Remote digital marketing jobs offer freedom and flexibility, but without the right setup, communication strategy, and career plan, that dream role can quickly become isolating and career-limiting. Here's your remote working blueprint.
Digital marketing is one of the many modern career paths where remote and hybrid work isn’t only possible, but is a commonly used structure for agencies, employers, and freelancers.
The idea of being able to work from home, at any hours you please, and avoid the daily grind of a long commute is hugely appealing. In the digital marketing space, there is a lot of scope for consultants, specialists, advisers, and freelancers to work from any location they like, but having a suitable setup, resources, and communication tools is vital to success.
A lot might, of course, depend on your specific skills and role – because if you're a data analyst, or a PPC expert, you might not need to change a whole lot if you already work independently and primarily liaise with colleagues, clients, or your boss digitally rather than in person.
However, assumptions about how 'easy' remote work is are all too common. You should spend time thinking through how you'll stay up to speed with new trends, how you’ll chat with clients or employers to maintain solid relationships, and how you’ll build credibility to advance your career if you're rarely or never seeing anybody face-to-face.
The Pros and Cons of Being a Remote-Working Digital Marketer
We probably don’t need to recap the advantages of remote work; it eliminates travel costs, lets you work in your own space, and, for many people, makes it significantly easier to focus on technical tasks without interruptions or the obligation to make small talk.
If you’re not a morning person, that could mean working in the evenings and at night without feeling antisocial or managing your working hours around all of life’s other obligations, from childcare to school runs, family responsibilities, hobbies, and self-care.
The downsides are sometimes brushed over, and as digital marketing experts who primarily work remotely, we believe it's incredibly important to highlight them to help any marketer considering making the switch!
- Socialization: If you’re a people person, working alone can get isolating. That might not apply to everyone, but if you thrive when you’re able to share ideas or chat about a problem, you’ll need to give serious thought to how you stay in touch with colleagues.
- Boundaries: You’re thinking that it’ll be a breeze to juggle work at home, and that you’ll never get distracted, right? This is a myth, and you should definitely set boundaries to protect your well-being, such as having times when you don’t reply to work emails or calls and avoiding everyday chores like answering the door, eating into the time you're meant to be on-task.
- Resources: Digital marketers who work some of the time from home should already have a decent setup. If not, you'll have to ensure you've got the tech, software, equipment, and, especially for creatives and designers, robust data storage – replicating everything you might take for granted in an office environment.
We’re absolutely not trying to put you off, but clarifying some of the issues that remote digital marketers experience, and highlighting why less-obvious elements, like reduced visibility, can have an impact on your long-term career prospects if you've jumped from full-time office-based work into a remote structure.
Key Aspects of Successfully Launching and Progressing in a Career as a Remote Digital Marketing Professional
Moving on to more positive advice, we've collated some real-world guidance, including practical and communication-based tips that the team at the Digital Marketing Jobs wished we’d known the first time we started working remotely!
Essential Remote Workspace Setup Tips
Working from your sofa, or dare we say it, from bed, sounds like a good deal. However, it's impossibly difficult to concentrate and get into a professional mindset when you blur the lines and don't have a designated workspace.
A work environment doesn't mean you need a separate home office – although that's great if you have the space! Instead, it means setting aside an area with your desk, plugs, a good WiFi connection, a PC or laptop, headphones, and, crucially, an ergonomic chair that you'll be comfy sitting in throughout your working hours.
Investing in Digital Marketing Tools
Depending on whether you’re a freelancer, work for a digital marketing agency, or are employed by a business, you’ll need to be certain you have the resources you need to carry out your job. That could include, as a few examples:
- Communication software like Zoom, Google Workspace, and Slack
- Project management systems like Trello or ClickUp
- Content creation tools such as Adobe Creative Cloud, or Canva
- Marketing and monitoring resources – think HubSpot, Semrush, and Google Analytics
That's, of course, a very brief run-through, and you could need specific technical, data management, or shared-access platforms, but if you've previously depended on an organisation, you should research the costs of professional accounts for any and all software stacks or digital tools you’ll need.
Communication and Collaboration Strategies
Communication is one of the trickiest parts of remote working, because digital marketers will have to stay in contact with their clients, submit reports or projects for approval, check in with supervisors or employers, and, ultimately, be as available as they would be if they were working in a central location within the organisation.
For most marketers, client satisfaction is pivotal. If you're hard to reach or communicate solely by email, it can be very challenging to build and maintain relationships where your clients trust you to deliver and find it easy to ask questions or request revisions.
There are tons of solutions here, from project management tools and shared-access files for team and colleague collaboration to video calls as a substitute for in-person chats.
Still, it's strongly advisable that you establish goals, ensure clients know how to contact you, and remove any communication barriers that could damage your credibility.
Time Management and Productivity
Our final practical tip is something we've touched on: how to manage your time, allocate specific working hours, and ensure you've given yourself everything you need to be as productive during that time as you would be anywhere else.
Here are just a few suggestions we’d offer:
- Decide when you’re going to work and stick to it. You don't need to be available 24/7, and if you fall into the trap of checking emails or replying on your phone when you're supposed to be relaxing, you could find that it starts to affect your work/life balance.
- Protect your free time as fiercely as your professional reputation. This works both ways, and if you’re working, you’re working – you’re not putting on the laundry, nipping to the shop, or having a chat with your neighbor! Likewise, when you’re off the clock, you don’t need to be poised to answer the phone unless it’s genuinely urgent.
- Verify the time zones in which global clients operate. We manage job listings for digital marketing employers and agencies around the world. If we need to reply to someone in a different time zone, we’ll simply check when our working hours coincide and schedule calls when it’s convenient for everyone.
There might be instances where you’re literally on the other side of the world, and a client or boss works the opposite hours to you. In this situation, you could consider using voice notes or software like Trello, where you can add checklists, project updates, feedback, or anything else that will be ready and waiting when the person you need to communicate with is online.
Working Remotely Within a Digital Marketing Agency or Team
In this next section, we’re thinking specifically of remote digital marketers who aren’t independent freelancers and whose roles rely on them being part of a team or active within an agency setup.
Some of the suggestions have overlaps with those above, but a major contrast is that you will need to check the policies and regulations that apply.
If, for example, you represent a company and work from home, all of your work, communications, and reports must align with their data protection guidelines, and you'll almost definitely be expected to join live video calls or presentations at some point.
Complying With Data Security and Privacy Policies
Every software system and piece of hardware you use should have sufficient controls to protect the data of your clients, agency, or organization from malicious use. That usually means, at a minimum, implementing multi-factor authentication and ensuring you have a secure network connection.
The communication tools you use – whether email, WhatsApp, or a cloud-based service – should have a professional degree of encryption to safeguard sensitive data, and you'll potentially need to upgrade or replace your own devices if these don’t meet security expectations.
Participating in Team Projects as a Remote Digital Marketer
Digital marketing teams will, depending on your exact job, often hold creative sessions or brainstorming meetings where everyone is expected to contribute. This can be a big aspect of creating a cohesive team, introducing a new project or client, or tackling a problem when everyone needs to be working from the same page.
If you're not attending in-person meetings, it's wise to ensure you have a good-quality video conferencing system, with a microphone and headphones, have a shared calendar where you can request check-ins or ask for help, and have a system that records meetings, decisions taken, and tasks assigned so these aren't forgotten.
Delivering Presentations and Conducting Client Meetings Remotely
Client expectations can vary wildly. As an insight from personal experience:
- Some clients work remotely themselves, find in-person calls distracting or an inefficient use of time, and are happy to have all communications digitized so they can get back to you as and when it is convenient.
- Others very much prioritise in-person chats and feel disconnected from projects or lack confidence in the progress you're making if they don't perceive themselves as being involved in digital marketing campaigns.
There isn’t a clear-cut strategy here, but, if possible, it’s best to encourage clients to tell you what works for them, and to use interactive software or video calls if you want to show them something or add context and information to a report that otherwise might be hard to understand.
Managing Marketing Budgets and Performance Monitoring
In a traditional workplace, digital marketers might have a manager or supervisor who sets them targets, monitors their performance and outputs, and allocates budgets to specific tasks, functions, or campaigns – and will step in if anything appears to be running slightly off course.
As a remote employee, you’ll need to have the necessary resources and tracking tools to ensure you’re aware of whether you’re hitting your KPIs, have a mechanism to contact managers or senior colleagues if you think there’s a case for adjusting a deadline, and know without delay if any part of a project isn’t going to be completed in time.
For example, if you're responsible for tracking SEO campaign reach, returns on paid social ads, website traffic, engagement metrics, or conversions, you need to know how you're monitoring each, who this will be reported to, in what intervals, and what happens next if a target isn’t being met.
Progressing in Your Digital Marketing Career as a Remote or Hybrid Worker
For our last section, we wanted to focus on long-term career prospects. This area is something that a lot of remote workers don’t realize is a potential stumbling block until it’s a bit too late to retrospectively concentrate on building a portfolio, reputation, and resume that they’ll depend on when they want to apply for a more senior role, or pitch for more ambitious digital marketing contracts!
Networking and Professional Development Online
Whether you’re a freelancer or an in-house employee, you’re constantly building a personal brand as a professional digital marketer. Even if you’re happy in your current role, it’s a good idea to have one eye on the horizon, since that could very feasibly change in the future!
If there’s one thing we know as a digital marketing jobs platform, it’s that new opportunities arise all the time. Marketers with a niche specialism or a good amount of experience are sought after by employers and agencies who want to expand their teams or outsource projects to professionals they can trust.
It is always beneficial to allocate a few hours or days a year to professional training, webinars, online conferences, new certifications, or refreshers, particularly when algorithms or ranking indicators change and you need to understand new parameters or guidelines.
In much the same way, if you have an online presence through your own website, portfolio or a platform like LinkedIn, you should keep this up to date, or contribute to forums if you’re able to answer questions to portray yourself as a voice of authority - something that will serve you well if you decide to apply for new positions, or go entirely freelance, at some point.
Staying Current with Industry Trends and Learning
As we’ve touched on above, industry trends can — and do — change, sometimes quickly, and if you're up to speed on everything that's happening, you'll be in a good place to pivot or update your techniques and approaches accordingly.
You might follow industry-leading accounts on social media, subscribe to top digital marketing blogs or magazines, or go to local or national events and conferences, as a few ideas!
Ready to put this guide into practice?
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