Digital marketing sector dodges prevailing slump

There has been a rapid development of career opportunities in the field of digital marketing. As per the 2018 report of Internet and Mobile Association of India, digital marketing in India will, in the near future, be providing employment to 10-20 lakh youths.

As per the report, 2018 saw digital marketing in India register a growth by 30 per cent. In 2017, the same digital market had taken a leap of 27 per cent with a net worth of Rs 9,266 crore.

Nitnem Singh Sodhi, a cyber-security expert, who runs his own digital marketing firm, said: "Digital marketing is very much like offline marketing. One has to display here the same set of skills of the filed on social sites instead. The advertisements running upon Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are a part of none other than digital marketing."

He added: "Future holds immense possibilities for digital marketing. This is one field of business least affected by the slump. Its progress would not be in any way hampered by the slump."

"People are not distancing from the newspapers and do not have enough time to watch TV. Most of the people prefer spending time over mobiles using internet. This is the reason the advertisement upon social sites have an increasing base and appeal," said Sodhi, adding, "If any product or a group has to reach the maximum number of people then using digital marketing instead of newspaper or TV to maximize the viewership base."

As per the estimates of e-commerce websites, the population of internet users in regional languages will reach 500 million by 2020 in India. Also, the share of advertisements upon digital media is expected to reach Rs 25,200 crore.

Cisco's Visual Networking Index (VNI) reports that Indians prefer shopping over the internet rather than going out physically to buy their stuff. This is why 90% companies in India are spending 15% of their total revenue upon digital marketing. Similar data suggest that with the increased dependence of people upon internet employment opportunities in the field of digital marketing are increasing as well.

Career and opportunities in digital marketing

Seeing the increased opportunities in digital marketing, many institutes are offering courses in digital marketing. One can even pursue MBA in digital marketing from the universities. Besides, there are numerous online courses available. Digital marketing can also be learned from several online video courses upon various social media such as You Tube.

Nitnem informed: "One does not need any qualification for digital marketing nor is there a need to do some special course but still if someone wishes to do that then several institutes run short term courses in digital marketing. These teach the marketing strategies adopted by HTML, Tag, Meta Tag, Blog, key word search, site analysis, social bookmarking, Google ad word and Youtube."

He said: "For this, it is essential to be Class XII pass in whichever the stream. However, for an MBA in digital marketing one needs to be a graduate irrespective of the stream."

After learning digital marketing one can work at a very good salary in banking, tourism, hospitality, IT, media, consultancy, market research, PSU and retail sector.

Moving beyond shopping digital marketing has now forayed in the field of education. Anurag Tiwari who runs an e-learning website 'lecturdekho.com' believes digital marketing to be a boon for the online startups. Previously people had a limited reach for their products. Now due to internet facilities and digital marketing one can very quickly reach more people with one's products. He further informed that in today's world every company needs digital partnership. Failing to digitally update oneself will be a terrible setback in business.

Anurag added that companies in the coming times would require 7-10 lakh digital marketing professional for the Indian digital market. In the coming 3-4 years, not only companies but even political outfits would require digital marketing professionals. Most of the politicians are beginning to hire digital marketing professionals to improve their image and its marketing. Citing the example of his own e-learning firm he said that he is in constant requirement of such professionals to help his study material reach its targeted consumers through advertising on several social media platforms reaching vast population.

In India, the beginners' salary for digital marketing professional averages around Rs 18-25,000, with experience it steadily increases with time. Besides digital marketing has a lot of scope for both professionals and freelancers.

Jobs in Digital marketing

All jobs in digital marketing are based on e-commerce websites and social sites. The future of this sector holds immense employment opportunities at every level. Digital marketing has many vital processes without which it is almost inconceivable. Primarily these are:

Web developer and web designer: The beautiful pages that we browse in the world of internet are designed by these professionals. People wishing to pursue this as a career need to have a sound knowledge of java script, HTML, CSS, PHP and dot net.

SEO expert: They are responsible for bringing traffic to their existing pages upon social media. They are also responsible for bettering their website's Google search ranking.

Social media executive: These people handle their websites upon various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and twitter. They closely monitor social media trends and decide their policies accordingly.

Content maker: A content marker performs the function of producing brand favouring and trending content. Besides, a content marker is also responsible for producing original content in coordination with the SEO team and keyword research team. The person doing this job must have a good language command and be creative.

Digital marketing manager: This personnel oversees the entire digital marketing profile of a company and formulates strategies. A person needs to have adequate digital marketing experience for this job.

There are many more important job avenues in the field of digital marketing to take marketing to another level with an average annual income between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh.

CRM manager: This person is responsible for online contact with the customer. They are responsible for maintaining sustained relations with the customer once contacted.

Email marketing manager: They optimize marketing function by emails. They send various offers regularly to email IDs that have been in contact with their websites. This is to promote consumer interest in their products.

Analytic manager: They research into the consumer trends and formulate policies upon its basis. They work towards formulating and extending various offers to the customer so that their websites are constantly accessed by people.

Affiliate marketer: They are a different category of digital professionals. They take money from other companies to promote and provide them digital space. Usually big celebrities with tremendous reach provide space to various other companies on their social IDs.

During the current slump and shortages of jobs, seeing the potential of digital marketing, the Indian government too has been working on Digital India and Indian Startup and promoting it. Its chief aim is to create maximum employment opportunities for the youth in this sector in the wake of employment crisis.

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