If you want to earn six figures while working from home, consider a job in marketing.
The Covid-19 pandemic spurred new demand for digital marketing as the public health crisis deprived businesses of their traditional marketing tactics and more consumers shopped online.
Even three years later, that demand shows no signs of abating: Marketing managers are among the fastest-growing careers in the U.S., according to LinkedIn.
Job boards FlexJobs and Freelancer.com are also seeing a boom in the number of remote, hybrid and freelance marketing roles.
The number of jobs for marketing managers is expected to grow 6.6% over the next decade, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports — faster than the average for occupations overall.
Skills worth six-figure salaries
While some marketing jobs require candidates to have a bachelor’s degree, it’s not a requirement to build a successful career as a remote marketing manager.
What’s far more important, says Toni Frana, FlexJobs’ lead career expert, are the technical skills you bring to the table: Most marketing gigs require a strong understanding of SEO, data analysis and social media, among other skills.
For example: A recent job posting for a product manager at Atlassian, which includes a minimum salary of $107,000, requires 5-7 years of marketing experience, as well as strong writing capabilities, but does not include a degree requirement.
You can watch tutorials on YouTube or take online courses to earn a certification in specific skills — Google, for example, offers a popular certificate in digital marketing and e-commerce.
Frana also recommends creating an online portfolio that showcases any relevant marketing projects or work you’ve done, including client testimonials.
Turning a marketing side hustle into a full-time business
According to Fiverr, a freelancing marketplace, most freelance marketing jobs are remote, too, so marketing managers can work from anywhere and set their own hours, as long as they meet their project deadlines.
Fiverr has seen steady demand for marketing talent over the past six months: Between April and September, searches for “digital marketing manager” rose 640% on its platform.
The more experienced you are, the higher you can set your rate: Marketing managers on Freelancer.com charge as much as $250 per hour.
Alex Martkovich, a freelance digital marketing manager in Toronto, charges anywhere from $150 to $3,995 on Fiverr for his services.
Although digital marketing started as a side hustle over 15 years ago for Martkovich, who has a bachelor’s degree in robotics and a master’s degree in electrical engineering, he was able to turn it into his full-time career in 2020.
Martkovich says building a roster of recurring clients and upskilling through online marketing courses offered by Google and Meta helped him build a successful freelance career.
Now, he travels and works remotely, averaging 30-40 hours on the job per week.
Beyond flexibility, Martkovich says one of the best parts of working as a remote marketing manager is stability.
“Most of my clients are in the U.S., but I work with people in Australia, Canada and the UK, too,” he explains. “A business’s success depends upon successful marketing, so there’s always a need for this work, not just in the U.S. but around the world.”
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