If you have learned music, or even tried learning it, you will know that it is all about the analytics. Learning music involves notes, sequence, synchorinization and practice.
Music is one of the few fields where there is a combination of both analytics and creativity. The technical part of music is hard to learn initially, but once you learn how to make music with a specific instrument according to its rules, you can bring out your creativity – and play the tune in your head, using the instrument you learned.
The science and analytics behind music is an enabler for expression of creativity. It creates a channel through with you can express your creativity and product music that can be enjoyed by your listeners.
Similarly, digital marketing involves analytics, websites, hosting, payments, conversions, tracking, email marketing and a lot of technologies.
But you do not learn these technologies for the sake of learning technology.
You learn these because it creates a platform and a channel through which you can manifest your art – that can be consumed by your followers and subscribers.
Right now, I am writing a blog post – and sharing my thoughts about the relationship between digital marketing and music. This is creative work.
But this creative work (writing my thoughts out) will not be possible unless I have a blog with lakhs of subscribers, which were gathered through the past few years by creating a digital marketing funnel.
In the digital marketing funnel, I have to look at:
- How much to invest in branding and personal branding
- How to much to invest in lead generation
- What products to create (by understanding what my customers want)
- Have a sales copy and drive traffic to it via ads
- Get an ROI (return on investment) on my ad spend by selling my courses.
- Make sure that existing customers are satisfied with my courses.
All the above steps includes a lot of analytics, mathematics, operations, management and so on.
…But it also enables me to continue paying for my time and continue pushing my creative work to the world.
After 10 years of experience in digital marketing, the content I create is more important than the technology that enables it.
Let’s take music again. If you have an amazing jingle in your mind, it will only stay in your mind – unless you use a musical instrument to share it with other people.
If you want to play this tune using a guitar, you need to know how to play a guitar. You don’t learn to play a guitar just for the sake of it. You learn so that you can manifest your music through it.
Similarly, digital marketing is just a channel through which your ideas, knowledge and experience can be shared with the whole world. There is no point in learning digital marketing just for the sake of it.
Many people learn all the technical aspects of digital marketing but they do not have any creative thoughts to share with the world.
Other people people have a lot of ideas in their mind, but they do not know digital marketing well enough to share it with the world.
You will become a top digital marketer when you combine the both.
Something to share with the world (content), and the means and ability to share it with the world (marketing).
After a period of time, as you keep practicing digital marketing, it will become easier. You don’t need to think about every aspect of it. It will be automatic. It won’t be as tough and as anxiety inducing as it seems in the beginning.
When you are learning to drive a car, you have to put a lot of focus on how to use the car. When to change gears, how to make sure the car doesn’t turn off because you removed the clutch too soon, how to apply breaks and so on.
After a while, it doesn’t matter. It becomes automatic. You just have to think about where you want to go and drive there. The car is a means to getting to some place. How you drive the car becomes less important after practicing it.
When you are learning to play a guitar or piano, you will not be able to produce music in the beginning. You will be playing music from notes and learning to play the instrument. This is not the time when your creativity can be manifested.
However, once you have practiced guitar for a while, you will be able to play the tune in your mind and how to play becomes less important. Your creative expression becomes more important.
Digital marketing is no different.
It is a skill and it is something you have to learn. Initially, it won’t be that exciting because you do not have enough practice and mastery to write an article and send it to 100,000+ people. You won’t start making a lot of money when you get started.
But as you keep practicing, just like learning to drive a car or an instrument, it becomes easier and the complexity of using it fades away into the back. Once you reach that level, your focus should be on what to communicate than how to communicate.
Most of the rewards from learning digital marketing will come only after you have mastered the art of using digital marketing.
Once you have some level of mastery, the content that you create through your creativity will become the important thing to focus us. And money will start flowing in only after you have some level of mastery. (Just like an experienced driver will not be focusing on how to drive the car – but rather where to go).
That’s the barrier of entry into becoming a top digital marketer.
You see, the excitement and results come only after you have mastered the art of digital marketing. And many people give up before they master the art. They spend 3 months in learning digital marketing and give up because they do not see any results.
Just like learning music, the initial days of learning digital marketing can be boring. But once you know how to handle it, it becomes exciting. The technical complexity of it becomes simple because you now have mastery over it. It becomes second nature.
The first two months of learning guitar for incredibly frustrating for me. But later, I started enjoying playing the guitar. I could play some tunes from Metallica once I knew how to play it. It was not boring and it was pleasurable to make music. I am not yet that great at playing guitar, and I believe it will become even more fun as I learn it and master it.
So if you feel digital marketing is tough to learn and master, do not give up.
Digital marketing is very powerful and it cannot be ignored.
Digital marketing gives you the power to communicate with thousands of people sitting from your home in pyjamas. If I can make a career out of digital marketing (I am a Civil Engineer), I believe anyone can master digital marketing.
Stay at it, keep learning, and just like learning anything, understand that you will not master it overnight.
Many people will give up along the way because they don’t have the perseverence. And that makes it all the more easy for us because it reduces the competition for people who can persevere and master digital marketing.
All the best for becoming an awesome digital marketer.
Cheers,
Deepak Kanakaraju