Every business’s goal is to increase sales/revenue, improve brand awareness, lead conversion, and stand out from competitors. And the one strategy that helps them achieve all that is Digital Marketing.
Digital marketing has changed the way businesses do marketing. As per Adobe’s 2013 Digital Distress survey, 76% of those asked felt that marketing had changed much more in the last few years that it did in 50 years.
So what has changed? What has made businesses go digital? The answer is the customer experience. Digital marketing has incredibly changed the way people interact, shop, or work. We have become a society driven by digital technology.
Big or small, every industry is going digital. 70% of companies either have a digital transformation strategy in place or are working on one.
Dreaming of making it big in digital marketing? Let’s explore more about it and know-how you can build a successful digital marketing career.
What is Digital Marketing?
Reaching to your target audience at the right time and right place is what marketing is all about. Today, 59% of the World population is on the internet. When we market a product or service using some electronic device or the internet, it is called digital marketing.
Various digital marketing activities used by businesses include blogs, websites, emails, online brochures, social media, videos, reviews and online advertisements. So many tactics, yet, marketers keep coming with new ways to reach and engage with their customers, making this industry ever-evolving.
Digital marketing is the reason that an 8-Year-Old Made $26 Million reviewing toys on YouTube.
Why Does a Brand Need Digital Marketing?
Every business’s ultimate goal is to reach their target customer, tap the market, drive sales, and generate revenue. In today’s scenario, the best way to get your customers is through the internet.
According to a study, 72% of customers won’t take action until they read reviews. 83% of customers don’t trust traditional advertising anymore as they used to. Now they pay more attention to the customer recommendations online.
In addition to this, there are many more benefits of digital marketing:
Less expensive than traditional marketing
Advertising through conventional ways like television, newspapers, radio, magazines can cost you a large amount of money. Whereas reaching your customers through social media, blogs, websites are much less expensive.
Reaches to mobile users
60 percent of the world’s total population uses the internet, and 91% use mobile devices to go online. Such wide reach brands get by formatting digital marketing to mobile devices.
Customer actions are easy to track
With available tracking tools, you can easily track customers' movements on your website. What pages they visit, how much time they spend on the website, conversions, bounce rate, and then you can strategize accordingly.
Better customer engagement and relationships
Social media has become an excellent tool for brands to engage with their customers. If there is any concern, customers can directly reach the brands and get the query resolved. Hence, resulting in a better brand-customer relationship.
Increase in revenue
Tracking and analyzing the customer actions helps brands strategize accordingly, which further leads to a higher conversion rate. The conversion rate in digital marketing is higher as compared to traditional marketing. A high conversion rate means an increase in revenue.
Various Digital Marketing Channels
Digital marketing channels are the medium through which the brand presents its products and services to the customers using digital marketing activities.
You may feel like that so many channels are there, but this is also the reason which makes digital marketing more powerful. With so many available mediums, you can engage with your customers at so many touch points simultaneously.
So let’s find out what these channels are:
Search Engine Optimization
Process of optimizing the content on your websites or blogs so that it ranks higher and appear on top of the Search Pages (SERP) and to grow the traffic on the website organically is called Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Marketing is the process of gaining traffic and visibility through paid advertisements.
Paid advertisements imply that the business pays for ads to appear at the top of the first page of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) when a user searches for a certain keyword.
Content marketing
At this time of fierce competition, you have to stand out from the crowd. And content is a sure-shot way to do that. Your content, be it text or video, should be powerful enough to grab the audience’s attention and make them connect with the brand.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social media is no longer just a platform to keep in touch with friends and family or share photographs and info. In fact, social media has now become an essential channel for product promotion, create brand awareness, and direct engagement with customers.
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest are some of the biggest social media platforms. They also help your brand to reach global audiences too.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an online marketing tactic where the affiliate earns a commission for marketing other businesses’ products/services.
Today, Affiliate marketing is a global industry worth well over $12 billion.
Have you ever heard of the Amazon Associates Program? It is the world’s largest affiliate network that helps content creators, publishers, and website owners monetize their traffic.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is the one digital marketing channel that delivers medium to excellent ROI. Often declared as dead, it is perhaps one of the most effective mediums to engage your existing customer and a potential customer.
Personalization and automation have also made emails an excellent choice for marketing.
Most Demanding Roles in Digital Marketing
Digital marketing career path is not limited to one or two but has a broad spectrum of career choices. Digital marketing career scope is really wide.
Below are some sought after digital marketing roles with a stellar salary trajectory and will be high in demand in the coming years.
Digital Marketing Analyst
The job responsibility of a digital marketing analyst is to develop, implement, and analyze digital marketing strategies to increase traffic on the company’s website.
They should have strong research skills to identify the latest trends, opportunities, and should be able to provide solutions based on these understandings.
SEO/SEM Manager
An SEM manager has to manage the paid campaigns on search engines. He is supposed to run campaigns, track, report, and analyze PPC initiatives.
An SEO specialist is responsible for the company’s website’s performance by using the right SEO strategies. He has to ensure that the website shows up at the top of the Search Engine Result Page.
Content Strategist
To create a strong online presence, a brand needs engaging and informative content. This is where the role of a content strategist comes. A content strategist should not only have strong writing skills but strong SEO skills too.
Email Marketing Specialist
Email marketing is old yet one of the most effective marketing strategies. Email marketing requires aspects of both content development and marketing. Email marketing is a lead-generating strategy through engaging content, so the specialist must work with content developers and marketers when working on a targeted campaign.
Social Media Manager
Social Media Manager is responsible for managing the company’s social media channels, building brand awareness, promoting the company’s products, and engaging with existing and targeted customers.
UX Designer
UX designer’s job is to develop the website and other digital marketing applications.
Image Source: freepik
Skills You Need to Comprehend to be a Pro Digital Marketer.
If you have decided to make a digital marketing career, you must know what skills you required to make your resume considerable.
SEM/SEO Skills
SEM and SEO are all about optimizing your website to appear on top of search pages and manage the paid campaigns. Learn and understand the best practices of optimizing content.
Content Writing and Editing Skills
Learn how to create high quality and SEO friendly content. Because only that content will mark your digital presence. Content doesn't mean only text form, but videos too, because it is the next big thing in digital marketing.
Data Analytical Skills
Various marketing activities and modern technologies have made it possible for businesses to collect data from their online interactions with customers. With so much data in hand, a marketer should study consumer behavior and make strategies accordingly to drive sales and grow business.
Social Media Skills
As Social media has become an essential tool for creating brand awareness, promoting a product, and customer engagement, a digital marketer needs to know the latest social trends, be creative, and know social media data analytics tools like Facebook Insights.
Basic Graphics And Design Skills
Today, marketing is all about getting your customer to purchase and create a user experience through the best UX. A basic understanding of graphics and design will look good on the resume.
Why Should You Choose Digital Marketing As Your Career?
Wondering why should pick digital marketing career path? Have a look at these reasons.
Booming Industry
Digital marketing is not a trend but has become a massive global industry. Less expensive than traditional marketing, worldwide reach, and a better customer approach and engagement, it is the future of marketing.
Constantly Evolving Industry
Digital marketing is the amalgamation of technology and creativity. New web and mobile technologies are why digital marketing has made the future of conventional marketing bleak. With ever-evolving technologies, digital marketing is here to stay.
Stellar Job Opportunities
Digitalization of the industries has created a massive demand for digital marketing professionals. By 2020, in India, the digital sector will produce more than 20 lakh jobs.
Highly-paid Roles
Digital marketers are supposed to have some polished digital marketing skills but still are not readily found in candidates. The demand for skilled marketers is high, but supply is short, leading to high paying job profiles.
Constant Learning
With continually evolving technologies, you have to keep learning and polish your skill-set to keep up with the latest trends, software, tools, and platforms.
To Summarize
I hope you might have got the insights on how you can build your digital marketing career and why it is the best career choice in 2021.
Creative or technical, choose the digital marketing career path that interests you, and you will be rewarded with growth and remuneration.
Learn and grow; make it your career mantra. The sky’s the limit for you.
Good Luck!
