Digital Marketing Courses

The use of digital channels to promote goods and services and engage consumers is referred to as "digital marketing." Websites, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other channels with a similar function are used in this kind of marketing. 

Digital marketing is a novel technique for businesses for brand marketing and to interact with customers and comprehend their behaviour. It has some of the same ideas as conventional marketing, just that it is done on a digital platform. Traditional and digital marketing plan/methods are frequently combined by businesses. Will explain digital marketing in the below sections in details.

Here are some key points as to why one should consider a digital marketing course:

• An ever-expanding industry:

  As more people access the internet, the number of people shopping online will increase. This automatically translates to improved jobs and better work opportunities for a digital marketer. This is still a growing industry, and the scope for marketing growth and development is immense. A good digital marketing course will set you up on the path to success.

• Mobile access

  The coronavirus pandemic has shifted the work culture in various domains. It has opened doors for remote workers to contribute to the company's growth without being physically present. Since digital marketing is a job that requires technological use, it has helped this industry to grow immensely. 

• Cheap and affordability:

  Unlike traditional degrees or diplomas, becoming a digital marketer does not require specific degrees or prerequisites. You will just need to acquire the relevant skills and show them in a presentable manner. The various course certificates you acquire through courses or google Analytics exams can help build your profile.

• A worldwide audience:

  The Internet is accessible to anyone and everyone. Thus any content you create will have a global audience. This opens up massive opportunities if you can master the trade. An excellent digital marketing course will set you up on this path.

• Flexibility in schedule:

  Today, as companies globally are following the hybrid or remote model, you can enrol in an online digital marketing course to learn at your desired pace. Online courses give you the flexibility to set your schedule and upskill while maintaining your existing personal and professional commitments.

• Better salary:

  As mentioned before, this is a growing field, and the demand for good digital marketers is at an all-time high. Since there’s a skills crunch, companies are willing to pay hefty compensation to deserving candidates. The best part is that for digital marketing roles, you can climb the promotional ladder relatively faster than traditional marketing positions. Moreover, you can choose to set up your freelancing agency. The possibilities are endless.

If you have read through the benefits of a digital marketing course, you can quickly figure out that anyone can go for a digital marketing course. It is one of the most important reasons to get into this field. Whatever your background or educational qualifications, a digital marketing course is for you if you have the drive and motivation to learn and upskill yourself.

Sales and market professionals, business owners, freelancers, freshers, and anyone can acquire this valuable skill. Since it is all about advertising your product and understanding the market dynamics, a digital marketing course can be a valuable option for people looking to switch careers.

Now that the basics are sorted, let us look at the various courses that one can choose from.

1.  Full-time
 

You will find a variety of courses that you can avail of both online and offline. The courses can vary from one or two-week boot camps to full-fledged programs running up to two years. It generally depends on the level of skill you want to develop, and if you are looking to become a professional digital marketer, you can choose an online course. You can find various courses on marketing on upGrad.

You can choose a course that suits your preference and demands.

Also, you can opt for a one to two-year diploma, BBA, MSc, and Mba courses that will provide a degree holder in digital marketing. Such courses are available at some of the premier institutes in both India and abroad. Some popular schools are IIDE, Amity university, IIT-M Business School, IMT Ghaziabad, etc.

2.  A part-time digital marketing course

If you are a working professional or a college student and want to change your career or improve on learning a new skill, then opting for a part-time course might suit you. If you want to specialize in any particular area of digital marketing, such as SEO, SEM, Email marketing, etc., then opting for a part-time course might be ideal for you. 

3.  A one-year digital marketing course

One can search for various diploma courses for digital marketing. These one-year diploma courses are generally attached with guaranteed job offers that will help you to kickstart your career. The minimum criteria for such courses are also low, with some regarding only a higher secondary certificate as adequate. You can visit their website for further information.

4.  An online digital marketing course

With the growth of online Edtech firms, one can learn all the skills necessary to become a successful digital marketer from the comfort of their homes. Various online platforms have state-of-the-art digital marketing courses packed with information you can learn at your convenience.

They have also tied up with some of the most prominent institutes in the world to design and certify their programs. This provides an added seal of approval for anyone getting these certificates.

A few years ago, an online degree or certificate was not given much importance in the professional community. However, this has changed post-pandemic when education has shifted online. Along with the rise of Edtech companies and their ability to recruit good professionals to design and monitor their courses, the narrative has shifted entirely.

• Gives you the flexibility of time: 

  Whether you want to learn digital marketing while pursuing your job or current degree, then opting for an online course might be more beneficial for you. An online course allows you to plan your schedule and be flexible with your learnings. Interacting with your teachers and clearing your doubts is also highly convenient.

• An access to recorded lectures:

  Once you purchase the course online, you get access to all the recorded video lectures that you can watch in your comfort. You can also refer to the videos anytime, from anywhere This is not possible if you select an offline session. Also, the assignments and tests are neatly arranged and recorded for further reference.

• Cheap in comparison to offline courses:

  They are generally more expensive than their online counterparts. This is attributed to the logistics and operations costs. Also, offline institutes teach their students via physical classroom sessions, which can be costly. Instead, you can opt for online classes that are more affordable. You can pursue an online course while keeping your existing job. 

• Location flexibility:

  Good offline institutes for digital marketing can be limited to tier-1 cities in India. This presents a problem for the majority of the population who want to pursue their dreams. Online coaching institutes help with the best digital marketing courses. You connect with some of the best colleges worldwide and learn from the best teachers, all by sitting in the comfort of your home. All you need to learn are the electrical equipment and a good internet connection.

Thus online platforms have many advantages when it comes to honing your skills, and you can avail the various courses available on them.

Well, now that your mind is made up about being a digital marketing expert, you might next have some questions as per the skill, requirement, eligibility criteria, and the various exams that one can take to get admitted to a digital marketing course. All such doubts have been discussed in this section.

1. Skill required for a digital marketing course

One can start with a fresh canvas while opting to join a digital marketing course. Anyone on the internet can decide to become a digital marketing expert and do so by diligently completing a course and getting certified for it. 

All the necessary skills one requires to excel in this field will be taught during the courses. You can then display these skills on your resume by building a portfolio of projects and certificates.

2. Eligibility

You can opt for structured diplomas in digital marketing across prestigious institutes such as IMT Gaziabad, ICASR Gurgaon, YMCA Delhi, etc. For most offline degree courses, the requirement can be a bare minimum of +2 passed or a graduate degree in any field with 50% aggregate marks.

In the case of online courses provided across various platforms such as upGrad, candidates must have graduated with at least 50%. Whereas for bootcamps, one can apply after clearing class 12 exams. These learning programs are  open for everyone willing to upskill. Some advanced-level courses might require you to finish some introductory courses to understand the trade better.

3. Digital marketing course admission 2023

Here is a list of the top digital marketing courses you can start in 2023. A wide variety of courses from different institutes have been selected for this list.

4. Digital marketing course entrance exams

To answer this question, you must first select your preference. The type of exams you must qualify for depends on your destination. In India, for a structured MBA course, you might be required to qualify for the CAT, XAT, or NMAT or some regional exams that can be specific to the universities you want to attend. 

The scene changes when you want to go for a digital marketing degree from abroad. Here the courses are generally taught for one year, and to qualify for them, you need to send your overall profile and cover letters which their admission committee will screen. Depending on your profile, you might be called for further rounds of interviews. 

Colleges abroad generally look for English proficiency, requiring you to qualify for tests such as IELTS and TOEFL. Some of the most prestigious colleges offering digital marketing courses are King’s College London, University of Reading, University of Kent, University of Portsmouth, etc.

4.1. Digital marketing courses without entrance

In India Digital marketing bootcamp courses do not require you to give any entrance test. The learners need to have completed their 10+2 and a bachelor's degree.

One can also opt for an online digital marketing course. Most of these courses are open for all and allow everyone to acquire knowledge and hone their skills. 

A basket of courses can be clubbed together to acquire various skills and improve your portfolio by creating multiple projects that will make you job-ready. Some courses also offer direct interaction with industry personnel. This can provide valuable experience to the learners.

Digital marketing covers a variety of skills and tools one should master to build the perfect ad campaign. The syllabus of digital marketing courses helps you gain an insight into the same. Let us look at some of the subjects taught in a typical digital marketing and communication course.

Digital marketing course subjects

It is always suggested to understand the syllabus of a course you want to study thoroughly. This will help you to understand if the course is providing the skills necessary for you. The curriculum of the DM MICA program at upGrad include:

Now, digital marketing is an umbrella under which there are various techniques and skills in which one can specialize. Here is a list of the different types of digital marketing courses you can choose depending on your interest.

Digital marketing in the different types

• SEO optimization course:

  A specialization in search engine optimization or SEO will make you master all the strategies that can be used to design your content in such a way that the algorithm of google promotes it. This will help you rank higher on a google search page and drive higher traffic to your page. 
  
  The algorithms are changed frequently by Google; thus, a good SEO expert must remain up to date with it to keep their page up on the SERP. An SEO optimization course will help you to do that effectively.

• SEM marketing course:

  Search Engine Marketing is the strategy of making paid advertisements that appear on top of the Search Engine Result Page (SERP). The payment schemes of these adverts generally depend on the “Pay-per-click basis”. This can be an effective strategy to gain customers for your products. 

• Affiliate marketing course:

  Another important skill that every digital marketer should have. Affiliate marketing is utilizing an already existing audience to sell your product. Content creators use this popular technique to sell products.
  
  As an affiliate market expert, you will be required to understand how and who can help you increase your brand image and approach them with a campaign and offer that they simply can't refuse. 

• Social media and content marketing:

  Most social media platforms provide a marketplace where one can list and sell their products. A specific strategy is to stand out consistently to ensure that your product gets sold. One can learn this by completing any of the social media marketing courses. 
  
  Whether it be Facebook or Instagram, the power of running ads on them is unparalleled to get you new customers. Their advanced AI tools give you the perfect canvas to create the best adverts. You just need expertise in them, and these courses help you do that.
  
  The content of your post is equally important be it running a campaign or posting on the web page. The crisp and direct approach to pitch even the most complex products and/or services to any customer is what makes content marketing plan so important. Coupled with your knowledge about the target audience and their demands, content marketing is an integral specialisation to hold.

• Data Analytics in digital marketing:

  Being a digital marketing expert means being aware of how your content is helping the company generate sales and how customers react to it. A course on data analytics will help you understand all the technical aspects associated with it and how you can track such data to improve your existing ad campaigns or build better ones.

• Email Marketing:

  Being able to write attractive emails and generate leads through them is an important market strategy that various brands employ to sell their products.
  
  Hence, creating good quality content and generating customer leads from them is an essential skill that every digital marketer should acquire. Various good courses can teach you the skill of writing attractive emails that get read by customers.

• PR:

  In both traditional and digital marketing, PR plays an important role in generating brand awareness and increasing engagement. However, since the digital network is much more widespread and visible, one needs to be familiar with the intricacies of algorithms and content marketing to reach people online.
  
  Therefore being able to effectively use the online tools to your benefit is a huge learning step in the digital marketing course.

• Audio marketing:

  Marketing is about understanding the psychology of your customers. A good expert will understand the pressure points of the customers and present how their product is solving the same effectively. Audio marketing on music apps such as Spotify is a powerful tool to build brand influence. Understanding and segregating which group of people to target and who are the most likely to buy your product will help you to design ads suited for them. 
  
  All these ideas form the core of any digital marketing course. Even though you might specialize in any of the fields mentioned above, a basic understanding of customer psychology and market behaviour is a must for any aspiring digital marketer.

The digital aspect of marketing is estimated to grow by 33% in 2022. A total of 45% of ad investments go into digital ad campaigns. An amount of 1,07,987 crore is estimated to be invested in an ad campaign in 2022, which is 22% more than the previous year. 

Whereas traditional marketing techniques such as TV ad spending is estimated to grow by 15%, print ads will grow by 5%.

Global digital marketing and advertising agency is estimated to grow from $350 billion in 2020 in 2020 to $786.2 billion by 2026, making the annual growth rate 9%. The total ad spend globally will increase by 11%, of which 66% will be invested in the digital medium.

So the potential is astronomical and vast amounts of cash flow in the market daily. With the required expertise, you can tap into it and grow your wealth in the financial year 2022-23 itself.

Influencer Marketing: Study show, When marketers were asked where they would be investing the most of the resources, 34% answered social media influencer marketing. 11% admitted this has the greatest return on investment. Of the marketers already present in the influencer trend, 56% say it is effective, and 46% plan to invest more in 2022. 

Video Marketing: More than 89% of marketers will spend half or more than half of their digital marketing resources on short videos as they are the most popular in today’s generation. 46% of the total marketer who strategically invests in short video content or “reels” and “shots” considers them effective and a powerful tool to catch the viewer’s attention within 20 seconds. Video marketing receives the highest investments and will only grow as people nowadays prefer videos over blogs.

Social Media Marketing: The size of the social media market is worth $72.2 billion. Almost every business, or if we try to put it in numbers, 91% the businesses implement social media marketing. 82% of b2b businesses use LinkedIn advertising, and over 96% of companies use LinkedIn to promote their content. The average person spends 2 hours daily on social media, and 91% of them access them using their smartphone, so mobile optimization is no longer avoidable. Nearly half of the users trust influencers’ brand recommendations.

SEO Trends and relevance: Today the SEO industry’s worth is $80 billion. In 2019 it was $43 billion and by 2023 it is expected to grow to $86 billion. Businesses say 53% of the traffic on their website comes through organic research which is the result of effective implementation of SEO. And More than half approximately 55% of the total traffic is due to the blog posts the websites generate. Most businesses, or almost 49% of the businesses admit that organic search has the greatest return on investment so this industry will continue to thrive.

Email Marketing: The current worth of the email marketing industry is $9.62 billion and is estimated to grow to $17.9 billion by the end of 2027. The number of email users is estimated to grow to 48 billion by 2024. Most small businesses say email marketing has the highest return on investment and is the most effective way to generate leads. 87% of companies use email marketing which is the second most popular way to spread brand awareness, exactly behind the most popular medium, using social media.

Websites trends: A consumer creates an opinion about your website in approximately half a second, as your website conveys the brand’s picture. 75% of consumers admitted judging a business’s credibility by the website. 72% of small businesses have a website. A consumer reverts from your website if it takes more than 2 seconds to load. However, a website with an amazing UI/UX design can convert 400% more efficiently.

Digital marketing is one of the highest in-demand courses today. It promises high salary and steady career growth with ample opportunities to learn new marketing concepts. 

As the digital marketing sector grows in India, more aspirants are willing to enter this domain. Hence, the demand for both offline and online digital marketing courses is skyrocketing. 

Most online marketing courses offered by reputed institutes like upGrad feature a comprehensive syllabus, including case studies and live projects. You can also seek additional help from books or magazines. Here are the most effective tips for learning digital marketing in 2022.

1. Take professional courses: As mentioned before, enrolling in professional courses and learning via a structured approach is one of the best ways to master digital marketing concepts. Remember that you must have sheer determination and commitment to excel in this field.

2. Read digital marketing books: The more you expose yourself to reliable content the richer your knowledge becomes. Reading at least one or two digital marketing books is highly recommended.

3. Read Blogs: Blogs by many trusted websites can provide knowledge to specific skills in digital marketing. For example, blogs on social media marketing, influencer marketing, or email marketing.

4. Do Internships: One of the most effective ways to learn is to put yourself out here in the industry. Doing some internships helps you to build a richer resume and gives you the chance to hone your skills as you observe the market.

5. Podcasts: Many creators put valuable content on podcasts. You can listen to them in your free time.

6. Follow digital marketers: Follow the experts and learn from what they are doing to improve business. This tip can put you ahead of your peers by a huge margin.

7. Webinars: Attend webinars and connect with your fellow marketer to grow your network and your overall knowledge.

If you are aspiring to study online digital marketing courses in india then you should conduct thorough research on the various digital marketing courses available across the country. Here is a list of the major institutes and the online marketing classes/programs they run to help you get started. 

1. Mumbai

If you are getting started then Mumbai might be an ideal location for you. This is because the average starting salary of a digital marketer is higher by about 5-30% in Mumbai than the national average payout as compared to other cities like Delhi or Kolkata. BC Webwise, The Glitch, Indigo Consulting, and Blink Digital are some of the largest digital marketing agencies in Mumbai.
 

Here is a list of some of the best institutes and their courses in Mumbai.

2. Bangalore

Bangalore, India's third most populous city, is a centre for technology. In Bangalore, there has been a significant increase in digital marketing companies over the past few years.

Independent agencies like Happy, 22Feet, and Langoor have been bought by larger international agency networks. This demonstrates that the city has a skill pool that is appropriate for digital marketing.

If we remove the traditional advertising and public relations firms that also provide digital marketing services, A number of significant multinational corporations have made Bangalore their central location for localising content and conducting digital marketing efforts for international markets. For instance, IBM collaborates with its Indian advertising firms to localise ads for various markets.

Best Digital Marketing Courses in Bangalore Offered by:

3. Delhi

In India the Delhi NCR region is considered the hub of the digital marketing industry. It contains some of the most prominent institutes as well as some of the best companies that are working in this space. Big companies such as Google, Asian Paints, ITC Limited, Reliance, etc., are constantly looking for good quality digital marketers to help them expand their business.

Various top institutes across Delhi offer some of the best digital marketing courses in India. Institutes such as IIT Delhi, YMCA, and DSIM provide a wide variety of masters and diploma courses that prepare the students to become industry-ready. The duration of a course can generally last from 2 to 12 months depending on the type and syllabus of the course. 

According to a payscale report, digital marketers in Delhi are paid 43% more in the Gurgaon region, hence there is a great opportunity to be unraveled here. Institutes such as Digiperform, IIDE, Digital Marketing Profs, etc are institutes in Delhi that even offer placement assistance along with your course. Here are some of the best courses in Delhi.

The digital marketing industry is booming across the globe. The average pay for a digital marketer is higher if you opt to go overseas. The general cost of getting an abroad degree is also higher, but if you can make the initial investment, then the ROI is relatively high working abroad. Another advantage of pursuing a degree abroad is the wide variety of courses that one can choose and the flexibility offered in the programs.

Anyone looking to go for such a degree should look to build a strong profile, preferably with some prior work experience. You will also be required to take IELTS or TOEFL tests and GMAT if you apply for an MBA program. There are various scholarships that one can use to fund their studies. More information about these can be found on the respective universities' websites.

There hasn't been a better time to make money from the comfort of your home than now. With internet service rates decreasing dramatically, nearly everyone has access to an internet connection, leading to a steep increase in the number of people entering the digital marketing ads industry. Freelancing is at an all-time high. A new startup is being launched every day. This has called for a massive demand for digital marketing experts. 

You can offer your services on a full-time or part-time job basis or work on individual projects as a freelancer. Anyone with a laptop and an internet connection can learn about digital marketing from the hundreds of online certified courses and exploit this skill to earn a living.

You can even consider opening an agency where you provide work to other people to complete projects. The possibilities are endless. Thus don't waste any more time thinking about it too. Register and acquire this valuable skill to earn a better living for yourself.