From Zombie attack survival kits to Cat Scratchers
to 6-feet long leashes to control your hyperactive, um, Rooster, you'll find a lot of unusual
products to buy online. What's the primary force behind their success
– well, it's digital marketing. Like vegans, if you love organic content. Like taxi drivers, if you can really drive
in traffic. Then we're on the same landing page for today’s
topic.
If you’re serious about starting a high-paying
career in digital marketing, watch the full video. What is Digital Marketing? If there was ever any doubt whether our lives
needed an online support system, the state of global pandemic has certainly put that
to rest. In recent times, online or digital communication,
education, employment and even conducting businesses online have become even more integrated
to our modern culture. But this evolution began way back in the 1990s
and it became increasingly popular as businesses began realizing the potential of tapping into
vast consumer databases for better reach and more revenue. An interesting corollary to this evolution
is the way products or services are advertised. Print advertising, though still effective,
has almost become part of a bygone era.
Digital Marketing is all but ruling the marketing
world in both B2B and B2C platforms. Consumers are researching products online
using search engines, popular websites with known brands or other digital platforms. Consequently, the reach of advertisers and
marketing professionals through these online platforms has increased manifold in the past
few years. That explains the growing popularity of Digital
Marketing. So what does a digital marketer do? The main advertising weapon that a digital
marketer uses is a bankable brand awareness. Over 80% of such marketers work on improving
brand recognition that can rely on building and sustaining healthy customer relationships. In combination with user-based data-driven
marketing, they have a distinct advantage over traditional marketing approaches.
Digital marketing now provides many tools
to businesses and customers alike, to understand and research before taking transactional and
commercial decisions. In fact, a study showed that 88% consumers
pre-research their buys online before making a purchase in-store. So, how does a digital marketer deliver the
results? Through means that depend on either paid efforts
or organic spread of the good word about the product or service. The typical methods are as follows. Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) which
is a tedious but highly effective way to reach the target audience. Marketers use special keywords and phrases
in their website or ad content to get a good match for customer queries on search engines,
and improving their visibility. Old black-hat techniques such as keyword stuffing
no longer work, as search engines have become smarter at analyzing and ranking content quality. Search Engine Marketing (or SEM) is the alternative
to paid billboards. Except that they are the paid results on the
top of your search engine query, making them not only highly visible on searches but also
extremely relevant to customer queries. The result? You can generate customer interest and leads
faster, which in turn can translate into sales.
Social Media Marketing is the digital version
of your good old word of mouth promotion. The more your content gets promoted through
peer shares, likes and chit-chat, on the various social media outlets – like Facebook, Instagram,
LinkedIn, Twitter. – the more organic recognition it gets. That’s because, people generally tend to
have greater trust in a friend’s positive review. Content Marketing is where you provide useful
content regularly, that can establish you as a reliable subject matter expert. It makes the difference between marketing
efforts by a brand known to be a trusting figure, thanks to its blogs, landing pages,
social postings, vs another random company that you’ve never heard of earlier, other
than in their own aggressively promoted ads. Email Marketing is as it sounds. Advertising campaigns are led through communication
over emails. The challenge is to spread the word and not
be cast aside as spam or irrelevant noise. Email campaigns should have the same element
of authenticity and reliability to engage its target audience, the reader. How can you become a Digital Marketer? Digital Marketing is a combination of creativity
and analytical thinking that helps marketing campaigns reach their targets more effectively. Being a rather new and ever evolving field,
the training usually happens on the job for people who hold the pre-requisite knack for
business, digital and technical professions, content creation and data analytics.
Numerous online courses or certifications
can help you learn about the specialized topics such as SEO, SEM and Content Marketing. We’ll include a link in the description
to some of the best online courses in marketing. Udemy and Coursera are among some of the reputed
ones. However, there is also a growing number of
dedicated Specialized Master’s programs, both Masters of Arts (or MA) and Master of
Science (or MS), that provide an all-inclusive training. Plus, it has also become a part of the Marketing
specialization in MBA programs.
Typically, in MA programs, students learn
about marketing and communication and how they transform with digital technologies. They learn about consumer behavior, advertising
strategies, design and production, content strategy and creation, social media marketing
and market research. In MS programs, there is a lot of similar
emphasis with additional training in web analytics and design, data mining and analytical techniques
for marketing, and campaign evaluation metrics. MBA programs focus on some of the above and
the business aspect of digital marketing – developing strong operational and strategic knowledge
in digital marketing, advertising and sales. Students also learn about the digital transformation
of traditional business practices – ecommerce. They learn about opportunities in the world
of mobiles and tablets. And finally, they learn about building and
sustaining a business brand in the digital world. Most Digital Marketing specializations are
included under the broader subject of Marketing. Let's look at some of the best masters programs
in Digital Marketing, including the top MA, MS and MBA programs in digital marketing What are the job prospects in Digital Marketing? According to a Marketing Trends report, the
hiring trends for marketing specialists is always on the rise.
And within that space, Digital Marketing takes
up the largest chunk at nearly 60%. Although, there is also a steady demand for
traditional marketers. This, as the study speculates, may stem from
the need to replace the previous traditional marketing workforce with similar experts to
keep such advertising channels open. The growth for digital marketers may be slow
as some businesses may take their time to catch up with the newer online model of marketing. However, this catch up is rather inevitable
and digital marketing will remain in high demand in the future. Within Digital Marketing, the areas of expertise
most in demand are as follows. These are followed by a rather gradually decreasing
margin for web development, display marketing, analytics, SEO, SEM, and others. Here are the indicative average salaries for
digital marketing jobs. More experience adds more stars on the badge
and helps such specialists in the field get a stronger foothold in management positions. And you’ll get better salaries too. For instance, Digital Marketing Manager salaries
can be over $110,000 with a Master’s or an MBA degree.
Digital Marketing offers a contemporary career
option with many flavors to choose from. If you are keen on establishing yourself along
with the current marketing needs of businesses and have the knack to create content, sell
content, spread the good word and use the immense amount of data and technical resources
to promote businesses, we strongly suggest you explore these options. Once you’ve made up your mind, if you need
any professional help to super-charge your applications for MS and MBA programs in digital
marketing, get in touch with us. Good luck!.