What is Digital Marketing? A Short Intro
Digital Marketing is a comprehensive term or concept that allows organizations to use multiple online strategies to identify, build and target relevant customer segments to convince them into becoming paying customers. These strategies include promotional campaigns, engagement campaigns, display campaigns, search campaigns and many other types of advertising campaigns to get the product, service or content exposed on all the available touchpoints.
The basic mediums of Digital Marketing is the online world, and the touch points may include each and every possible platform where a modern customer is witnessed to exist. Marketing has evolved from traditional channels like print, TV, radio etc. into digital channels because the customer has evolved. This is why this new way of marketing targets customers where they spend most of their time in highly targeted ways. It is believed to be far more conversion friendly since the analytics, data and ad algorithms allow marketeers to target potential customers on the basis of their past behavior or online pathways. The techniques may include anything from social media marketing to paid ads to search engine optimization (SEO), and a bunch of other techniques. We will discuss many of those breakthroughs in the section ahead.
Digital marketing; where is it now
Digital Marketing has come a long way since inception. It’s 2020 today, and the areas it has expanded to and the jobs it has creates are awe-inspiring. The Millennials and Gen Z are the two generations who have witnessed the true emergence and evolution of this concept, and how it has changed the way brands approach customers and close them successfully. Below we are discussing the 10 most awesome digital marketing trends that are contributing the most for businesses to grab the market share
Artificial Intelligence
2020 may be the year expected to be showing us the real dominance of artificial intelligence (AI). Although the pandemic might have slowed things down, but innovations have already surpassed the expected miracles artificial intelligence is always thought to have the potential of. It’s sure to be at the heart of global business and industry in the future – and it’s already taking over many simple jobs.
According to a survey mentioned by Single Grain, organizations are interested in AI because of these reasons. The percentage shows respondents going with “Strongly Agree”
AI will help brands sustain competitive advantage
84%
New organizations will enter the market with AI
75%
Cost cutting will push us to use AI:
63%
Suppliers will offer AI driven services and products:
61%
AI driven products will be a strong need of customers:
59%
With the help of AI it becomes very easy to analyze consumer patterns and search behaviors on social media. The data from different social media channels and blogs directs brands to get into depth with how customers find their products, and what are the hot zones where they need to put more focus.
Programmatic Advertising
Programmatic advertising is another form of digital marketing technique that uses AI’s support to serve ads automatically, ultimately helping is acquiring customers faster and with increased cost efficiency. By the end of 2020, over 80% of the digital display ads are expected to be programmatic, says eMarketer.
Chatbots
Oracle says, 80% of the businesses would want chatbots by 2020. One more breakthrough in the world of customer penetration and engagement, chatbots also uses AI to interact with the traffic coming on your website, 24/7, with a ton of pre-fed queries. Those queries and keywords allow chatbots to interact with customers in real time, eliminating the need of a human to be sitting on the screen non-stop.
Video Marketing
Starting from some very strong facts coming directly from customers, the importance of video marketing today and 5-10 years ahead seems an undoubted reality.
-Around 70% of consumers said they have shared a message based video from a brand
-72% of brands say that video has helped improve conversion rates for them
-52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions
-65% of executives visit the marketer’s website and 39% call a vendor after viewing a video
Video marketing has a strong power to engage with storytelling, attractive creative direction and a mix of graphics and music. Since it replicates the ages old method of entertainment, it is believed to be a strong tool for the coming decade or farther.
Influencer Marketing
As the name suggests itself, influencer marketing takes support from key roles and identities in any market to spread the word of a brand. Brands leverage the fan base of influencers and reaches genuine audiences in a cost-efficient manner. These can include celebrities, but more often than not these are social media personalities, targeting a niche with their own content type, and brands can approach these influencers who share content relevant to the product of service.
Social Messaging Apps
Some strong figures about social messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger will clarify the picture of what potential they possess. If you think about it, there has to be a strong reason why Facebook introduced WhatsApp business after the normal messaging app. It is because the userbase of WhatsApp is estimated to be above 1.6 billion active users, and over 55 billion messages are sent across the application EVERYDAY.
These apps provide a chance for a one on one customer to seller communication, which kind of replicate the traditional brick and mortar model, where each customer is given individual attention.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is by far one of the most successful, most conversion friendly and incredibly cost-efficient manner to expose your brand to the customers online. 80% of B2B marketers believe content efforts have helped them get noticed by the customers faster than any other channel. The only condition is the content needs to be valuable for the audiences, and must be optimized well to align with the queries of customers in different phases of the buying funnel, using search queries.
Big Data
According to single grain, 41% of business owners report to be saying that their most desired skill to hire is big data experts. Around 80% of the companies have already started gathering customer data to the preferred solutions. The real challenge of Big Data is the expertise required to use tools, that help convert massive amounts of data into actionable insights.
Google Ads Smart Bidding
A great way to hand over your responsibilities of targeting the right customer at the right price, Google Ads Smart Bidding allows marketers to serve relevant customers with ads using Google’s AI algorithm. Google in return optimizes their budget to serve the ads with a goal to maximize ROI. Best customers in least amount of money. The growing presence of sharable content, from entertainment to politics, from sarcastic humor to informative channels, complete replication of TV with an element of interest-based serving, social media channels have got no love for organic reach that brands once took advantage of. Google ads seem to be a great way of showing yourself to the market.
Social Media Marketing
What started from Orkut in early 2000s, shifting to Facebook later, and then a series of various social media platforms, the shift of people from conventional media to social media is an undeniable fact. The fundamental of advertising and marketing, show yourself where people spend most of their time. Nowadays, every second of our spare time goes to either Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn and other such engaging platforms. Hence, social media marketing.
It’s a whole wide world to explore, and all these platforms offer their own advertising tactics and software. Not just paid advertising, they also offer a strong way of building your own audience via effective organic content.
How to Start Your Career as a Digital Marketer
Digital Marketing is not just one subject. As reflected upon above, it’s a whole discipline with many branches that work in different ways to capture audiences. To start your career in Digital Marketing, there are some basic skills you need to be aware of. On the basis of this knowledge, you can choose to pick one or two areas where you can specialize. Let’s take a look at those skills.
Sales Funnel and Buyer’s Journey
The famous funnel strategy defines where in the sales funnel your customer might be at any given point in time. Also known as buyer’s journey, it starts from awareness stage where customer is just exploring various options and might come to your message about your brand. It then goes to consideration phase, where now he is a bit more seriously looking for something. After that he might be in the mood to really make a purchase, which is the bottom of funnel, and can be attracted to convert as your customer. It is important to understand this because then you can create content according to each stage, matching keyword to attract customers in any stage.
Data Analysis/Analytics
Analytics would be required to know by digital marketers since they need to know where and how their money and efforts are reflecting in terms of results. The numbers they get after they run ads or organic campaigns require strong analytical skills, so they can optimize their efforts to reach the goal.
Content Marketing/Content Strategy
This is basically the use of compelling, relatable storytelling to reach audiences. The techniques to do that may include blog posts, email campaigns, guide and ebooks, and even other types of media like video and podcasts.
Social Media Marketing
Using organic and paid strategies to market your brand, products, services, social media marketing is leveraging social media channels using push or pull strategies, with an ultimate goal to get noticed by the relevant audiences.
Search Engine Optimization
This is the efforts made to match the search queries of customers on major search engine platforms, so your digital presence is visible when the customer needs it the most. With the right keywords targeting, right content marketing efforts and right products and services, you can hit the customer when he’s already in the hot zone. SEO has now become the strongest digital marketing technique, since it attracts customers who are already in search of something you might be able to serve as a product or service.
Paid Ads
With paid ads, you can buy media placements in various social media and search platforms. Every brand can not use all the platforms to advertise, so it is critically important to understand the dynamics of each platform’s paid marketing, what audiences you can find where, and then match the brand’s target audience with the platforms.
Tips to Launch Your Career in Digital Marketing
Once you have had a moderate grip on one of the above skills, it is now time to start thinking where you can specialize. The opportunities in the digital world are huge, and a strong grip on any one or two areas can take you a long way. We will now take a look at how you can really converge your efforts to get noticed and actually start getting your hands dirty in the chosen field. Here are eight ways you can get yourself noticed and acquired as an employee, consultant or a project manager in the field of digital marketing.
Online Presence
An online presence is the most basic proof of your proficiency and love for digital marketing. The better you present yourself on the relevant platforms, the more chances you have to get the first eye of recruiters or business owners looking for digital marketing support. Create a LinkedIn profile, create a blog, create a channel where you can either reflect your clients, and in case you’ve just started, you can reflect your knowledge by giving tips and tricks in the specialized area. Remember, a digital marketer is taken seriously by the efforts he has made to appear on the digital fronts.
Knowledge of Latest Trends
Digital marketing is changing and evolving fast. The platforms that digital marketing skills are applied on, are always changing algorithms, so it is critical to be knowing what is changing and when. This will also help you make result-driven efforts, and can be great for your organizations or clients.
Always Bring in Creativity
There is vast number of approaches you can use to reflect your creativity. Some of the skills let you use creativity in numerous ways to catch the customers’ attention. Being creative is a very strong trait for digital marketers, specially if they are in the field of designing or writing.
A Winning Resume
Create a dynamic resume to show how valuable and worthy your skills are before you start applying for jobs. There are many different types of resumes, and you shouldn’t limit yourself to just one, especially when you are working in a creative industry such as digital marketing.
Networking
Networking is also a strong support in digital marketing. It allows you to share different thought processes from like-minded people, digest them and create your own way of approaching digital marketing techniques. You can get to know how you can improve your skills, what areas should be the focus and how you can approach different clients, agencies and organizations to start your career.
Certifications and Training
In order to validate your passion, your skillset and your drive to learn and practice modern ways of digital marketing, certifications by renowned tech giants can give a makeup to your resume as well as enhance your knowledge base of the latest skills. Google, Facebook, Hubspot, Cisco and many other tech giants offer free as well as paid certifications that you can take advantage of. Certifications always increase chances to get hired. QuickStart Digital Marketing Bootcamps can prepare you for some of the most in-demand skills and skyrocket your career as a seasoned digital marketing professional.
Entry Level Jobs Must Not be a Problem
This is very well understood, you start from the bottom and reach the top on the basis of your results, achievements, experience and exposure. Do not hesitate to start from the bottom at an established organization. You can start serving bigger project on freelance basis, but it is rare to gain anyone’s trust if you don’t have relevant experience or a portfolio to get bigger projects.
Digital Marketing Jobs and salaries
Matter of the fact is that there are a large number of titles and jobs in digital marketing, because the scope is humungous. However, we have listed a few jobs you might aim to reach at some level of your career, and their respective salaries.
- Content strategist ($72,742/year)
- Content marketing manager ($81,087/year)
- SEO specialist ($54,088/year)
- Social media manager ($50,489/year)
- Paid ads manager ($47,079/year)
- Digital marketing manager ($73,114/year)
- Partnership marketer ($50,528/year, $81,078/year for management positions)
- Branded content manager ($64,367/year)
- Audience development manager ($77,646/year)
Please keep in mind that these are not entry level jobs, and you need to specialize in a specific field and get some experience to get to these positions and salaries.
How Stable is your Digital Marketing Career?
Digital Marketers have a whole ground to play in. Even if they specialize in a certain area, some skills are evergreen and are required by almost every business small and large when designing a digital marketin strategy or campaign. We have been witnessing a subtle shift of consumers and audiences from conventional media to digital media, and the emergence of tons of different social media platforms have also watered the opportunities for digital marketers.
Even in these COVID-19 times, that have by far been the worst of times for economies, major disturbances in various industries, and closure of businesses, the digital world is on the move. Ecommerce has been a huge hit, complimented with the stay home chants across the globe. In fact, more people have hopped on the social media with nothing else to do. Digital Marketing seems to be a winner, specially for established organizations who don’t find it smart to be spending on billboards or other ooh advertising platforms. Even a huge number of brick and mortar shops who were reluctant to accept an online presence a necessity, have now realized that is the only way to go forward. The demand for digital marketing professionals have surged, WordPress web developers have seen a phenomenal rise in demand post coved era, according to Indeed.com.
This COVID impact is understood to be having lasting effects, literally changing the way people prefer to be buying, visiting doctors, visiting gyms, and even taking education classes. The Edtech world has seen a rise in visitors and learners, since many believe this time can be best utilized by taking time and making efforts towards increasing your skillsets. Now that everything is going digital, there is a silver lining for digital marketers, who will remain in demand for the known future. This time has been a harsh lesson for people and business owners who were digital averse, and so once the economy bounces back there will be an increased trend towards securing a digital endpoint, and every brand will think about registering itself in the minds of customers on the digital front.
In conclusion, as millions permanently transition to purchasing products and services online, businesses must ensure they are digitally visible and accessible. The greatest organizational risk isn’t losing market share; it’s becoming obscure to the point of irrelevance. Technology and digital marketing are well understood to be playing a major role in commerce today, and businesses have realized that resisting digital transformation will only drag them away from evolved customer preferences. Embracing the changes will only serve the customers better and allow them to live a better, more convenient life.
A career in Digital Marketing right now is a great move to make. In the process of switching or starting a career, it is utterly important to know which area interests you, and where you can maximize your potential and reach the boundaries of success. Creating successful case studies will help you move create a lucrative future for yourself. Good luck!