 So the reason you clicked on this video is because you want to become a digital marketer and you're wondering if a digital marketing bootcamp is going to be worth it for you or not. And you're not the only one. Many people have asked me this question and requested that I make a video on it. So I'm finally going to do it and I'm probably going to make quite a few people mad with this video, but I think you're going to be very interested in what I have to say and probably a little bit surprised. And as always, it's important for you to gently tap the like button. Don't smash it. Okay, be nice to the like button before we begin this video and let's go ahead and jump into it right now. All right. So first of all, what is a digital marketing bootcamp? Well, a digital marketing bootcamp is designed to get you into a phenomenal career path, which is digital marketing. Now digital marketing is kind of broad, but it includes paper click, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, like Facebook ads, TikTok ads, Google ads, et cetera, as well as email marketing, content marketing and many others. Now I have made other videos about exactly what digital marketing is if you're confused on that, but just know in my opinion, it's one of the best career paths that you can possibly go down. And these digital marketing bootcamps are designed to get you into the career without a college degree and without any previous experience. So many people who go to these bootcamps either don't have a college degree at all, or they do have a college degree, but it has nothing to do with marketing. Now typically these bootcamps are in person, but in the last few years, many of them have moved to online options and a lot of the bootcamps will offer a full time and then a part time bootcamp. And of course, if you attend the part time, it's going to take longer. Now the next question is why should you attend a digital marketing bootcamp? Well, some people attend a digital marketing bootcamp because they want to start their first career, basically their first entry level role in digital marketing. Others attend a digital marketing bootcamp because they want to switch over from a different career. And others attend the bootcamp because they might want to move up in whatever career they're in right now. And although a lot of this information can be learned for free or at a very low cost on the internet, bootcamps do have pretty good numbers in terms of placement rates. So a lot of them actually partner with companies and so you're much more likely to get an interview with one of the companies that they partner with. Another pro to attending a bootcamp other than the fact that they teach you digital marketing as a skill set is the fact that you're probably going to be attending it with other people. And there is a lot to be said about the social aspect of things. It can be very difficult to study something on your own, especially if you're kind of like a extroverted type personality. Many people find that if they're studying something with a bunch of other people who are studying the same thing at the same time, it makes it much easier. So that community aspect really does help. Bootcamps are also much faster than a traditional university. So typically a university degree at the bachelor's level will take 5.1 years on average. Digital marketing bootcamps on the other hand tend to take around four months. And then when it comes to cost, they're usually much more affordable than a university as well. The typical college degree will cost $80,000 and you'll go $40,000 in debt. Digital marketing bootcamps on the other hand typically range from $8,000 to $15,000. So still pretty dang expensive, but it's a lot better than a college degree. But with that being said, at the end of the video, I'm going to show you how you can reduce the cost to less than $1,000. Next, let's go ahead and talk about the different types of digital marketing jobs that you might apply for after graduating from a digital marketing bootcamp. So I got this list from careerfoundry.com and I thought they did a pretty good job. So there was social media specialist, digital marketing specialist, content strategist, email marketer, SEO specialist, digital marketing analyst, content creator, then some of the higher level jobs would be digital marketing manager, social media manager, content marketing manager, email marketing manager, paid search manager, and SEO manager. Now in my experience, when you start off in an entry level digital marketing job with no previous experience, you start off somewhere around $40,000 to $60,000 per year. However, you can make it to the six figure range within about three years. So those entry level roles are really good, really high paying, especially because of the fact that you do not need a college degree in order to get into it. However, the way I like to think about it is you're basically getting paid to learn an incredibly valuable skill. And after you get those first few years of experience, you're going to have a very good shot at getting a six figure job. So the next question here is, do employers hire digital marketing bootcamp graduates? And the answer to that is it depends. It really depends on the bootcamp that you attend. Some of them do not do a good job at all. And some of these bootcamps have guarantees, but these guarantees are very, very sketchy. So for instance, they might guarantee that you get a job, but then you end up getting a job that has nothing to do with digital marketing. And of course, they count that as a success. So that's kind of the problem with the bootcamp industry in general, a lot of bootcamps will start off, they do a great job with the first bootcamp thing that they open, and then they get a reputation for doing a good job. Companies also love to partner with them because they're doing a good job, they're training people correctly, but then they try to scale the bootcamp. And when you scale something, typically the value of the product that you're putting out goes down. And so they aren't doing as good of a job training people. And therefore the companies aren't as happy with the people that the bootcamps are putting out. So I've seen this happen over and over again, where a bootcamp does a really good job when they first start out, they get a reputation for doing a good job. And then they ride off of that reputation for like five years. So you really do have to be careful and do your due diligence on these bootcamps. So if you're looking at reviews, for instance, you want to make sure the reviews are current. Alright, so next, we're going to talk about digital marketing bootcamps versus digital marketing degrees versus digital marketing certificates versus digital marketing online courses versus self taught, right? So there is a bunch of different routes you can take to get into your first entry level job and digital marketing. And this is a question I get all the time. Should I do the certificate? Should I do the online course? Should I do the bootcamp? Should I try to teach myself? And the truth is it's really person to person. But with that being said, after looking deeply into this subject, I do believe that the best choice here is a digital marketing online course. The reason for this is because digital marketing bootcamps are almost all online right now. And yet they're still charging the same prices that they would charge for in person bootcamps. So there's virtually zero difference between a digital marketing online course and a digital marketing bootcamp. The only real difference is the price. Bootcamps still cost $10, $15,000 sometimes, whereas there's online courses that get basically the same outcomes that cost less than $1,000. And that brings me to the question that you clicked on this video for, which is are digital marketing bootcamps worth it? Well, let's talk about the pros and the cons. The pros here are that it's an all in one solution. It's relatively fast compared to college, relatively affordable compared to college. And you don't have to be very self directed like you would have to be if you tried self study or getting a bunch of certificates. The cons here are that it's still very expensive, still takes longer than an online course. It's not a great value for the price, in my opinion. And these bootcamps are typically online now. So there's basically no difference between a bootcamp and an online course. So when it comes to the best value and the best ways of getting into a digital marketing entry level career, it goes in my opinion, digital marketing online course, that's the best value. Digital marketing certificate is the second best value. Digital marketing bootcamp is going to be the third best. Self taught is going to be the fourth best and then college degree is dead last. Now keep in mind, this is just for digital marketing. When it comes to other things like data analyst, for instance, certificates are my favorite. I think certificates are phenomenal for data analysts. So this really does change depending on the career overall, digital marketing bootcamps are better than getting a college degree, which is what most people do to get into digital marketing. However, I would say when you're talking about it from a value perspective, it's typically not going to be worth it because there are better alternatives. And what are these better alternatives? Well, let's go ahead and talk about what are the best digital marketing bootcamp. So I looked up two of the most respected websites that rank digital marketing bootcamps, which is career karma and course report.com. And then I looked up the bootcamps that are the most popular and they have the highest ratings. So these bootcamps were Thinkful, General Assembly, and Brain Station. And then I compared these bootcamps and costs to an online course called in demand career, which is taught by Seth Jared, who gets people into digital marketing entry level jobs. Now, when you look at these bootcamps, they have like a 4.55, 4.31, 4.4 approximately, average rating, Thinkful costs about $4,900, General Assembly costs over $15,000, and Brain Station costs $15,000 as well. And then the length of these bootcamps is typically like three to four months or so. And you see these three are all around three months. However, the in-demand career online course is about two to three months. Then on top of that, when I tried to look up reviews online, I saw that in-demand career has a ton of reviews and not only are they testimonials where people will actually get on video and they're like talking back and forth. It's not just like clipping like little things that they say here and there that are super vague. They're actually talking back and forth with somebody. These testimonials typically also show the person's LinkedIn. So you can literally just look them up on LinkedIn and ask them if you thought in-demand career was worth it. And then on top of that, between the Facebook group, Instagram, LinkedIn, as well as the YouTube, there are literally thousands of reviews and testimonials. Whereas for some of these bootcamps, they would have some reviews and testimonials, but it would be like a picture of the person's face and a quote or it would be the person saying something really generic, like, oh, they really helped me to find my career or something like that. So in-demand career basically beats these bootcamps at just about everything. And it costs $800, whereas the bootcamps cost four to $15,000. Now, don't believe me. If it's something you're interested in, check it out yourself. I'll go ahead and link it down in the description below. They have like a free masterclass where it's going to basically go through if this is something that would work for you or not. It also tells you the different types of digital marketing and really gets into the nitty gritty details. So you can see if it's something that you'd actually like doing yourself. And again, I'll link that down in the description and maybe the pen comment below as well. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed the video. This is my two cents on the subject after doing extensive research and working with a bunch of different people who wanted to get into digital marketing. Also, check out these testimonial videos from people who have actually gone through in-demand career. And I will see you next time.