Digital Marketing in Edmonton is Like Skateboarding

I really enjoy the first few weeks of my new job as a digital marketing intern on the Online Marketing Team at Top Draw. My goal is to continue to learn as much as possible and to challenge myself to reach new heights in digital marketing. My plan to do this is by using the same process I followed when learning my favorite sport as I was growing up and applying this experience to the world of digital marketing strategy.

For myself, that sport was skateboarding; a sport that can be vicious yet rewarding, painful yet delightful, and terrifying yet exciting. Do you remember when you were a child? Think of a sport, hobby or pastime that you loved and were willing to invest all of your passion and spare time to master it. I never would have believed at the time that I would have to spend up to 10,000 hours learning new tricks and jumps while trying to keep my balance and to keep getting up after every fall, nick or injury. Becoming a master takes 10,000 hours of practice. This applies to both skateboarding and digital marketing.

The Journey from Beginner to Digital Marketing Professional

When you’re first learning how to skateboard, skateboarding skill development comes along piece by piece. It starts with training one or two muscles so they can work simultaneously to propel yourself and your board in the desired directions. Progress in digital marketing follows a clear path, similar to sports and hobbies. Similar to mastering digital analytics platforms, each new skill builds upon the last.

Digital marketers progress through skill levels similarly to skateboarders, but instead of using muscles, you use digital marketing tools and marketing platforms. You start by learning just one or two of them, then you go on to learn as many as you physically can. For example, in Digital Marketing Analytics, the first skill you would want to learn after understanding the fundamentals would be how to setup an account. Once you’re set up, the amount of useful data you want to receive is up to you. Performance marketing metrics help track progress, just like tracking new skateboarding tricks.

When you’ve mastered the digital marketing tools you chose to learn (ie. Google Analytics), you add them to your digital marketing skill set. As your skill set grows, so does your bag of tricks. Marketing ROI improves as your digital marketing expertise grows, and the more satisfied the client.

Ollieing Your Digital Marketing Benchmarks: Setting and Achieving Goals

In my case, I want to be the Danny Way of Digital Marketing. Who is that you ask? Look no further than the picture above. Danny was and still is a legend in the world of skateboarding and he will never be forgotten. He had many big accomplishments, but there was one that stood way above others… I mean literally. The digital marketing journey started with a dream but turned into a reality. Danny Way was put in the record books for being the first skateboarder to jump the Great Wall of China. What I want to do is jump the “Great Wall of Digital Marketing Analytics” and instead of the determining factor being my physical capabilities it will be my mental ones.