II. Common Digital Marketing tools

1. Website/landing page/blog…: Channel to post information about services, products, and brands for your customers to refer to.
2. Content: Build effective online marketing content.
3. SEO (Search engine optimization: Conduct keyword research, optimize website on search engines.
4. SEM (Search Engine Marketing: Search engine marketing, such as advertising on Google Adwords.
5. Email Marketing: Market to users using email.
6. Online PR: Public relations on the internet.
7. Online banner advertising: Buy advertising banners on forums, large electronic news sites, influential in society...
8. Social Media Marketing: Marketing and engaging with online users through social networks.
9. Mobile Marketing: Mobile Marketing Strategy (Sending SMS, Mobile Apps…)
10. Web analytics: Often use Google Analytics tool for analysis.

III. Getting Started Guide with Some Digital Marketing Tools

1. How to make a website using open source code:

Knowing how to make a website does not mean you have to know programming or design, you can start by making a blog (should use WordPress blog) then slowly you learn how the website/blog works, the relationship between code and database, interface... and slowly you will be able to make a website for yourself using open source code (WordPress is the most ideal, Joomla is also easy to learn).

Don't underestimate the website because almost all Digital Marketing activities run around the website, so even if you don't know how to make a website using open source code, you should understand how a website works and what its components are, only then can you succeed in Digital Marketing.

Please note that learning how the website works, the relationship between source code, database, interface, hosting and leaving aside any parts related to programming.

This is exactly how I went and got through it: when I was in school, I didn’t have internet and had to go to the fifth floor of the school to catch the wifi signal of the houses next door. There were no Vietnamese documents, I didn’t know that I could make a website that worked well without knowing programming, and I didn’t know how a website would help me in my future life. Those are the things you guys are better at than me, so why can’t you do it?

• Digital Marketing – How to make an open source website

If you can't get past this step of making a website, don't be discouraged because you are simply different from me and many others. Read on below, maybe you will find your own path.

You will not be the programmer or do the whole website when you do Digital Marketing but you need and always work with Programmers, designers and other departments related to the web to describe to them the marketing goals. Basic knowledge of how the website works, the limitations of HTML, CSS or a programming language will help you describe and "ask for help" more effectively.

2. Start with SEO (Search Engine Optimization):

After I finished making a website for my brother but couldn't find my website on Google, I started learning about SEO.

SEO is the work of optimizing user experience. At first, I searched around to see why a website appeared when I searched for something on Google and why a website did not appear when users searched, how to let Google know that a website exists on the internet, then I continued to learn what major parts SEO includes, what small parts are in each major part, how these parts interact with each other, how to optimize these parts for SEO.

During the process, I was willing to try anything I read without fear of being right or wrong, then read more to slowly understand whether it was right or wrong. At that time, everything I did and optimized used the open source website Joomla and its plugins.

Start learning SEO by learning to make a website with WordPress (not difficult), then read this book: SEO Starter by Google, and maybe find a SEOBOOK to read or a book that suits you, reading books with SEO is quite important because SEO has a lot of details so you need to summarize and learn in a clear direction.

3. Start with SEM (Search Engine Marketing):

I define SEM here simply as advertising on Google.

When I first started learning SEM, I was lucky to receive training from a company, which helped me understand the basics and how it works. In addition, I had been doing SEO for quite a while, so keyword research and writing ads were no longer difficult. I was just vague about how to optimize ads and what advanced things I needed to learn. In addition, I also had difficulty with not having much money to run when I first started learning.

• SEM in Digital Marketing

Learn how to choose keywords that match your advertising goals. Learn about the targeting limitations of Google Adwords. Learn about quality score and the definition of clicks, impressions. Run as many campaigns as possible (costing your money or someone else's). Start by reading this: Google Adwords Help then try to use your relationship and offer to test SEM for someone with a small amount of money (low bid) to better understand the theory... after running ads for a while you should take this exam: Google Adwords Cetificate The exam is free but if you pass all 3 Google exams then you will no longer have to worry about food, clothing, work... (at this time).

4. Get Started with Social Media Marketing:

You should first learn how to execute on Social Media channels by using them on a daily basis to understand their features and limitations.

After understanding how Social Media channels work, try to make people pay more attention to you, entice them to interact with you more, which is often the goal of Social Media Marketing: Interact with users more.

Try creating a fanpage for yourself (or asking to do it for someone else) about your favorite field and then find ways to increase likes and interactions for that fanpage, you will learn a lot and don’t be afraid to talk about your successes/failures when creating this fanpage (including “black-hat” methods – know to avoid). Note that in Vietnam, very few businesses use Twitter.

5. Start learning Email Marketing:

Because I once worked on a project about accounts and users at Project Lana, in this project I had to handle all the problems users encountered when registering, logging in, activating...so I had to handle issues about sending emails, how the email system operates, how spam filters work, email blocking mechanisms, sending frequency and what the information returned after sending emails means...

In addition, when working at VietnamWorks, I was also in charge of the entire Email system here, so in addition to system-related things, I started to dig deeper into personalization, email sending systems (tools), and notes when converting email systems.

When creating emails, you should also learn more about user psychology to "entice" users to give you their email. Once you understand user psychology, you should also know a little about the web and its limitations to make it easier to get user emails.

Email Marketing in Digital Marketing

6. Getting Started With Web Analytics

Web Analytics in Vietnamese businesses currently has a rather obscure role, but I think in a few years this will also be a part that many people focus on developing.

I started with Web Analytics in 2009 to see SEO metrics, gradually I learned more about using Web Analytics to mark links in an advertising campaign to measure the effectiveness of that campaign more accurately (it took about 1 year to understand this link marking part - URL Tagging), then working more with SEO also led to me working more with Analytics and gradually understanding its advanced parts better.

Then, there was a period of time working on Web products at Project Lana that required me to learn more and more about user behavior in detail. At this time, I started to learn more about real-time analytics tools and how to use event tracking, custom demensions...

Web Analytics will come to you as you learn about other Digital Marketing tools.

Web Analytics is indispensable in Content Marketing

Note:
Web Analytics in Vietnam mainly uses Google Analytics and you should only learn it when you need to know the effectiveness of another tool in your Marketing campaign.
For those of you who are working, please learn the definitions of Sessions, users, bounce rate, page views... The definitions will help you avoid confusion when reading reports.

7. Start practicing writing Content

Marketing experts say “Content is the King”, but for me, “Content is the Queen” is enough for “newbies” to visualize it. Because content, in every aspect, is like a “queen”:

• The words need to be polished, neat, and precise, but must be truly close to reach the hearts of all classes of "subjects" (readers).
• The content must be strong enough, "powerful" but soft like the words of a queen to impact the listener/reader's brain.

A queen is always beautiful. Your content needs to be beautiful too. Beautiful and real.

IV. How to self-study Digital Marketing? Where to study Digital Marketing?