What Are the Key Benefits of Learning Digital Marketing?

At a Glance: Digital marketing is a rising field with many new career aspects coming up. It can make or break a business, as happened in the case of Xiaomi and Nokia, respectively. Putting money into pursuing a digital marketing course is definitely a good investment with a great ROI. Digital marketing is not just about running ads but also includes search engine optimization, content marketing, SEM, and other relevant skills.

Key Insights 

• Digital marketing is the new marketing and is the dominant form of marketing. It can be seen on every digital platform on our mobile phones. If it is not learnt on time, a company can go into losses, as happened in the case of Nokia and Blackberry. 
• One of the successful digital marketing campaigns till now has been Xiaomi being presented as the Apple of China, which grabbed a significant market share due to its successful digital marketing campaigns. 
• The importance of digital marketing is going to increase only due to the rising number of mobile phone users, better internet availability, and the rise of E-commerce companies. Pursuing a course in digital marketing will definitely give you a good ROI and build skill sets such as Mobile commerce, SEO, SEM, and affiliate marketing skills. 

The traditional form of marketing consisted of calling or meeting the customer, doing promotions to attract the attention of the customer, pricing the product or service at an affordable range, and developing a delivery channel to make the product reach the customer.

But with the increase in competition, convincing and pleasing the consumer is becoming a difficult proposition.

Even after spending millions and billions of dollars in mega promotions, many products have failed in the marketplace— the case studies of Nokia, Motorola, and Blackberry stand testimony to this.

On the other hand, we have case studies of companies that have achieved spectacular success by using digital marketing in an effective way. The Chinese mobile phone maker Xiaomi did not release any ad in print or electronic media when their flagship product Mi2, was launched in India.

Instead, they released a press release which said that Mi2 is being known as ‘Apple of China’ and a limited number of the high feature-low low-cost phones will be exclusively sold on Flipkart on the basis of prior registrations.

Nearly one lakh people registered to buy the phone, but Xiaomi sold only 10,000 phones on 11th August, 2014. This created such a frenzy in the digital media platforms like Facebook and Twitter that Xiaomi became a household name in India within months of release.

They grabbed an impressive 1.5% of the market share very quickly by selling mobile phones and making effective promotions only through digital media.

Digital Marketing has now become an integral part of the overall marketing strategy of almost all companies vying for market share and an increase in sales.

The digital marketing spend has been increasing by 15.7% year-on-year and is expected to touch $72 billion this year.

The share of digital spend in the overall marketing budget stands at an impressive 38%.

Why has digital marketing become so important to marketers?

The number of mobile phone users has increased to 4.88 billion, and the mobile phone is now becoming a very popular conduit for access among internet users. The number of mobile phone users in India has crossed 500 million, with an estimated 314 million people who access the internet through smartphones.

The spread of 3G, 4G, and now 5G availability of internet access at low cost has also fueled the popularity of internet usage. 

The high-decibel and smart promotions done by e-commerce companies like Flipkart, Amazon, and Snapdeal have also made shopping on the internet popular among internet customers.

And by offering huge discounts, attractive freebies, and promotional offers, the digital marketplace is adding new customers every day by leaps and bounds.

Digital Marketing also offers opportunities to marketers to run targeted campaigns for specific customer groups who are potential buyers of the product or service. The cost of running digital marketing campaigns is much lower in comparison to promotional campaigns run on electronic and print media.

It is easier to measure the return on investment (ROI) of digital marketing campaigns through electronic monitoring of the processes. It is also easier to know the profile of the customers and their needs, wants, and demands by using data mining tools.

All these features are making digital marketing an important tool for every company to grow its business.

In view of the above facts, digital marketing offers lucrative careers to students who are learning this course. 

The important skill sets that are highly desired are knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), SEM (Search Engine Marketing), Affiliate Marketing, Data Mining, Banner Ad campaigning, E-Commerce, Mobile Commerce, and Payment Gateways. 

Knowledge or expertise in the above-mentioned skill sets can enable a student to become a digital entrepreneur or seek highly paid jobs in the E-Commerce sector.