnt to do a task.

I learnt a lot throughout my time at the digital academy. I came into digital marketing from a creative background as a graduate in film production, so I already had strengths in terms of the creative side of marketing, especially when it came to content creation. I was completely new to things like SEO optimization, using AI, email marketing, LinkedIn, branding, and specific tools and software like WordPress, and SEMrush. I gained knowledge and skills on all of these and more.

At the end of our sixteen-week project we pitched our suggested changes to our client, The Neem Team. My role on the final pitch was largely presenting my content that I had created for them including an introductory video on neem, that I had created for them. I also ran several SEO reports for them and website usability and functionality reports.

I’m now excited to share many skills that I’ve learned at the bootcamp with potential employers. My ability to work with multiple stakeholders within a project is a big skill that I’m excited to share, as team work is a skill that a lot of employers are looking for, and the digital marketing course gave me the opportunity to work as part of a team towards a larger goal.

My biggest aha moment was realising that I enjoyed data and statistics a lot, it surprised me as I had always stayed away from it due to my dyslexia, but I decided  that I’d like to make that my new focus, alongside my creative talents, on helping people drive new traffic to their websites. I discovered my super power.

The most useful aspects of this course for me, beyond learning all the technical skills of digital marketing, was having a real life client and brand to practice on and help grow. I think that this practical experience is invaluable for going out into the working world.

The digital academy is a wonderful training venue with friendly staff that you can chat to at almost any time for support. It is also a great place to work because all the plants and decorations give it a very warm feeling and help you relax.

In the future, I'm hoping to secure a digital role for a company which has a personal interest of mine and that I would be enthusiastic to help grow the brand of. I’ll do whatever I can and take on whatever role I need to to get there.

Now that I am working with my first customers, I would like to continue to develop my analytical skills to be the best at using data to help drive traffic into my customers' websites. I believe the value of data will be extremely high as we go further into the digital age.

Before coming on this course I had the unique ground of film and media production which is a big asset in digital marketing especially with the growing use of shorts and reels on social media sites like Instagram and Tik Tok to grow brands. Already having this experience gave me a great head start in the content creation side of digital marketing.

My advice to anyone extending this bootcamp for the first time and looking to get into digital marketing is to be confident in your abilities and don’t underestimate yourself. You have more superpowers than you realise and you will discover them while doing this course which will give you the confidence to sell yourself.