Description Of Digital Marketing Courses
Learn Digital Marketing
With the accessibility of internet encompassing the entire globe at a rapid pace, the “constant” adult presence on internet has increased by more than 5% in the past few years. As of July 2019, there were 475 million internet users in India alone. When so many people spend so much time online, their spending habits also change substantially. This is evident by the fact that the e-commerce sales are expected to surpass $4.2 trillion in 2020.
Marketing essentially means connecting with your audience at the right place and at the right time. And at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, the whole world is online, which means that the brands need to meet and connect with their customers where they spend most of their time – Online.
Enter Digital Marketing!! In layman’s terms, digital marketing is a broad concept which covers any and every form of marketing efforts that exist online. To pursue a career in digital marketing you’d need to first hone your skills in this domain. The only way to do that is through enrolling in a digital marketing certification course.
But before you go ahead and enrol in such a certification course, here are all the important facts you need to know in order to familiarize yourself with the territory.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing refers to all forms of marketing which use an electronic device connected to the internet. Brands and businesses capitalise on the digital channels such as social media, search engines, third-party websites, e-mail etc. to connect and engage with their current and prospective customers and generate leads.
Importance of Digital Marketing
Traditional marketing uses channels like print ads (newspapers, magazines), phone communications, door-to-door campaigns, billboards, TV and radio ads etc. Majority of the traditional channels offer only a one-way communication opportunity to the brands.
Digital marketing, on the other hand, exists in the realm of the internet, which offers an endless number of possibilities like e-mail, videos, social media etc., to the brands to engage in a two-way conversation with their customers. With so many options and strategies associated with the online platforms, marketers can get creative and experiment with a variety of tactics on a budget.
Moreover, with most of the global population spending majority of their time online (either on social-media or visiting streaming networks) and with numerous tools to track the ROI and results of efforts and campaigns, digital channels are now on the way to overtake traditional channels as the preferred mode of marketing.
Role of a Digital Marketer
Digital marketers use a combination of digital tactics and channels to connect with the customers online. This process starts from the very website of the business and encompasses all of its online branding assets like social media handles, digital advertising, e-mail marketing, corporate brochures, infographics, informative blogs and articles, video advertorials, etc. All these avenues, and more, fall under the umbrella of digital marketing.
Digital Marketers, as per the organizational goals, create campaigns through the free and paid channels available at their disposal. The best online marketers know how each of the channels play a role in achieving the overarching goals of the organization.
Components of Digital Marketing
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO):How many of us go to the second page of Google Results? Exactly. In the simplest of terms, SEO is the process of making your website visible on the online search engines like Google, Bing etc. The job of an SEO professional is to optimise a business’ website in such a manner that it ranks higher in the search results and not stay hidden in the dark corners of the second page of Google. This increases the amount of organic traffic on the website. SEO majorly leverages the power of website, blogs, videos and infographics. There are various ways of approaching SEO in order to generate qualified website traffic. These include:
- On-page SEO: As the name suggests, on-page SEO deals with all the content that exists on the page of the website. SEO marketers need to conduct keyword research focusing on the keywords’ frequency and intent and use the highly searched keywords on the web pages for them to rank higher in the search engine results.
- Off-page SEO: Again, as the name suggests, this type of SEO deals with the activity taking place off the page. Now the question arises that what kind of activity can affect the website ranking when it is not even happening on the website? The answer lies in the activity known as backlinks or inbound links. To understand this better, let’s take an example of a highly authoritative online food blogger with massive following writing about the best restaurants in town and offering a backlink redirecting its readers to your food/restaurant website. The number of publishers/authors that link to your webpages on their content and the authority of those publishers affect your search engine ranking on the related keywords. Brands network with other publishers in the same domain as of their products and write guest posts on their websites to link it back to their own website. By generating this kind of external attention, businesses move their websites up on all the right search engine result pages (SERPs).
- Technical SEO: This form of SEO deals with the backend and coding of the website. Some of the forms of technical SEO are image compression, structured data, CSS file optimisation etc. The technical SEO impacts the loading speed of your web pages which is a crucial ranking factor for majority of the search engines including Google.
- Content Marketing: Content marketing deals with the creation and promotion of relevant content in the form of blog posts, videos, infographics, listicles etc. for the purpose of engaging with the current and prospective customers, enhancing brand loyalty, generating brand awareness, website traffic growth and lead generation. A robust content strategy includes channels such as:
- Blog Posts: Writing and publishing informative blogs and articles on the company blog establishes your expertise and authority in the industry and helps in generating organic traffic for the website. This enables you to convert the website visitors into leads for your sales team.
- Video Content: In the 21st century, video content has started to rapidly replace the written form of content. Associating the brand with innovative short stories via the visual medium is one of the best ways to enhance brand recall.
- Social Media Marketing: Hardly anyone on the planet is left untouched by the allure of Social Media. When a brand’s target audience are spending majority of their time scrolling on Facebook or Instagram, it will be folly on the brand’s part to not be present on their loyal customers’ favourite social media platforms. Social Media marketing primarily deals with promoting the brand and content on social media channels to create awareness, engage with current and prospective customers, drive traffic and generate leads for the business. The major social media channels where a brand’s presence is a must are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Pinterest.
- E-mail Marketing: Email marketing, if used correctly, is an extremely efficient way for the brands to communicate with its audience. Email campaigns are primarily used for promoting content, events, discounts etc. and are an effective way of directing recipients towards the brand’s website. The email campaigns may include content such as blog subscriptions, newsletters, follow-ups on the leads, holiday promotions etc.
- Pay Per Click (PPC): PPC is a technique of directing traffic towards the website by the means of paid ads on search engines. As the name suggests, the brands need to pay the ad publisher every time someone clicks on the ad. One of the most common platforms for PPC campaigns is Google Ads, which allows brands to pay (per click) for top slots on the search results page of Google. There are various other channels to run PPC campaigns, some of which are Facebook, Twitter, sponsored messages on LinkedIn etc.
Jobs in Digital Marketing
In the past decade, digital marketing has gained immense popularity and has become one of the most sought after careers of the 21st century. As every single business, small and big, tries to capture the online space, the demand for trained and qualified online marketers is ever on the rise. According to payscale.com, the starting salary of an online marketing professional who has completed a genuine certification course in digital marketing from a premier b-school or training institute is INR 4lakh and upwards in India. If you are new to this domain but aspire for a career in the same, there are various online digital marketing certification and training courses offered by some of the top institutes of the country, you can enrol into.
Here are some of the top job profiles you can aim for after completing an online or offline certification training course in digital marketing:
- Content Marketer: A content marketer is responsible for creating original and engaging content with which the customers can relate to. He/she is also responsible for promoting the content on the digital channels and drive traffic on the website in an organic way. Good communication skills and an impeccable command over language are some of the traits of a qualified content marketer. If you are considering a career in content, an online certification training program in the same can fetch you a starting salary of 4 plus lacks.
- SEO Manager: An SEO manager is responsible for implementing robust search engine optimisation strategies and ensuring that the website always ranks high on the search engine results. The starting remuneration that an SEO Manager/Professional can earn is Rs 6 lakh and upwards.
- SEO Executive: While an SEO manager is involved with formulating and implementing the overall SEO strategy, an SEO executive is a junior level role wherein the SEO professional conducts of and off site SEO analysis. Both the onsite and offsite SEO strategies rely heavily on a detailed keyword research, which is again the job of an SEO executive. An SEO executive also keeps an eye on ever changing Google algorithms. The starting salary of an SEO executive is somewhere near 4 lakhs per annum.
- Social Media Manager: A social media manager handles all the social media profiles of the organization or its clients. He is expected to run all the social media campaigns, enhance the brand’s engagement with its customers and its presence on social networking sites. A social media manager is also responsible for building a network of influencers, post and comment on blogs and relevant content, engage in online conversations and reply to customer feedback and queries. A social media manager/executive typically starts his remuneration from the upwards of 4 lakh per annum.
- Market Research Analyst: The profile of a Market Research Analyst revolves around studying and understanding the market conditions and predict the possibilities of sale. A market research analyst gathers data on consumer demographics, needs, preferences and buying habits and helps the organizations understand these factors to create campaigns which allure the buyers by addressing their needs.
- PPC Manager: A PPC Search Manager is a person who is passionate about internet marketing and has the ability to think creatively. A PPC manager needs to adapt to the latest industry trends and business types quickly and apply the knowledge to marketing initiatives that can help in achieving client goals. The starting salary of PPC Search Manager is Rs 5 lakh and upwards.
- Email Marketer: The email marketer is responsible for identifying the target audience and growing the subscriber base. He/she is also responsible for designing and executing direct mailer campaigns, designing newsletters, personalization, ensuring the templates are responsive on both desktop and mobiles, implementing advance features and ensuring accurate and prompt communication with the clients. An email marketer typically earns 4 lakh per annum at the start of his/her career.
Benefits of Pursuing a Digital Marketing Certification Course
- A Wide Range of Career Options: Digital Marketing doesn’t restrict you to one job profile. You can choose from a variety of career options like SEO, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, E-mail Marketing etc.
- Better Salary: As mentioned earlier, digital marketing jobs are ever on the rise and the qualified professionals who have earned a specialised certification in the field are eligible for highly attractive remuneration plans.
- Flexibility: Unlike other careers, where you have to complete a degree and need to be at a workstation from 9 to 5, digital marketing online certification courses offer you the flexibility to be your own boss and work at your own convenience due to the abundance of freelance opportunities.
If you want to pursue a career in this highly rewarding domain, you will require a formal education. Various academic institutes of highest of repute offer online certification training courses in Digital Marketing which can help you in starting off with your dream career in this domain. Premier B-Schools like XLRI, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Raipur, MICA etc. offer online certification programs and courses in digital marketing which you can explore on Talentedge.