From Marketing to Digital Marketing: A Job Seeker's Challenge

A Non-Major Who Fell in Love with Marketing

Marketing wasn't my dream from the start. It wasn't related to my major in fashion, either. Truth is, I was a science and math person (plot twist) with no clear dream. I just had a vague idea of wanting to study something in STEM.

But after a wild and winding school life, I found myself deeply drawn to fashion — something I'd always been interested in. During my second year of high school, while I was preparing for a STEM track, I suddenly discovered a clear dream for the first time: fashion. I decided to pursue fashion design.

After a bumpy road, I enrolled in a fashion design program and was completely immersed in the world of design — when another turning point hit. Following the school's curriculum, which covered all aspects of fashion around a design core, I took a required course called "Fashion Marketing." I was captivated by how closely it was linked to design yet had its own unique appeal. I took every related course I could find, started various extracurricular activities, and dove into serious study.

And that's how my story with marketing began.

'Marketing' vs. 'Digital Marketing'

As I started studying marketing in earnest, I poured in tremendous effort and dug deeper into the marketing world. I started with getting good grades in school, then gradually took on various extracurricular activities and competitions.

But the more I learned about marketing, the more it seemed to vanish into a thick fog. In competitions and activities, I was always working on planning, branding, and promotions — but it always felt like grasping at clouds.

So how does this actually get implemented? What concrete results can it produce? Is it okay to just keep grasping at clouds? The more I learned, the more frustrating marketing became.

That's when I discovered digital marketing — a step beyond traditional marketing. It was a whole new world. It felt like a new realm had opened up, one that could transform my foggy marketing studies.

The idea of building marketing strategies and making decisions based on trackable, analyzable data and clear metrics — it felt so precise and exciting.

Yes! This is it! Let's chase the marketing I've been dreaming of through digital marketing!

'Digital Marketing' — So Where Do I Even Start? A Complete Beginner's Departure!

Once I discovered digital marketing and tried to start studying, the excitement was quickly followed by feeling overwhelmed. The more I searched, the more unfamiliar terms and mysterious jargon I found. It was like reading an alien language — I couldn't understand a thing.

HTML? JavaScript??? Google Analytics? GTM? Programming? Pixel? Growth hacking? KPI? What..? Data analysis tools AND development?? How much do they expect from a marketer??!

I had absolutely no idea where or how to begin. The world of digital marketing I'd been unaware of was incredibly deep and vast. But I couldn't back down in fear. I wanted to become a digital marketer because I dreamed of data-driven, visible, results-oriented marketing.

So I started doing the following:

1. I borrowed and read every marketing and digital marketing book I could find.
2. I searched the internet for free online open courses.
3. I watched related YouTube videos, took notes, and studied.
4. I organized the skills I needed and the tools I had to learn, and set goals.

Of course, there's still a long way to go and mountains of things to learn, but this is how I started studying. And now I can actually understand those alien terms and even use some of the tools.

A Record of Learning: The Have-been Marketing Website

I'm going to document and share my learning journey here. I want to share the methods that helped me understand all that jargon, and through this diary of a "non-major, complete beginner, aspiring digital marketer" taking baby steps, I hope to dream bigger together with others who share the same dream.

I can't promise that this blog will provide information as professionally solid as those of experienced digital marketing veterans. But when I was a total beginner struggling through my studies, what I needed wasn't "advanced expert knowledge" — it was explanations at a beginner's level.

That's why I'll write from a beginner's perspective, showing "how" to start and "what" to study, explaining everything in beginner-friendly language so we can hold hands and learn together. Think of it as a friendly blog from a fellow job seeker.

So fellow beginners, let's join forces and become digital marketers! Let's understand all that jargon and conquer it all, step by step!

Alright, here we go! This is Habni's 'Digital Marketing Challenge' — dreaming of becoming a digital marketer!