Scope Of Digital Marketing

Today, almost everyone is online. With access to cheap data and affordable smartphones, the number of people across the globe who have access to the internet has increased exponentially. This means that if the companies want to connect with their potential customers, engage them, create brand awareness and sell them some products or services, they can easily do it through online channels.

That is what Digital Marketing is all about.

Businesses today leverage digital channels such as social media, search engines, email, and websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

The Growth of Digital Marketing:

When we think of the key indicators of success in marketing, the first thing we think of is the number of people reached through marketing practices. The internet’s penetration has reached outstanding numbers. Looking at India itself, it has the 2nd largest number of internet users in the world.

By , the number of active Indian internet users will reach more than 665 million. So when companies see these numbers, they realize the importance of the internet as a channel of marketing. Online marketing is considered cheaper, with higher reach; this is extremely attractive to the companies as their aim is to connect with customers with the least amount of costs.

Companies are giving so much importance to digital marketing that some of the biggest ones are restructuring their marketing budget to shift their focus to digital. Unilever, one of the oldest and most successful companies, is set to completely transform itself as a digitally focused company. It has replaced the role of Chief Marketing Officer with Chief Digital & Marketing Officer.

Unilever has said that this is an important step in becoming a “future-fit, fully digitised organisation at the leading edge of consumer marketing.” Unilever has also understood the e-commerce era and has recognized online retail as its most important growth channel.

The Future of Digital Marketing Jobs:

The Indian internet industry is going to be worth $160 billion by 2025, according to a Goldman Sachs report, which is three times its current value. Many companies are shifting their focus from traditional marketing to digital marketing. In fact, digital advertising spends are set to reach Rs 25,000 crore in India by , at a growth rate of more than 10.5%. This is going to lead to a situation where lakhs of jobs will be available in the digital marketing sector which includes social media marketing, content creation, and online retailing, online advertising.

Thus, companies are looking for people who are skilled to handle digital marketing jobs. This is seen specifically in a study done by , where India appears to be taking a progressive and more mature digital approach in marketing, ahead of many brands across APAC, Europe and Latin America, with the most mature brands reporting significant benefits for digital marketing efforts.

A recent report by shows that digital marketing jobs are one of the emerging careers in India since digitisation is being adopted so largely in the country. As the younger generation is emerging in India in numbers, we see a large increase in social media usage by Indians. This is leading to new platforms being adopted such as Tik Tok, which has 200 million users in India whereas Facebook has a total of 300 users in India.

In India, 67% of internet users will be under 35 by 2020 according to Statista and the total population in India under 35 is around 65%. This means, their biggest audience is this group and in order to reach them, they must enlist employees who are capable of doing so, which is the job of Digital Marketers.

Existing Careers in Digital Marketing

In terms of the kind of jobs that are available in the digital marketing sector, one of the biggest jobs includes Social Media Marketing. Facebook now has 241 million active users in India – a million more than it does in the U.S.– making India the country with its largest user base. Ad spending in the Social Media Advertising segment amounts to US$3,283m in in India. Social Media Marketers not only take care of digital ads which we see on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram but the organic posts on this social media sites as well.

Within Social Media Marketing, there is a further division of jobs which include Digital Ads Manager, Content Strategist and Video Marketers. Looking at videos, Google-owned YouTube announced that India was its largest and fastest-growing audience in the world with more than 265 million monthly active users. It is also expected that 500 million Internet users in India will consume online video both for entertainment, sharing and learning, making YouTube an extremely lucrative place for Indian companies to advertise.

Along with Social Media Managers, SEO experts and Google Ads experts are also in high demand. SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization, which is where certain links rank on search engines like Google. Google receives over 63,000 searches per second on any given day. Stats show that a link that ranks higher on a Google Search page is likely to get more clicks. This makes SEO an important marketing strategy for companies. There are also jobs where people look after Google Ads for a company. This is because Google accounts for over 79% of all global desktop search traffic and Google Ads convert 50% better than organic search results.

Companies also hire people for jobs like Email Marketers, Bloggers and E-commerce Experts, Marketing Automation all of which falls under the umbrella of Digital Marketing.

Here is the careers family tree:

Success of Digital Marketing in India:

Let’s look at the example of Dabur and how the company used Google’s channels to transform itself into a digital brand. Dabur has been a traditional brand for ages but wanted to change its image to a brand for Modern Indian Women. By understanding that at the time of its first campaign online, 80 million women were active users on the internet, it must use this channel to communicate with them. Dabur started a YouTube channel with a pivotal video – an anthem video called “” which garnered 2.4M views.

Dabur also started organic content creation for Google Search through their site mybeautynaturally.com which included various interactive content perfect for SEO and Google ads. These activities led to Dabur’s brand awareness increasing by 11% in the 18-24 age category, 245% lift in ad recall in viewers vs non-viewers (best in class in the India FMCG category, with 82% lift in females aged 18-24 and 113% lift in ages 25-35—their key audience) and even a Grand Prix award at AdFest 2015.

You can explore more such case studies

How can you become a digital marketer?:

Digital Marketing is an industry that allows people as employees to explore various options and techniques. It is not meant for just one kind of person, it fits many kinds of people, including those who are who are creative, analytical, insightful, technologically inclined. The digital marketing industry is constantly changing, where sometimes the trends will be for Voice Searches, other times understanding trends like Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence will be needed. The digital marketing industry is still at a very early stage.

It is a dynamic environment allowing people to explore the world of digital and understanding what consumers want. It doesn’t require a specific degree, just the right skills in order to get the best opportunities which is what offers. The world of digital marketing is forever-changing, making it one of the most interesting industries to join.

If you want to get an inside look into how the digital marketing industry works, you should come to IIDE’s free master session.