Career in Internet Marketing

Anyone taken the plunge?

[lazerbud]

Hi,

I was wondering if some people on here who actually work full-time in the field of Internet marketing within a corporation could share some of their experiences. What kind of a role do you play in the organization? What would you do to better your skills? How do you see your career advancing? Things like that..

Personally, I have been a website designer for a number of years, started getting more interested in the business aspect of websites and got involved in internet marketing and decided to get myself an MBA to better understand businesses. Close to completing my program I've been offered a full-time position as an internet markeing analyst with a mid-sized firm here in the midwest.

I'm curious about where this can take me as a career path, its something that I enjoy doing but I feel like I'm taking a bit of a gamble at the same time. Just wondering what other peoples thoughts/opinions/comments etc. are on such careers.

Thanks

[trillianjedi]

* bump *

OK, so looks like everyone here is their own boss? ;)

In the absence of looking at this from an employee angle, how do you internet marketing employers view your employees?

TJ

[henry0]

Could you take the job to guaranty some fixed incomes while stating that you need to keep your “consulting” capability.
Why:
Not being your own boss (could lead to nervous breakdown :) )
You might want the supplementary incomes
There are on the market businesses like mine that might use such services but do not need a full time web marketer.

[rj87uk]

I am currently working for a top firm in Scotland doing Internet Marketing. Pretty much SEO, PPC, Advertising sometimes Promos and Emails.

I can tell you that it is not a good feeling making your boss a lot of money! I will be starting my own company next year and I hope to be my own boss soon enough. _{Boy o boy will it be hard!}

The best thing I can say is do as much research as possible when looking to change your career.

[lazerbud]

Thats very interesting. I didn't think of the feeling of making other people money and how it might affect you. Kind of like a stock broker almost!

But with regards to employment in web marketing, there are so many metrics which are still a gray area, such as compensation, hierarchy in organisation, future roles etc.

I'm a little surprised there haven't been any employed web marketing professionals replying to this thread!

[briggidere]

I have a little input for you on this one.

I work at a medium sized company in charge of the internet marketing and manage around 12 sites. I have 5 staff and we did a great job with our sites in the past 4 years.

As we were doing it so well for ourselves, I was told we are separating our department away from the main company, forming our own Ltd company and taking on external clients to do the same for them.

They are making me a director of the new company and giving me a decent package. I know it's going to be a few months before we are able to get some good clients in, like any other start up business. This has made me think in a much more proactive way though and all my staff have had a huge motivation boost.

I guess it depends on where you sit on the business ladder to how much you look at earning other people money. There are a lot of people with excellent skill sets being paid peanuts for increasing some companies sales by 20-100% and do not get a bonus. This is where it can get demotivating.

I came in to my current position from an IT Support role and have self taught myself everything i know about the internet. So, it has taken me 4 years to go from IT Support manager to director of an internet marketing company. You could say I am still making someone else rich, but I am getting a lot of benefits along the way too. I think it all comes down to where you are happy.

[lazerbud]

briggidere, thanks for the input.

I've been wondering how employers have carried out performance appraisals for such employees? Also, if ever the pay for such emeployees is any part performance/result based?

[henry0]

Food for thoughts:

Interestingly enough
Your employer might scale your salary or bonus upon SEO performance.
But the same employer will never (or probably never) sign a contract with a client
That will stipulate that the SEO job will be paid proportionally to the same performance that measures you :)

[metric]

I get bonuses based on our Internet newbies. If we get (for example)aprox. 7.5 new customers from the internet per week and our our numbers climb to 8.5 on average over a 6 month period, then I get a big bonus. This is on top of my yearly payraise, and company performance goal incentive quarterly bonus. I have an opportunity to add a lot of additional income if those newbie numbers rise.

[lazerbud]

Thats very interesting Metric!

[Animated]

the great thing about this job (web development, internet marketing) is the flexilibity of it, working for a big firm might be good for showing off but i am a freelancer i work on clients projects from my home and i have e commerce sites where i use my marketing knowledge to get extra cash for the times i am out of projects to do and have a steady income, because i think that i am more worth them what most firms would pay me, so why should they make money out of me and they get the glory.

[njseo]

It's extremely frustrating. I gave it a shot to get out into the world and see what there was while I went back to school. You can develop your own sites at home, make ad revenue, sell them off, do what you will. Once you've got that down, the amount you make hourly (and on your own time might I add) is quite substantial if you know what you're doing.

When you get in with a company, and you get stuck there on your pitiful hourly wage, you start taking control of campaigns that are making way bigger long term returns for the clients than you could ever make with affiliate programs. At the same time, you feel really important because you're spending way more on PPC than you ever would personally for terms you'd never even think to go after with your own limited resources.

It's also frustrating being the only one who has a remote idea of what it is that you really do. I've had people assume that 15 minutes worth of work would take an afternoon, and a major programming effort that should take at least 100 hours was estimated at an hour.