With the advent of the internet, the marketing platform has gone online. Gone are the days when word-of mouth, posters and banners were the main sources of advertisements. The concept of online advertisements and marketing has proved to overpower even the television advertisements. The platform for online marketing and digital advertisements has become so huge that it carries a vast career prospect for people entering this field.
The aim of online marketing is to generate traffic in websites. More traffic on the website means more advertisements can be marketed via it. Nowadays social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are greatly used for online marketing purposes. Also generating customers through marketing emails falls under online marketing.
There are several types of websites such as job sites like Naukri.com which generate the maximum traffic consisting of job searchers and recruiters, Content creator sites like TimesofIndia.com which create traffic by posting content for people to read. Also Customer to customer websites like matrimony.com, business to business websites like alibaba.com for connecting two businesses together and business to customer sites like amazon.com generate huge traffics.
Suggestions to start
Online marketing is such a platform which can be learned by one’s self experience only. The more you learn the more expertise you get! As the social media is driving its way on a very fast-paced landscape, no amount of reading books or consulting tutors or coaching can make a person gain knowledge in this field. It can be relevant from the fact that if a person practices how to search engine optimize AdWords by himself, he or she would gain a far better experience than those reading books on AdWords, how to use them etc.
We can very well see how new social networks pop up and gain users overnight. To understand and master the technique of online marketing, one has to keep himself updated with the changing trends in the social media platforms. One can gain valuable experience by creating his own personal blog and testing the possible ways to drive traffic in it. Also he can start collecting email addresses and send marketing mails. By doing this a person will gain relevant experience needed to start a career in this field.
My suggestion is that in order to succeed in online marketing career a student must have the gist of creative writing. Creative writing is the utmost necessity for writing proper customer attractive contents and marketing emails. Websites having good and creative online advertisements attract customers. Creative writing is necessary for anyone who wants to join this platform. Also proper experience and knowledge of AdWords is a must to generate online traffic in websites.
As digital marketing can be learnt from experience one can be a graduate from any stream to start this career. However, to ensure right candidates have been selected nowadays organizations opt for candidates having degree in technology or marketing or those who have done digital marketing courses and have experience. Thus the aspirants can opt for courses like Executive Program in Digital Marketing (EPDM), Diploma in Digital Marketing, M.SC in Digital Marketing or numerous Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) approved programs. While undergoing such trainings from institutes, students must make sure that these programs cover topics like search engine optimization and email marketing which are the heart and soul of online marketing. In an organization, a new entrant in this field can expect a salary anywhere in the range of 15,000 to 30,000 per month.
Career opportunities
There are several options for aspirants in the field of online marketing. Aspirants can choose from these options based on their expertise.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine optimization deals with improving the visibility of the website for search engines like Google via unpaid search results. This ensures that the concerned website regains top priority in the search results based on keywords. Thus search engine optimization is based on competitive ranking of websites in the search results and aspirants in order to become a search engine optimizer must possess sound expertise and knowledge of assigning keywords and AdWords for the particular website.
Social media Marketing
Many organizations tend to opt for mass marketing of their products through social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter etc. Aspirants can choose to work in this platform as a Digital Marketing Manager, Reputation Manager, Content Writer or Link Builder. The Digital Marketing Manager oversees the implementation of different social media programs. The role of a Reputation Manager is to prevent negative information about the company or rank the negative information lower in the search results. The content writer does the advertisement and newsletter writings and the link builder are responsible for building links that lead to the website.
Search Engine Marketing
The process of using paid placement to enhance the visibility of a client’s website through search engines is termed as Search engine Marketing. In this technique, clients pay the organization to improve their ranking and position in the search engine’s result page. This is done by paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses email as a form of communication with customers. Aspirants can build their career in email marketing also. It involves writing customer-centric and attractive emails or creating mailers. Anybody who is good at it can opt for this job.
Online Advertising
Online advertising is a vast platform that uses the web as a platform for advertisements. We come across several advertisements across the internet of various products. All are included in online advertising. This is a target based marketing technique as advertisements are designed to target specific customer groups while surfing the net.
Thus it can be seen that starting from marketing professionals to creative professionals, the prospect of online marketing is huge.
