Bill Gates once said “The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.” Who knew that tomorrow would come so soon. Digital marketing is the marketing of goods and services via digital technologies; Digital marketing also includes marketing services and products using display advertising, mobile phones, and other digital media. With everything getting digitalized and rapid growing technology, digital marketing skills are now in demand and are emerging as a full-fledged career. Digital marketing covers a broad category of things rather than a single specific item. Just like the colour palette , digital marketing has its own palette full of different aspects.
Essential Areas of Digital Marketing
Long gone are the times when only method for marketing used to be through TV, radio, billboards etc. the following are the basic essential of digital marketing.
- Social Media Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Brand Management
- Web Analytics
- Mobile Marketing
- Digital Public Relations
- Campaign Management
- Pay-per-click advertising
- Email marketing
- Video marketing
Few of them are discussed below in details:
Learning digital marketing
With digital marketing taking over the marketing , every Small business owners, professionals and entrepreneurs should learn the basics of digital marketing, it will help you understand who your customers are, how to reach them and what to expect from various marketing efforts. There are free resources available moreover no formal education is mandatory, learning digital marketing is attainable. Start with finding a course online , go through the overview , many big platforms such as Google are offering a free course in through their Digital Garage’s free certification course on the fundamentals of digital marketing ,any can easily access their course.
Few platforms provides you with the knowledge and skills for digital marketing
- Fundamentals of digital marketing – is provided by Google which is free of cost and provides beginner level skills.
- The Strategy of Content Marketing – is provided by courser which is Free of cost however $49 is required to earn certificate after completing the course and provides Intermediate level of skills.
- Marketing Tools: Digital Marketing- is provided by LinkedIn Learning for $34.99 and provides Beginner level of skills.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing in simple words is use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat to reach and engage with your audience. Social media allows people to interact with their favorite brands in a casual and simpler ways. Usually the audience tend to follow the social media pages of a business and gets to know about the ongoing trends it is emerging as one of the powerful tool for marketing as people are getting more engaged in social media . While choosing a social media platform a marketer must keep in mind the kind of their business industry and the type of content. Your social media strategy should aid your overall marketing goal.
Requirements of Tools, Software and Other Skills in social media marketing:
They have to be creative and use as much creativeness they can as they are responsible for deciding the images and text that best promote their brands to target consumers Some useful tools for social media marketing include Crowd Tangle, which allows users to see performance data for their own social media accounts and those of their competitors. The another important skill required is that a social media marketer mush herself/himself have a proper knowledge of ongoing trends on social media as well as the interest of audiences in social media.
Some Resources and Courses available: You can learn more about social media marketing through reading blogs such as :
- Social Media Examiner –is a U.S. based company. It publishes online magazines, blogs and podcasts about how business people can use social networks.
- The Hootsuite blog – is one of the most widely used social media management platforms. It helps users create and schedule social media network channels on a single page
- Social Media Today – is a leading industry publication operated by Industry Dive
Free social media marketing courses abound online, including:
- Social Media Management tutorial on Udemy
- HubSpot Academy provides a free certification course
- Through Facebook Blueprint you can get Classes for all skill levels.
SEO Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is a method of increasing website traffic based through search engine results, or results that are not paid advertisements. A good SEO strategy focuses on the quantity and quality of the site and questions the following weather are you seeing an increase in visitors? And are you providing readers with the content they’re searching for?
How does it work?
Commonly used Search engines are Google, Bing and Yahoo. These search engines have crawlers that collect and index the information they find on pages across the internet, after the collection the index is fed through an algorithm that tries to match what appears on a search engine results page, also known as SERP, with a user’s query Although it occurs when you, as the manager of your site, try to make your content user-friendly and search-engine-friendly. You can further increase your SEO by including few things such as keywords; title tags clickable headlines and links to other useful content.
Requirements of Tools, Software and Other Skills in SEO
The most important skill required for SEO is to be analytical, that is to be able to see trends in data and keep up with changing algorithms. Most commonly sites used by SEO experts are Adobe Analytics, Parse.ly and Google Analytics to track metrics such as how many unique visitors come to their site and which pages visitors spend the most time on.
Some of the Resources and Courses available
Generally SEO software companies offer subscription packages to users who want a full toolkit of charts, graphs and reports on their websites’ performance. They also offer free resources for those who are just getting started. You can further expand your knowledge on SEO by going through this blogs:
- Moz’s The Beginner’s Guide to SEO – is broken up into 10 chapters that cover everything from how search engines operate to keyword research to measuring and tracking success.
- Google’s SEO Starter Guide – is useful to be familiar with techniques, so that you can be aware if an SEO wants to use a technique.
- Search Engine Land’s What is SEO.– it provides a short guide to what is SEO and its guidelines.
Apart from this there are few sites which provide course to understand SEO:
- Google Analytics Academy offers free courses to help you understand the product’s functions and analytics which essential for SEO.
- free SEO training course is provided by HUBSPOT and teaches link building, topic clusters, building search authority,
- Shaw academy offers a free course on SEO and digital marketing for 4weeks from beginner to advanced level.
3. Pay-Per-Click Advertising. With pay-per-click advertising, advertisers pay a fee each time someone clicks on one of their ads. According to the Wikipedia “Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked. Pay-per-click is commonly associated with first-tier search engines (such as Google Ads, Amazon Advertising, and Microsoft advertising formerly Bing Ads).” Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn also offer PPC advertising plans specific to their platforms.
Requirements of Tools, Software and Other Skills in PPC
Ppc requires a proper knowledge of data platforms like Adobe Analytics or Google Analytics and exposure to display advertising and conversion/website optimization. There are some tools available which Businesses can use t like Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising to connect with potential customers through search engines.. Word Stream offers a paid service to help improve ad performance on Google Ads, Bing and Facebook by analyzing a business’ account and suggesting ad optimization. Word Stream also has free tools to help users create display ads or receive a grade on their Google Ads performance.
Some Resources and Courses available: To expand your knowledge you can go through some blogs:
- PPC Hero – provides tips on the expert skills and management techniques of successful pay per click advertising management.
- The WordStream Blog – a perfect guide which gives you the basic knowledge to help you master online marketing and advertising.
- Google Ads – is an online advertising platform, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, etc to web users.
Email Marketing
Email marketing helps you connect with your audience to promote your brand and increase sales.. It allows businesses to communicate information to their subscribers through newsletters, telling the customers about sales and promotions that might be of interest.
Requirements of Tools, Software and Other Skills in Email Marketing Well, your customer may receive many emails on daily basis .so you should make sure that your email is attractive and convincing .you can use tools to design eye-catching and personalized content, optimize ads for mobile, or seek email campaign strategy ideas. There are Programs range from more entry-level platforms like Mailchimp and Constant Contact to enterprise platforms like Salesforce and Adobe Campaign.
Some Resources and Courses available : Some email marketing industry publications and blogs include:
- Mailbakery Blog – is a Service to Custom Design and Code of Email Marketing Templates.
- Email Marketing Daily – is a service that helps you to Create, Send & Analyze your Emails.
- Campaign monitor’s The Digital and Email Marketing Blog – it helps you to pick colors,logos , fonts and templates.
- A video course by Mailchimp, offered through Skillshare gives knowledge about how to get started with email marketing Getting Started with Email Marketing,
Content Marketing Rather than making a particular brand or a product the center of attraction try sharing useful information to your audiences and this is what content marketing does. For example:
- Newsletters
- Educational articles
- Videos
- Webinars
. Requirements of Tools, Software and Other Skills in Content Marketing:
One of the greatest skill required to become a strong content marketer is to have a good hold on writing skills, you can also provide videos so that your audience could clearly understand the content. Another important skill required is having knowledge about SEO so that when they write about a topic they could make sure to use proper keywords as well as analytics programs. Few Tools available to you with your content marketing include: HubSpot’s CMS Hub, it helps marketers to create and edit their own web pages, and BuzzSumo, which provides real-time views of viral trends and helps users find influential writers and creators from across the social media.
Some resources and courses available: You can learn more about content marketing by reading:
- The Content Strategist by Contently – tells you about content strategy, storytelling, digital transformation and ROI.
- Copyblogger – educates you about Content marketing tools and training and the writing strategies one should know.
- Marketing Interactions – Results-oriented content marketing programs require a well designed and executed digital marketing strategy
And few courses on content marketing are:
- Get started with content marketing, – it is a part of Google’s Fundamentals of Digital Marketing course.
- HubSpot Academy offers a free certification course on content marketing at beginner level.
- Coursera – it offers a certification cpurse on strategies of content marketing for intermediate level.
How to excel in your work?
Like a field full of flowers you have several fields of digital marketing available to learn from but remember to focus on a specific disciple , choose your field that matches with your potential and skills so that you could excel in that field . If you master in a particular disciple of Digital marketing you will be able to understand your audiences requirement for that particular aspect more precisely. Learning is an art and to excel in an art one must be focused likewise go through the fields of digital marketing thoroughly and then choose.
Career Opportunities in Digital Marketing Often wonder what jobs you can get with digital marketing? Digital Marketing offers an ample of career opportunities for students and professionals from all backgrounds Here are the few top career opportunities in Digital Marketing:
- Digital Marketing Manager
- Brand Manager
- Social Media Manager
- Online Content Developer
- Business Analytics Specialist
- Search Engine Optimization Specialist
- Web Designer
- Professional Blogger
- Mobile Marketing Specialist
- Email Marketer
- Search Expert
Let’s discuss upon some of these high-demand careers in digital marketing:
Digital Marketing Manager
One of the most demanding career right now is Digital Marketing Manager , he/ she plans digital marketing campaigns across varied media, such as social media, SEO/SEM, advertising, e-mail campaigns, etc. They are also responsible for strategizing all the digital marketing campaigns and optimize them continuously to ensure highest revenues and reach. Along with all these they also have to measure and report performance of all digital marketing campaigns, and assess against goals (ROI and KPIs) and further identify trends and insights, and optimize spend and performance based on the insights.
SEO Specialist
An SEO Specialist plays the central role in optimizing a website to attain higher search engine rankings and must have an in-depth understanding of how to get the highest traffic from all search engines. They also design strategies and plans for enhancing the website rankings across search engines. Also they have to perform ongoing keyword research including discovery and expansion of keyword opportunities and do researching and implement content recommendations for organic SEO success , track, report, and analyze website analytics and PPC initiatives and campaigns; Optimize copy and landing pages for search engine marketing.
Social Media Manager
This career is one of the top choices among youngsters. Social Media Manager handles the social media channels of a company and comes up with strategies for content, marketing. They have to perform research on current benchmark trends and audience preferences . And design and implement social media strategy to align with business goals. One of the main responsibilities is to Generate, edit, publish and share engaging content daily (e.g. original text, photos, videos and news) They also have to monitor SEO and web traffic metrics.
Content Marketing Specialist
A Content Marketing Specialist has to curate the brand’s story in a unique and appealing manner so that it captures the audience and handles all the major digital media channels for content broadcast, be it blogs, social media, advertisements etc. He / she has to collaborate with design and writing teams to produce high quality content and develop editorial calendars, delegate tasks and ensure deadlines are met. Furthermore they have to edit, proofread and improve content. Also they optimize content considering SEO and Google Analytics along with Analyzing web traffic metrics and Sharing content through various channels, ensuring strong web presence.
Pay Per Click or SEM Analyst
SEM or Pay per Click Analyst mainly assesses the website traffic to integrate it with campaign tracking as well as all elements of online marketing, search analytics, SEO, amongst others. They have to identify trends and insights in order to achieve maximum ROI in paid search campaigns. They Optimize copy and landing pages for paid search engine marketing campaigns and Perform ongoing paid keyword discovery, expansion and optimization.
SEO Content Writer
An SEO Content Writer’s job is to carry out the research for the trending and industry-related topics and to curate all the online content like blogs, social media copy, website content, adverts and more along with integrating SEO insights, keywords, etc. they also have to do research industry-related topics and also write clear marketing copy to promote our and products/services Prepare well-structured drafts using Content Management Systems, one of the main responsibilities is to Proofread and edit blog posts before publication and Submit work to editors for input and approval. Other than these, some more popular digital marketing jobs and careers are:
- Web developer/designer
- Analytics Manager
- CRM Manager
- E-commerce Manager
- Digital Agency Account Director
Salary in Digital Marketing: Now one must wonder how much they can earn through these careers because after all salary is an important factor for deciding the kind of job we will pursue. So here’s an overview of salary in some high demand digital marketing careers:
Career/Job Profile Average Salary in India
- Digital Marketing Manager 4 Lakhs to 18 Lakhs p.a.
- SEO Specialist 2 Lakhs to 3 Lakhs p.a.
- Social Media Manager 3 Lakhs to 4 Lakhs p.a
- Content Marketing Specialist 2 Lakhs to 4 Lakhs p.a.
- Pay Per Click or SEM Analyst 2.5 Lakhs to 6 Lakhs p.a.
- Content Writer 2.5 Lakhs to 5 Lakhs p.a.
Top Digital Marketing companies
Ogilvy Public Relation Worldwide
Ogilvy and Mather is one of the oldest marketing agencies .It is a New York based advertising, marketing and public relations company. And while O&M concerns themselves with marketing every aspect of a brand/personality. O&M PR worldwide, specializes in most key areas of digital marketing.. They collect data, conduct research and then they. They will enact a plan to grow the brand in all aspects of equity, finance and exposure.
It is a marketing agency with main branch located in Mumbai, while, their offices can be found in cities such as New Delhi, Bangalore, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Zurich and Santa Clara. It is . a great approach to marketing is mixing and matching from both sides of the aisle. The teams at Pinstrom are experts at strategy, research, user experience, web design, mobile-friendliness, advertising, search optimization, viral videos, Facebook campaigns, Twitter updates, etc.
Voy Media is an Independent digital marketing agency based out of New York City. They help brands use the full scope of Facebook advertising to scale their sales and branding. They also specialize in Amazon PPC, Google Ads, and YouTube Advertising.
A B2B inbound marketing and account based marketing agency, Their expertise lie in consulting businesses about inbound marketing practices for growth and lead generation. The Smarketers go back to research and data analysis post each campaign to see what works and what doesn’t.
This is another huge agency on the list with clients such as Coke, BMW, Sony, Amazon and This digital marketing agency can be found in several key cities across India with its head office in Mumbai , it is a leading online digital marketing agency in India, specializing in SEO, SEM, SMO, digital media buying, website design and more.