Significance of Digital Marketing

The massive penetration of digital technology is pushing communications to an advanced level, resulting in the creation of virtuous data systems to transform the way we make, sell and buy. The Internet fast emerged from a modest research network to a robust commercial infrastructure with an exponentially growing number of user base. Consequently, novel business functionalities such as E-Commerce and Digital Marketing are redefining the way businesses reach and interact with customers.

The emergence of mobile technology and the growing accessibility and affordability of Internet-based devices such as tablet-PCs and smartphones with huge storage capacities, fast computing capabilities and data transmission speeds is further pushing the popularity of this concept.

Impact on businesses

Digital Marketing allows businesses to reinvent their marketing strategies to better connect with target customers and to stay relevant in the customer’s perspective. In the process, businesses leverage the technology-enabled tools such as emails, blogs and social media to expand the reach of their offerings.

It is penetrating deeper into the worldwide market, driven largely by innovations such as Internet of Things (IOT), extensive data integration and Big Data technologies. Businesses now realize the importance of customer behavior information and usage data to draft new marketing strategies. Furthermore, this has reinvented the advertising approaches to providing more focused and accurate messages to customers.

It provides considerable cost benefits to businesses in terms of affordability. Unlike the conventional marketing media such as a print or television, using digital media such as social media or an email can convey the message to a greater number of audiences at just a fraction of the cost. Another significant advantage of it is the ease of tracking and monitoring results through customer response patterns.

Challenges

Despite the quick penetration, wider customer base and other potential benefits, few businesses, including small and large face trouble in using digital technology to effectively communicate their brand information.  One of the fundamental concerns is several companies fail to appreciate the need to invest in resource training and technology.

Businesses need Digital Marketing professionals to plan and execute digital campaigning techniques. To stay competitive in this digital age, businesses should focus on hiring professionals with strategic, creative and people skills. Such professionals should possess the digital talent to tap the technology-habituated customers. The reality however mirrors a serious shortage of digital skills, even in few of the leading, well-resourced organizations.

Rapidly advancing industry demands cutting-edge skill-sets including Web designers, social media community experts, data analysts as well as strategic managers. Also, it comprises comprehensive functionalities and seemingly demands distinctive skill sets.

Governments all over the world, as well as global businesses, started identifying this type of marketing as a potential field for government-sponsored education and training campaigns. Additionally, numerous private education services providers (including online and classroom) started offering comprehensive This marketing courses ranging from mobile marketing, analytics, digital advertising, content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing and social media.

Capitalizing on talent gaps

Aspiring students and marketing professionals now have rewarding career opportunities with huge pay packages within this arena. Graduate and postgraduate students can choose from a broad array of course options to improve their skills. However, one should first understand what specific role would best suit them to gain a competitive edge.

What to expect

Digital Marketing industry is very dynamic with complex situations arising every day. A typical marketing team is expected to constantly observe brand performance across numerous channels, dynamically respond to varying customer expectations, analyze data, make decisions and improve the user experience. With exciting growth potential and challenging tasks, the industry offers a platform for constant learning and unique experiences.

A professional need to be a generalist with expertise in a specific field, manage SEO, social media, liaison with other team members and departments, leverage Big Data for synthesizing, analyzing and decision making.

Conclusion

This particular arena offers significant growth opportunities for the ones who love challenges and dynamic work settings amidst a rapidly changing online market trends. Students can actually gain experience in a simple way.

To start with, one can expand their social media presence, start a blog on a particular topic of their interest as well as learn and install Google Analytics tracking code to monitor blog traffic. Also, update the blog on a regular basis with relevant topics and divert traffic to the blog through a Facebook page. Learn basics of SEO, do a little keyword research to monitor popular searches related to your specific blog. Such experiments would be a great addition to a CV as the industry demands self-driven and dynamic professionals with hands-on experience. People with creative and innovative minds and passion for dynamic work atmospheres would find lots of opportunities to explore within this sector.

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