How to Build a Promising Career in Digital Marketing

Want to learn everything about a career in digital marketing? Not sure where to start? Well, you are in the right place; stay tuned till the end and you will get answers to all your questions regarding a career in digital marketing.

Washing powder Nirma Washing powder Nirma. No. Stop singing “Dhoodh si safedi Nirma se aaye…”. I know this jingle is deeply rooted in your childhood memories and is an instant source of sweet nostalgia. But it’s also the advertising strategy that became synonymous to Nirma’s success- a private FMCG company based in Ahmedabad, manufacturing detergents, soaps, and other similar products. Thanks to the jingly connection the brand could make with people, its marketing efforts resulted in increased popularity and revenue.

But can you think of any brand that is creating such an impact with a television advertisement today? No, right? You don’t even watch TV as much as you did 5 years back to know about the popular ads. Right? One more question- When was the last time you went to a grocery store with a pamphlet in your hand that promised 20% off on certain items? Wait. Stop thinking. I get it, it was long long ago. My point is- things have changed.

Marketing is no more about tv ads and printed leaflets; at least not majorly. Marketing has become about reaching out to you on your mobile screens, about social media, about being the relevant suggestion when you search for something on Google, about the email subject lines you can’t resist and  about “I was just thinking of buying a bag, why is the Amazon ad of bags following me on Facebook and Instagram?”

What is Digital Marketing?

Majorly, Digital Marketing is the use of digital mediums and tactics to connect with and influence actual and potential customers at the place where they spend considerable time, i.e. the Internet.

With technology pacing at a speed unlike ever before and businesses getting more and more dynamic with every passing day, a professional in digital marketing field is likely to be involved in mutiple aspects of marketing. Here are the general areas a digital marketing professional will get involved in during their career in digital marketing:

• Marketing Automation
• Blogging
• Brand Management
• Web Designing and Web Development
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Curation and Content Management
• Marketing Strategy
• Editing and Copywriting
• Data Analytics
• E-Commerce
• SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
• SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
• Email Marketing
• Mobile Marketing
• Interactive Technology (such as ML, AI etc)

Don’t worry. You don’t have to be an expert in all these areas. However, for a successful career in digital marketing it is advisible to get training in two to three of the abvove mentioned areas.

What are the Various Components of Digital Marketing?

Imagine Digital Marketing to be a big fat umbrella. No, a little bigger than that. Yeah, perfect. Now, you would find the following people standing under this umbrella and discussing a brand in the same tone and with the same enthusiasm:

• The muscular Search Engine Optimisation
• The philosophical Content Marketing
• The amiable Social Media Marketing
• The calculative Pay-Per-Click
• The wise Affiliate Marketing
• The sophisticated Native Advertising
• The fashionable Marketing Automation
• The straightforward Email Marketing
• The image-conscious Online PR
• The entertaining Inbound Marketing

You want to be friends with all or few of these people so you can enjoy rainbows of your career and also stand strong through the rains of constant advancements in the economy? Well, stay tuned then. In the next 5 minutes, you will know everything about pursuing a career in digital marketing.

Also Read: Digital Marketing Course Syllabus

Why Digital Marketing Is In Huge Demand?

Breaking away from the traditional forms of offline marketing, Digital Marketing has established an incremental role in the business world in present times. That’s why a career in digital marketing has emerged amongst the choicest ones because more and more students from diverse streams are choosing this specialisation for its popularity in the world of the Internet. To begin with, let’s take a look at why digital marketing has become essential for every springing business aspiring to make it big!

Direct Communication

It is quite a rarity in the era of the Internet that people are not social media or online platforms where they can be reached through digital marketing. Using online websites as well as social media applications, it has made it easier to spread awareness about products and services to a rather global audience thus facilitating direct communication in an incredible manner. Further, through these platforms, one can also seek easy feedback from consumers and get to know their interests and preferences which can help you improve your products and services as well.

Economical & Effective

When put in comparison with traditional forms of marketing, digital marketing relatively encompasses a cost-effective approach. Many small businesses opt for this form because it is quite economical because using the tactical tools of digital marketing, one can curate effective strategies without heavily impacting the budget, advertise their products and services, better brand engagement and further yield a higher return on investment as well.

Know Your Audience

Since digital marketing aims to implement direct communication between a business and its target audience, it also gives you the chance to gauge your consumers, their interests and preferences. Using social media as well as other ways like emails, surveys, etc. you can seek feedback from your audience thus in a way, familiarizing yourself with what the consumers really want and how they can be engaged and made interested in your products and services. 

Increased Revenues

By drafting impactful digital marketing campaigns, you can potentially earn more revenue without spending exhaustively and especially in comparison to the traditional methods of advertising and marketing. This is another prominent reason why a career in digital marketing is frequently chosen because it is a booming field with the potential to get higher revenues, given that you utilise multiple platforms and create powerful content and marketing strategies as per the interests of your target audience.

Keep A Tab on Your Competitors

There are many digital marketing tools that you can implement to evaluate what your competitors are doing as well as analyse the strategies they are putting to use. Through competitive analysis, one can gain an upper hand and thus expand their audience accordingly. This can also help you catch important opportunities in your arena and thus find a competitive advantage as well!

Real-time Progress & Results

As compared to traditional methodologies, digital marketing comes with the advantage of mapping your progress and getting real-time results. By knowing the bounce rate, number of visitors, conversion rates and website traffic, one can gauge what’s really working and what’s not and thus bring impactful changes subsequently to accentuate the progress while working on the loopholes.

Who is a Digital Marketing Professional?

A successful digital marketing professional is the one who is self-motivated to learn about the latest trends in the respective industry, enthusiastic about building a favourable brand image, and passionate about building meaningful relationships with the customers. A digital marketing professional possess the knowledge and skills to exploit the power of Internet for posting blogs, creating social media posts, conduct advertising campaigns, creating web pages, etc. Digital Marketing includes the following positions:  

• Brand Manager
• Social Media Marketer
• Online Content Developer
• Business Analytics Specialist
• Search Engine Optimisation Specialist
• Web Designer
• Professional Blogger
• Mobile Marketing Specialist
• Email Marketer
• Search Expert

Career in Digital Marketing

With the consistently increasing popularity and usage of the Internet, businesses today have the extensive opportunity to reach out to the world 24/7, influence people through various digital mediums and earn revenues at the convenience of a few clicks. The prevailing need and trend of digitalising businesses have created an enormous demand for professionals acquainted with the art of digital marketing- people who have the knowledge and skills required to creatively utilise the power of the Internet for drawing the attention of prospective customers, engaging the audience and drawing sales and rewards. 

What are the Benefits of Pursuing a Career in Digital Marketing? 

• You can kickstart your career for FREE

This is probably the best part of a career in digital marketing- you don’t necessarily have to get yourself enrolled in a university, sit for lectures, write exams and score certain degree to successfully pursue a career in Digital Marketing. Of course, a professional full-time degree in Marketing or Digital Marketing will open more doors for you but online Digital Marketing certification and courses too will open enough doors to travel on a rewarding career path.

• Evolving industry with promising scope

With Internet usage by consumers surging and digitalisation of businesses becoming a necessity, digital marketing has become unavoidable. Every company- small or big is constantly seeking professionals who can creatively represent its brand across various social media platforms and engage its potential and actual customers over the Internet and other digital means. 

• Rewarding job prospects

Can I be direct? The demand for digital marketing professionals is exceeding its supply. Simple. The multiple career options in the field of digital marketing come with opportunities for promotion and growth. By acquiring knowledge about the latest trends and updating skills accordingly, one can travel a long and rewarding distance in Digital Marketing.

• Your creativity gets wings to fly

Any job in the field of Digital Marketing offers one enough flexibility to try and experiment with different techniques and methods to see what’s working positively for the brand and what’s not. Be it a Content Creator or a Brand Manager, an SEO specialist or an Email Marketer, when you enter the land of Digital Marketing, you are handed over imaginativeness to respond current trends in the industry in respect to the marketing goals of the company. 

What are the Disadvantages of Pursuing a Career in Digital Marketing?

• You have to be flexible and be continually learning

If you thought learning the basics and completing some online courses would make you swim adroitly through the pool of your career digital marketing, I am sorry it isn’t that easy. Since Digital Marketing is mostly all about the Internet, a Digital Marketing professional has to constantly learn about the frequently changing trends on social media, updates in the Google Search Algorithm and Ranking System and other relevant trends and changes.

• Extensive competition in the industry

It would have been quite convenient if Digital Marketing was a club only adults with certain dressing sense and attitude could enter but it’s more like a flash mob where anyone can clap around and chill. If you think with certain certification and experience is under your belt and no one can stop you for being Number 1, well, there is a teenager out there write 3 blogs a day, managing social media for a small company and completing 2 online digital marketing courses a day- making himself skillful and employable.

What are the Different Career Paths in Digital Marketing?

There is no rigid career path for entering the domain of Digital Marketing and creating your mark. Thanks to numerous short-term professional online and offline courses, this field is open to students and professionals from different backgrounds. However, here are a few popular career paths:

Top Universities to study Masters in Marketing Degree

Here is a list of different marketing programs in some of the most renowned universities across the globe that will help you pursue a career in digital marketing:

• Ms in Marketing Science, Columbia Business School, United States 
• MSc Strategic Marketing, Imperial College Business School, United Kingdom 
• MSc in Marketing, HEC Paris, France 
• MSc in Marketing Management, ESADE, Spain 
• MSc in Marketing and Creativity, ESCP, France
• Msc Marketing, Manchester (Alliance), United Kingdom
• MSc in Digital Innovation, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, Ireland
• MSc in Strategic Marketing, Cranfield, United Kingdom
• Msc Marketing, Trinity Business School, Ireland
• MSc Marketing Management, Erasmus (RSM), Netherlands

Also Read: Masters in Digital Marketing in Canada

Free Books, Blogs and Online Courses for Kickstarting you Career in Digital Marketing

Free Books on Digital Marketing:

• How to Use Data Visualization to Win Over Your Audience by HubSpot
• Top 25 Social Media Strategies by Buffer
• The Marketer’s Guide to Facebook by Contently
• Data-Driven Content Marketing by Uberflip
• Building Online Brand Awareness with Digital PR by SEMrush
• Social Media Data Cookbook by Hootsuite
• Conversations, Not Campaigns by Marketo
• The Conversion Marketer’s Guide to Landing Page Copywriting by Unbounce
• Beginner’s Guide to SEO by Moz
• Practical Guide to Data-Driven Content Marketing by SEMrush

Free Blogs on Digital Marketing:

• The Moz Blog
• The HubSpot Blog
• The Content Marketing Institute Blog
• The Copyblogger Blog
• The Search Engine Journal Blog
• The CopyHackers Blog
• The Social Media Examiner Blog
• The Convince and Convert Blog
• The Grow Blog
• The Buffer Blog

Free Courses to Learn Digital Marketing:

• Content Marketing Certification Course by Hubspot Academy 
• Introduction to Social Media Advertising by Buffer
• Email Marketing Certification Course by Hubspot Academy
• Online Marketing Certification by eMarketing Institute
• Inbound Certification Course by Hubspot Academy
• Viral Marketing and How to Craft Contagious Content by Coursera
• Engaging Storytelling with Instant Articles by Facebook Blueprint 
• Marketing with Ahrefs
• Digital Skills: Digital Marketing by Future Learn 
• SEO Training Course by Moz

FAQs about Career in Digital Marketing 

1. Why choose a career in Digital Marketing?

With more and more consumers coming online, the companies are also looking to exploit this trend. There are more than 640 million online users in India and it is expected to grow to 635 million in 2021. This has made it impossible to focus on Marketing Online and Digital Marketing. It is a growing digital marketing industry with vast opportunities and increasing demand.

2. How do I get a job in Digital Marketing?

There are many different paths to pursue a career in Digital Marketing. You can go for a Bachelors in Marketing and Masters in Digital Marketing before getting a job in digital marketing. You can also get an internship and then follow up with a master to build a career in digital marketing. There are also blogs and online courses that can help you build a promising career in digital marketing.

Also Read: Digital Marketing Jobs for Freshers

3. How can I grow my career in Digital Marketing? 

The only constant in a career in Digital Marketing is “change”.  With the growth of the industry, many resources are available to keep the industry professionals updated. You can follow top marketers, online blogs, and websites. There are also many online courses to grow your career in Digital Marketing.

Also Read: MBA in Digital Marketing

4. What is the average salary for Digital Marketer? 

According to Glassdoor, the average salary of a digital marketer is 8,13,003/yr. The entry-level salary starts at around 3 Lakhs per annum. The increase in the salary for a career in digital marketing differs on the basis of experience. The increase in salary is between 30-50% depending on the industry and company.

5. Do I need a degree in Digital Marketing?

You do not need a degree in Digital Marketing but with the increase in the popularity of the profession, we suggest you should. You can opt for internships and online courses but a master in Digital Marketing will help kickstart your career in Digital Marketing.

6. What skills do I need for Digital Marketing? 

The most important skill for a career in Digital Marketing is imagination. Creative imagination is required to come up with campaigns to reach possible consumers. Content writing skills are also important to communicate with consumers on a personal level. There are many aspects of digital marketing and you need different skills to make in your selected domain.

If you are reading this, I want to tell you I have somehow succeeded in doing inbound marketing and at the same time hopefully managed to draw a career map for you. I also want to tell you if you will call Leverage Edu (+918826200293) right now and book your free consultation, it will mark your first step towards pursuing a career in digital marketing. So what are you waiting for, future Digital Marketer, don’t you want to get your creativity hitched with the immense power of the Internet?