We all know how popular online marketing is these days. But, what’s the future of digital marketing in India. Is it actually worth to pursue?
Colleges are offering courses. Businesses are adopting various new strategies and hiring new employees for the same.
Why? Is 2021 going to see a rise in online marketing?
We are going to cover various aspects relating to scope of digital marketing in future. Talk about you should make a career in it or not, how much earning potential is there, salaries, and many more.
So stay tuned till the end, as I am sure you are going to clear your mind after reading. Let’s dive into it then!
Introduction to Digital Marketing
What is basically digital marketing? In simple terms, it is any form of promotion of products and services that is done over the Internet.
It uses latest technologies such as computers, mobiles, and obviously, Internet. On the other hand, in traditional marketing, there are use of physical mediums like brochures, billboards, face to face marketing.
Major Components of Digital Marketing
Although it includes a lot of modules, some of the major components are:
- Search Engine Optimization: Increasing visibility of a website using on page and off page optimization to rank higher in search results; receive organic traffic.
- Social Media Marketing: Engaging with audience on social medias like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc to build connect, drive sales.
- Pay Per Click: Running display or search advertisements to get instant traffic. Paying every time a user clicks through the ad.
- Email Marketing: Involves building email lists of customers, leads, and sending bulk mails in order to drive sales and create brand awareness.
- Content Marketing: Creating brand awareness, increasing sales by delivering high quality content to audience by use of videos, blogs, etc.
- Analytics: Helps to know your audience better. Learn from what sources they come from (organic, social, etc) , their location, mobile devices, entry-exit pages, engaging posts, etc.
Digital Marketing Future Scope in India
Every business nowadays needs to build its online presence in order to grow. That’s the reason most big brands have their websites, social media handles, YouTube channels, and more.
Rise in Number of Internet users
Therefore, internet marketing has become the need of the hour for any business.
Why I am saying this?
As you can see in the picture above, these are the number of Internet users in India as of today. And the forecast of the coming years shows it all.
Shocked?
Yeah! It is amazing as how the number of users are increasing day by day. And don’t you think this is a great opportunity for any business to capture?
More than 50% of the India’s population are Internet users in 2020. According to Statista, by 2025, the total users will reach 974 million. That’s really insane!
Related: How to Earn through Digital Marketing (9 Practical Ways)
Example of a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy in India
Can you imagine if these numbers keeps increasing steadily, how much potential it is gaining for internet marketing?
Similarly, let’s take an example to understand better,
Zomato, you all know, right?
One of the leading startups founded in 2008, for online food delivery and dine outs in India. What’s their work basically? In simple words, they connect the restaurants with customers by providing a network of delivery.
People browse through their app or website, select a restaurant, pick an item to order, and place the order. After that, a zomato delivery boy then delivers same from the restaurant to consumer.
Do you know how much efforts they are putting in digital marketing each day. Here’s a brief:
- Doing constant SEO for their official website to rank for “food delivery” related keywords.
- Running continuous advertising campaigns on Google, YouTube, other websites.
- Constant mobile marketing through push notifications, SMS. If you are a user of their app, you know better!
- Being active on their handles on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and engaging with the audience.
- Content marketing through their blog by publishing relevant articles.
Initiatives by Government of India
If we take a look upon India itself, it is the second largest country in terms of Internet users it has. Initiatives like “Digital India” by PM Narendra Modi continuously enforces better use of technology and online infrastructure.
Digital India ensures that even rural areas of India also get high speed Internet connectivity. Moreover, it spreads knowledge by making people aware about digital world.
After that, you must have seen what a great rise e-wallets and UPI systems has got. Paytm being the most preferred payment mode with over 150 million users.
Various Courses on Internet Marketing
As we are seeing a steady incline in this field, more and more institutes are coming up with courses related to it.
Even the course I pursued was on “Advanced Internet Marketing Training Program” It has 32 modules in it covering different aspects of digital marketing.
One can get thorough knowledge on this area by enrolling into a course which is as short as 3-6 months. The one I completed was about 6 months long.
If you want to learn more about it, you can contact me on Instagram.
Cheaper Internet
After entry of Jio in the Telecom industry, we know how the net rates have fallen down. At a time where we used to pay around 300 INR for 1 GB of data per month, we now get unlimited internet at less than 149 INR per month.
After that, broadband plans have become cheaper significantly. Ensuring more number of customers using internet daily.
After Jio came, the number of internet users increased significantly. Remember when they launched their SIM for free?
What’s better than free internet? That move by Jio was a complete revolution in the telecom industry. Competitors like Airtel, Vodafone also had to slash down their rates, else, lose customers!
Now you can guess yourself what’s the future of digital marketing in India.
Future of Digital Marketing Agencies
Various agencies are there that provide services to small businesses on online marketing. Their major work is to help a business grow online.
These agencies put up combines strategies of SEO, SMM, Content Marketing, PPC to improve the brand visibility to consumers.
Now who needs these agencies the most?
Startups, small scale businesses, who are struggling to grow, will approach these agencies to get a boost in their customer base.
Similarly, if you are planning to open a digital marketing agency, you are good to go. I am saying so because with a constant incline in number of online users in India, scope is infinite.
Also, an agency must keep itself updated with use of latest technologies to stay competent in the market.
For instance, presently, it’s a world of smartphones. Mobile marketing is on heights. Let me ask you, how many times do you open your laptop to search Google?
Your answer is rarely, right?
That’s because we are used to our smartphones’ convenience. Each time you want to search something, it’s a click away in your pocket.
Why Mobile Marketing is the Future?
As I said above, smartphones are most used tech devices of this era. That’s why in the field of promotion online, one should definitely focus upon mobile marketing.
Basically, it involves:
- Push Notifications: Notifications are something we all keep swiping throughout the day, for instance, notification from Amazon regarding latest offers.
- In App Ads: Ads that come when we use apps of a particular brand.
- SMS: Text SMS are still one of the most popular means of mobile marketing. Get updates on latest offers, products, new launches.
- Mobile banner ads: Small size display ads made to fit screens of a smartphone.
Digital Marketing Salary in India – And Future
Talking about some major profiles, one can earn a decent amount of salary in India. Some are digital marketing fresher jobs while some require prior experience.
Salaries obviously differ according to various job roles, profiles, and companies. However, let’s get a basic idea of existing income here.
1) SEO Executive
Average Salary: 2,40,000 INR
2) Social Media Manager
Average Salary: Up to 3.5 Lakh INR
3) PPC Specialist
Average Salary: 2,85,000 INR
4) Digital Marketing Manager
Average Salary: 5,45,000 INR
Now, your question may be, will these increase?
Short answer, YES!
As we saw above the potential of digital marketing in the future. With an increase in potential over the years, salaries will also grow.
Important: These salaries are just an average. You will surely get hikes once you start gaining experience in the relevant areas.
In conclusion, job opportunities are going to rise rapidly as it is one of the best emerging industries that’s on its growth phase.
Rise in use of Social Medias for Marketing
Earlier, people used social medias to connect with people, make friends, chat, etc. Now, the definition of social medias is changing.
It’s becoming more filled with marketing strategies. An amazing medium to grow your audience and earn money, profits!
Each and every brand is making their social media handles to connect with their audience. A recent study has shown that on an average people, spend around 2.4 hours daily on social medias.
While you are uploading stories, pictures, people are making real money out of social medias! Instagram influencers are increasing rapidly day by day.
Businesses see this as an opportunity. After that, they approach these influencers to get their promotion done by them at some costs.
Instagram has seen a constant rise in number of users, becoming one of the greatest platform for social media marketing.
In short, for making the best out of a marketing strategy today, strong presence on social medias has become necessary.
Best Social Media Marketing Platforms:
- Snapchat
Benefits of Digital Marketing: Why is it Powerful?
When compared to traditional marketing, online marketing has several advantages.
| Factors | Digital Marketing | Traditional Marketing |
| Speed | Super Fast | Takes Time |
| Reach | Global Reach Online | Limited Reach |
| Cost | Cost Effective, Less Expensive | More Expensive |
| Time | Can be done 24×7 | Time is a constraint |
| Results | Easy tracking of results through Analytics | No such tracking possible |
| Examples | Website, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing | Brochures, Banners, Telephone, Door to Door |
You can see yourself in a simple manner why digital marketing is the future for every business. It’s benefits are incomparable.
Although being old fashioned, traditional marketing can also come to be useful sometimes. For example, for strengthening relations with existing customers, sending brochures, face to face promotions can come handy.
However, online marketing is the key if you want wider reach at low costs, real time tracking, and effective results in no time.
Paid advertising on platforms like Facebook, Instagram can help you reach millions within 0 time period at comparably very low costs.
How to Make a Career in Digital Marketing?
Now after learning all its potential, you may be interested in knowing how to make a career in it. See, there are number of options here.
Let me categorize them for you in a simple step wise manner:
1) Learn the Course
Firstly, you need to learn the components. For that, I would suggest you to do a professional course in Digital Marketing.
It will help you to gather all the knowledge and learn various components of online marketing to begin a career.
2) Opt for Job
Simplest of all options is to start by entering into a job. In other words, this will give a start to your career. And also gain some corporate experience for the future.
Moreover, in India, demand for these jobs are increasing. As I told above about the average salaries in the jobs.
3) Become a Consultant
When you gain some quality experience, you can become a digital marketing consultant. Your job will be to advise the company best ways to reach its customers online, make strategies, and increase profits.
4) Open an Agency
As we discussed about future of agencies above, you can open one yourself. As an agency, you have to provide various services to businesses such as SEO, SMM, Email Marketing, etc.
5) Become a Freelancer
Above all, there is also an option to become a freelance worker. No need of working under somebody. Be your own boss.
Work anytime as per convenience. For instance, sites like Fiverr, Freelancer, Upwork can help getting freelance projects.
Related: How to Make Money Online in India
6) Learn More
If you want more details, refer to: Digital Marketing as a Career
E-Commerce and Digital Marketing in India
What’s e-commerce?
You may have purchased several things from online stores like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Shopify, etc. Involves buying and selling of products over the Internet. That’s e commerce.
So how are they related? Do you think, without an effective digital marketing strategy, an e-commerce would work? No!
For instance, when we search “best laptop under 30000” on Google, see those ads coming up? These are PPC shopping ads run by companies like Amazon and Flipkart through Adwords.
That’s the reason players like Amazon adopt such aggressive online marketing strategies. Even after being the biggest eCommerce company, it’s still spending on advertisement campaigns.
Why?
Because of the insane level of competition. Moment you stop marketing, competitor overtakes you!
I bet you must be using apps like Amazon, Flipkart, etc on your smartphone. See those notifications relating to offers and sales these apps generate daily on your screen?
It’s mobile marketing these companies are doing to drive customer attention and sales. You may have seen that the number of these notifications severely increase when festival sales like, for instance, Diwali comes.
Let’s take an example.
Amazon shows 100 million + downloads, just on Play Store. Alert: I am not an iPhone user! If you are, you can check there too..
Out of those 100 million, if 50 million click on one of these push notifications. And out of those 50 million, 1 million buy something. That’s a huge sales just from a single notification!
And it’s just one strategy. Apart from that, there are several others. Now you can see the power of online marketing.
This shows how closely eCommerce and digital marketing are related to each other.
Increasing Bloggers and Affiliate Marketers in India
Blogging is becoming popular day by day in India. Everyday people are starting their own blogs by getting motivated through somewhere or the other.
If you also want to start a blog and earn money, refer: 9 Easy Steps to Start Blogging
What’s blogging basically?
It’s a form of content marketing where you publish articles on your website related to a particular niche (topic). After you acquire a decent amount of traffic, you can monetize it and start earning from there.
Related: 7 Most Profitable ways to Earn Money by Blogging
Day by day, blogging is turning into a full time business. There are bloggers like Harsh Agarwal (Shoutmeloud) who are earning more than $30,000 per month through blogging.
These famous bloggers are combining models of affiliate marketing and blogging to earn a full time income. Affiliate marketing is a way of earning by promoting other’s products and services.
By joining some best affiliate networks, bloggers get paid each time someone purchases through their link. Earlier, bloggers used to depend upon AdSense. But now, they are shifting more towards affiliate.
Since there’s a constant debate between blogging vs YouTube, I have written a complete fact based article on this topic. Go and check it out if you haven’t yet!
Final Thoughts on Future of Digital Marketing in India
I believe you got a decent idea after reading this post. Now if someone asks you about this topic, you got a serious answer!
In conclusion, I am going to say that you can definitely start making a career in this field. It’s going to see heights in the sky in the future.
With a constant increase in technology, smartphone users, and digitization, online marketing industry is something that’s going to grow in the future.
I hope you liked the post. If you did, share it with your friends. Also, if you read till here, do not forget to drop a comment below and share your opinion on future of digital marketing in India. Goodbye!
Very useful and informative..
Keep it up!
Thanks!