Let’s take a look at 10 important trends affecting the digital landscape:
Digital Advertisement
1) We will be seeing different types of ad solutions. This study found that “nearly 73% of those who regularly stream video say that they have watched ad-supported [OTT media], while 45% report that they watch ad-supported OTT the most.
2) TikTok is gaining traction with users and advertisers. Last year Ralph Lauren rolled out a new campaign tied to the 2019 U.S. Open tennis tournament on TikTok. Ralph Lauren used the sponsored hashtag challenge dubbed as #WinningRL and the platform’s shoppable posts which let consumers buy products within the app, called Hashtag Challenge Plus. It was the first time for a brand to run a dedicated campaign (and the one that’s specifically tied to a sporting event) on TikTok. Brands like Mtn Dew, Hyundai, and Chipotle are using TikTok for the Super Bowl.
3) There will be concerted efforts towards making the ad tech ecosystem more private and safe. Facebook in November last year rolled out a slew of features that gave advertisers a lot more control over where their ads appear. Last year in February, Disney, Nestle, McDonald’s, and AT&T pulled its ads from YouTube over child safety issues. Then we saw YouTube taking additional steps ( such as the rollout of an updated machine-learning “comments classifier”) to protect minors and prevent brand ads from running next to objectionable content. It’s been more than a year since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect. It’s the single largest legal framework that gives consumers control of their personal data collected by companies and till date, it continues to spawn other legislative efforts in other parts of the world such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The state-level law requires, among other things, that the companies notify California residents of their right to opt out of online ad targeting.
4) Retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target want to squeeze out more digital advertising dollars from Google and Facebook. They are selling more ad space on their websites and are trying other ad solutions, such as Amazon launching video network on Amazon.com called Amazon Live which is a live-streaming video version of home shopping network. It also has been working on growing ad business across its properties, including IMDb and Amazon Video, and is talking to clients about new ad types, including video.
Customer Engagement
1) Consumers want more than great products or services. They want the brands to engage them with meaningful experiences. This study found that 76% consumers would rather spend their money on experiences than on material items. 63% of consumers want to be part of an experience where they learn something new.
2) As per this survey, 56% respondents said that poor customer service is one of the reasons they unfollow a brand on social media. The same survey found that 45% of consumers said that they’re more likely to research a product when an employee shares it.
3) When it comes to challenges, this study found that marketers around the world struggle with engagement tools. They also experience significant challenges when it comes to demonstrating the ROI of consumer engagement.
Channels
1) Email remains a powerful tool for businesses looking to connect with people. However, a study by Toluna and Movable Ink found that half of the consumers (54.4%) say they delete at least 50% of brand marketing emails without opening them. Brand emails with no sense of personalization are often not opened and are deleted. This study found that emails with personalized message bodies have a 32.7% better response rate than those that don’t personalize their messages.
2) Apart from email and social media, businesses are embracing new channels such as messaging apps to interact and engage with their customers.
“Messaging with businesses is on the rise, with over 2 billion messages sent between people and businesses – including automated conversations – each month…Messenger offers businesses new ways to engage with their community and potential customers. Whether it’s raising awareness for a brand, enabling transactions, acquiring new customers, or delivering superior customer service, Messenger can be a core part of business solutions.” –
Kemal El Moujahid, the product manager for Facebook Messenger
This report will help you understand how Sephora Assistant, a bot for Messenger, reduced booking steps by more than 60% and increased in-store bookings by 11%. Another example of a brand taking customer service to the next level is KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The brand responds to 130,000 mentions via social media per week. And the number rose as they introduced WhatsApp as a service channel to meet customer demands. In fact, KLM was the first airline to expand its service to WhatsApp. You can get useful insights here on how AI is helping KLM offers customers 24/7 service in 9 different languages.
3) Last but the least, as marketers invest more on social to generate sales, this report finds that offline conversations drive twice the sales impact as online.
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The chances of getting a SALE improves by multifold if you show relevant ads to your potential customer at the right time and place.
Let’s discuss this further and understand how ‘geo’ concepts can help marketers improve their communication more aligned based on the behavioral aspects of the customer.
By definition, “Geotargeting is the practice of delivering content to a user based on his or her geographic location. This can be done on the city or zip code level via IP address or device ID, or on a more granular level through GPS signals, geo-fencing, and more.” (source – geomarketing.com)
Many of us get confused between Geotargeting and Geofencing. Let’s break it down.
Geofencing – sets up a geographical fence that triggers certain ads to display only when users pass by
Geotargeting – triggers ads only for a specific set of users who are in the vicinity of a geolocation
The core idea behind Geotargeting is primarily to leverage user behavior in realtime or from the past location and push them a useful and more relevant message. For example, a customer visiting a cake shop is likely interested in buying a bakery product, showcasing them offers or bakery catalog from a nearby cake shop can be a great strategy and chances of getting a conversion is higher.
Let’s look at the top 3 strategies to engage with a potential buyer immensely using Geotargeting.
Recommending Nearby Products
Direction to a nearby store or opening and closing time of the store is quite easy and Google Business helps with that beautifully. However, using Geotargeting can be further personalized by matching a product’s location with a buyer’s location and behavior.
For instance, personalized email and website content to display products available in the user’s nearest store, on the basis of location and time of browsing can help improve the user experience and makes the engagement more aligned to the need.
How can this be done? Mapping customer data with the product information to push product recommendations will indeed be a great method to reduce the time a user would take to explore and buy a product otherwise.
Geotargeting is also helpful for launching merchandise at a location where users were not aware of the store.
The concept is not limited to retail only, this even helps users to get personalized information on flights, nearest airports, events that they might wish to attend based on their historical behavior.
Considering the given scenario, Geotargeting, if implemented and experimented in the right way by the marketers can improve the store footfalls to a great extent. Incorporating the nearest store information on the web pages and in the email campaigns can be an effective way to drive footfall in-store.
Furthermore, awareness about a particular store and even help with the word of mouth engagement with the user’s friends and acquaintances.
Engaging Customers Based on the Influence of a Specific Location
A customer can be targeted at multiple locations for different purposes based on their buying behavior. Consider this, while leaving home to the workplace, a user might drop at Starbucks for coffee and while they are at the office, visit Burger King for lunch. Since the buyer prefers to have coffee from a place in close proximity to their house can be a valuable data point.
Similarly, the time and location for lunch can be used to engage the customer with offers and new product launches. The customer experience can be improved tremendously if the data points are updated on a frequent basis. The fresher the data, the better is the experience of the buyer with a store.
Keeping shoppers up to date about their favorite store isn’t the only usage scenario when using geofencing, however. Savvy marketers can also engage consumers within the geographical vicinity of competitors. Burger King famously took on McDonald’s using this approach, where customers within 600 feet of a McDonald’s were given the opportunity to order a Whopper for a lower cost and then got directions to their nearest Burger King to collect their food.
Marketers can not only engage with their own buyers but can also target consumers within the geographical vicinity of the competitors. For example, Burger King took on Mc Donalds using this strategy, where customers within 600 feet of a McDonald’s were given the opportunity to order a Whopper for a reduced price and then received directions to their nearest Burger King to collect their meal.
Having a location-specific landing pages takes you even closer to your customer. Providing content at the right time and place along with the well-defined offers adds tremendous value in the buyer journey. A customer clicking on your ad published for a specific location landing on a page that has standard content and offers can leave a bad impression. Hence, it’s a good practice to have customized landing pages for each location, based on the profile of the target customer.
As marketers continue to explore the possibilities of luring the customers based on location – realtime & historical and combining it with the behavior, consumers will likely see communications that are truly relevant for them and as a result, the business can expect better sales.
Digital Marketers on a day to day basis use a plethora of tools to execute the Digital Marketing Campaigns. It can be mind-boggling to select the right set of tools to be used. There are so many different online marketing tools that it’s hard to know where to start. Each new tool requires an investment of your time and money, and choosing the wrong one now and then switching to another later can be a hassle.
Here is a comprehensive list of all the “Must-Have & “Must-Know” tools that we use on a day to day basis. Want to know HOW the world’s leading marketing consultants and agencies are using these tools? Bookmark this page as we will be adding more tools as and when we explore and validate their functionality.
The list of tools is sequenced in order of a complete Digital Marketing Campaign execution process.
#1. Know Your Market
Make Your Plan – A digital marketing business canvas for Planning your digital business
Market Finder (Global) Find the digital market size country wise.
CopyScape – Plagiarism detection service that checks whether similar text content appears elsewhere on the web.
Grammarly > Check Your content for Plagiarism and Spells. Google hates duplicate low-quality content. And google searches auto-correct misspells. So better use dictionary words and correct spells.
#5 Build Your Blog or Website or Ecommerce Shop
Web Design has become so much easy and empowered with Front end design tools. IN 2020, you have access to tools and plugins that literally can get you a site in a few hours without much of a programming hassle.
Blogger: Free content publishing platform powered by Google (You are reading this article on blogger))
The monetization platform for Blogger is Google Adsense. For WordPress blog (free) it is WordAds
Custom domain: You can purchase the domain from Godaddy, Bigrock etc. This is the web address for your website. Eg. www.example.com
Hosting: This is the web/cloud space where your website files will be saved so that anyone searching for your website at any point of time 24/7/365 days can find your website.
Collaborating on a project with other marketers on your team? Google Suite is a collection of some great collaboration tools you can use in place of typical software on your desktop. Here they are:
Google Docs for Word documents.
Google Sheets for Excel spreadsheets
Google Slides for PowerPoint presentations
Google Forms for easily collecting simple survey responses
Catch Sairee Chahal, Founder & CEO | Sheroes in a talk with Aji Issac Mathew, CEO & Chief Mentor | DMU, decoding issues faced by women in the digital age.
SHEROES is India’s first women-only community platform solving day to day challenges faced by women and empowering aspiring entrepreneurs to create an impact through their support.
At present, the community is engaging over 15 million women across domains and aims to put 100 million women on the growth road map in the next 5 years.
The founder, Sairee Chahal is featured in Onalytica’s “Future of work Top 100 influencers and brands” and awarded by the IAMAI Digital Awards in the “Social & Economic Empowerment” category.
Stay tuned! We will be releasing one such piece of content every week on actionable insights covering the various aspects of digital and entrepreneurship.
20 Books Recommended by Successful Marketers for 2020
Whether you are a marketer or a business owner, we believe that your key objective for 2020 is to build awareness around your brand, grow sales or both. Whatever be the reason, it is essential to set the guiding principles before you enter into the growth path for 2020. Our team of expert marketers has curated a list of books that have added immense value for them to achieve excellence in digital marketing in the past couple of years.
Brand Identity Breakthrough – Gregory V. Diehl
Every company has a story to tell. But does your company have a story that makes it stand out? If you wish to tell your business’ story, then this is the book that you should lay your hands on. The best part about this book is that instead of dishing out recommendations, the book presents real examples of companies to follow.
The 1-Page Marketing Plan – Allan Dib
If you are planning to make a marketing plan for your company but don’t know where to start from, then this is the book for you. The book literally explains the step-by-step process of making a marketing plan. By the time you will finish you will have a one-page marketing plan in your hand. This is one actionable book that every entrepreneur and every marketer should read. One nugget of wisdom that we would like to share with you is from the Chapter titled Crafting Your Message.
Unleash Possible – Samantha Stone
There are several books on B2B marketing available. However, very few would compel you to practice the tactics mentioned in the book. While many marketing books tell you what to do, this one by Samantha Stone tells you how to do it. So when you read this book, make sure to make your notes.
The Design of Everyday Things – Don Norman
Written in 1988, this book remains relevant even today. Be it product design or marketing, this book is crammed with wise words for designers and marketers. It advocates an approach that bears usability and user-centered design in mind. One nugget of wisdom we would like to share with you, in particular, is taken from the Chapter titled Design Thinking and gives us an insight into how good designers look at a problem.
Originals – Adam Grant
Every business starts with a new idea, no matter how absurd did it sound in the early stages. The ones who took the ideas forward are the ones who kept their fears and doubts aside. The ones who chose to go ahead with the idea even when it didn’t conform to the traditional ideas are the originals. A must-read for those who are just starting out, especially with a novel idea. There’s a very interesting Chapter titled The Other da Vinci Code which dwells on procrastination on how it might be conducive to originality. We read about the data gathered from a Korean furniture company.
UN Marketing – Scott Stratten
Are you tired of playing by the rulebook? Do you think traditional marketing strategies are not working for your business? If yes, then it is time to unlearn the old tricks and learn some new ones. This is what Unmarketing is all about.
Crushing It! – Gary Vaynerchuk
If you want to up your social media marketing game, then this is the book for. The book dwells upon every social media platform that matters. It gives practical and clear advice as to how not to just get your marketing right on these platforms but also nail it the best.
Social Media ROI – Olivier Blanchard
If you are looking for an A to Z guide on social media marketing, then there is no better person other than globally renowned brand strategist and marketing executive Olivier Blanchard to give you insights. From defining metrics to earning followers, everything that you need to learn ace your marketing game, this book has it.
Marketing 4.0 – Philip Kotler
In this increasingly noisy social media world, it is difficult for a brand to get heard. This book not just acquaints you with the changing marketing dynamics, it also tells brands how to grab attention and create a customer base that is loyal.
Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert B. Cialdini
Successful marketing is about understanding the psychology of the consumer. Full of case studies, this book dwells the universal principles of persuasion. The best part is that the book also dwells upon the subject of how not to fall for psychological tricks.
Zig Zaglar’s Secrets of Closing the Sale
The deal is closed. Every marketer wants to hear these four words. With more than 100 case studies of successful closings, this book is for everyone who wants to master the art of closing deals. There are 700 questions that can prevent your sales conversation from meeting a dead end.
Words that Sell – Richard Bayan
Do your sales pitch sound the same every time? Are you looking for new words that can make your pitch better? Then this is your guide to strike a conversation that will yield results.
The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg
Whether it’s about losing weight or achieving success, habits play a pivotal role in it. While forming habits is easy, it may not be easy to break them. Whether you want to make your mornings more productive or you want to kick a bad habit, this book is for everyone who wants to believe in the possibility of change. The book has a dedicated chapter on organizational habits. In one of the parts, the author gives us an insight into the powerful effects of willpower and how it can improve employee performance. There’s a powerful example of how Starbucks developed self-discipline into an organizational habit.
Hug Your Haters – Jay Baer
As a marketer, you can’t ignore criticism. With an increasing number of social media users and social channels, there are more complaints than ever. How are you supposed to deal with them? Dealing with complaints may often seem to deal with negativity. However, this book tells how to deal with complaints and use them to your advantage. Complaints, according to the book, give ample opportunity to improve customer service.
Contagious – Why things Catch on – Jonah Berger
What makes something go viral? This is one question that marketers cannot fully answer. Brands spend a lot of money to create a buzz. However, only a few get it right. What different are they doing? If you want to know that, then this is the book for you. The book gives you six principles that you can use to create campaigns that are useful, engaging and will help your product or service to increase social influence.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding – Al Ries and Laura Ries
How products become brands? If you want a definitive answer to that question, then you need to read this book. This is the ultimate book on brands and branding.
Marketing Rebellion – Mark Schaefer
With the advent of technological changes, marketing and advertising have also undergone a sea change. The way brands are telling stories is changing. Branding has moved from being just about the products, it’s about the brand’s voice and the customer’s journey. Grab this book to the new-world branding rules.
This is Marketing – Seth Godin
It is a straightforward book that tells you to build a connection with the consumers. If you believe that attention-grabbing ads are momentary while making a connection with consumers will long last, you are going to enjoy this book. In the Chapter titled Semiotics, Symbols, and Vernacular, Seth Godin candidly explains what a brand stands for.
Building A Story – Donald Miller
Many businesses find it difficult to convey their brand story to consumers. The book is crammed with useful insights on how to create messages that connect with your customers. The book advocates simplifying brand messages so that your customers can understand and relate to it. From creating effective messages for customers on different platforms to help customers understand the benefits of your products, this book equips readers with universal story points that all humans respond to.
Instabrain – Sarah Weise
There is no doubt that the millennials engage with brands in a totally different fashion than their previous generations. Then, why do you think that traditional marketing strategies will work for the millennials? A generation that is born in the age of digital technology needs a different style of storytelling. From using social influencers in your marketing strategy to choosing the right social media platform, this book is the ultimate guide to learn how you can tailor your brand story for the millennials.
Is there a method behind viral content marketing? Viral is an outcome which is not in your hand, what’s in your hand is your performance (action). Hear Aashish Chopra, VP Content Marketing of ixigo.com speak about the importance of viral marketing and how to create content that is worth sharing and will drive conversations.
Digital, today has undergone a big change from the old world of coding to meeting the dynamic needs of businesses. This year we talk about best practices to help you grow your business digitally while also growing profitably. The Summit will demonstrate how digitalization touches every business function and also offer specific workshops on understanding digital assets and marketing for your executives.
Get free access to the exclusive videos from Digital Success Summit that might help you build a solid RoI focused digital success roadmap for 2020.
How To Create Viral Content By Aashish Chopra, VP Content Marketing Of ixigo.com
Fireside Chat with Samiran Gupta | India Head, ICANN
Bring Traffic and Convert Traffic Through Social Media | Aji Issac Mathew, CEO, Indus Net TechShu
Domain Is Not Just A Name By Deepak Daftari | CEO, eShiksha
As a marketer, do you spend a lot of time researching the best tools that can improve the effectiveness of your campaigns or help you with quick designs?
Or, you are a business owner who is fed up with the number of tools the marketing team is using with no direction of how it will add real value to the overall business outcome.
Well, in that case, you are in the right place.
Whether we’re analyzing through data or fine-tuning our social presence, relying on the right set of digital marketing tools would help us save time and improve efficiency.
While working with dozens of B2B clients and their customers, our team experimented with over 500 tools in the past couple of years and end up discovering the ones which are the most useful set in their opinion. The only catch is, you should be using them strategically for the right purpose.
We believe that there are only eight areas where tools help significantly in managing, monitoring, designing and improving the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts.
Data & Analytics
SEO & Blog Content
Social Media Marketing
Visual Design
Landing Page
Email Automation
Project Management
Content Curation
Considering the volatility of the digital landscape, it is recommended that you keep on upgrading and updating your tool kit.
Data & Analytics
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a very powerful tool to analyze your website in-depth. A free web service offered by Google provides valuable insights that will help you devise a workable strategy to meet your goals. Not only the performance of the website, but it also helps you with all the information related to the audience, demographics, popular keywords, the action is taken, etc.
SEMRush
SEMRush is a web application that allows you to analyze massive amounts of SEO data related to your website and your competitors. It shows the organic & paid competitor keeping track of the organic position of domains, landing page URL, AdWords Ad copies, ranking over social media platform which helps to build an effective digital marketing road map for your business.
Dasheroo
This is an all-in-one-place dashboard with performance metrics dragged from multiple analytical data sources. Dasheroo perfectly organizes diagrams, schemes, and graphs in one place so that it’s easier to analyze.
SEO & Blog Content
Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is again a very powerful tool, it is Google’s free web service. This tool allows us to search and find a wide range of keywords and keyword ideas with search result which helps for SEO and Google AdWords Campaign.
Ubersuggest
Find keyword ideas, get search volume, CPC and competition rates. Filter results by searching for target words or excluding unwanted terms. Search categories include web, image, shopping, YouTube, and news. Copy your results or export to. CSV.
Yoast
Yoast is a plugin for WordPress that adds extra search engine data to each blog post. This allows Google to easily read your page and increases your chances of ranking higher in search results.
Social Media Marketing
BuzzBundle
Geared to support your SMM, the tool helps manage social media, find online conversations about your company or products and engage with your audience. It allows you to publish posts directly from the interface and explore your brand mentions.
Fanpage Karma
Free for one page, this tool will provide Facebook KPIs and benchmarking graphs for your posts. It helps monitor search terms and mentions and will send you alert emails.
Visual Design
Canva
Canva helps you create beautiful photos with easy drag-and-drop technology. Select one of their countless templates or choose a blank design pre-sized for the platform of your choice. You can even customize the branding section so you always have your colors, fonts, and logos available.
Freepik
It’s a hub of free vectors, PSD, photos & icons which need for your projects. With best collections for the free resources.
Placeit
Use the service to make mockups for how your image will look like on apparel and in print, as well as digital devices. Select a device, upload your image or insert a link and see a realistic screen mockup.
Landing Page
Hubspot CTA – template pack.
Download the pack of 50 customizable call-to-action templates, inspiring examples and a free beginner’s guide to create CTAs for your website, landing pages, emails, and more.
LeadPages
It’s a very easy tool with drag & drop editor. It allows us to make mobile-friendly landing pages. It also offers to integrate the data with email automation software.
WordPress
It’s a very flexible platform with a plugin to create an awesome landing page of the next level.
Email Automation
MailChimp
The tool allows you to create and publish email campaigns, landing pages, pop-up forms, as well as automate your marketing emails, for example, order notifications and product recommendations.
SendGrid
This email management tool helps you build and send marketing campaigns, keep client libraries, perform A/B testing and track results. Other useful features include contact segmentation by interests and categories, as well as flexible template editor.
Project Management
Basecamp
Basecamp is a real-time communication tool that helps teams stay on the same page; it’s less for traditional project management tasks (e.g., resource planning and long-term scheduling). With to-do-lists, calendaring, due dates and file-sharing, Basecamp provides a way for teams to keep track of priorities and actionable items.
Trello
This simple platform allows you to quickly organize work projects, individual tasks and plans in an intuitive interface. Free and flexible, the tool helps you manage any project in collaboration with anybody.
Freedcamp
Freedcamp is a project management solution for large organizations in markets including advertising, architecture, engineering, interior design, IT services, manufacturing, retail, telecommunications, and many more. The system is offered primarily as a web-based solution and is Mac and PC compatible.
Content Curation
Feedly
With Feedly you choose all of the different blogs, publications, and topics that you’re interested in; meanwhile, the platform aggregates all of the recent content from those sites into a feed you can monitor. You can integrate your Feedly feed with a tool like Sprout Social to continuously share these articles with your fans and followers.
Google Drive Research Tool
Google recently added a tool to Drive that allows you to conduct Google searches without ever leaving your Drive window. All you have to do is click “Tools” from the menu bar and choose “Research” from the dropdown menu.
Shafi an aeronautical engineer turned digital marketing strategist. He was exposed to digital marketing at the age of 24 as an alternate career growth path and today he heads a team of 50+ people.
Do you know for how many years he has been working as a digital marketing expert? 6 years only. And, he earns 5 times more salary than he could have earned being an aeronautical engineer.
This has happened with thousands of individuals in the past few years. With every passing year, the demand for passionate digital marketers is growing and many have taken the Freelancer route. In terms of demand, there are currently more than 12,000 pages of results on Indeed for the keyword ‘digital marketing’, with an average salary of INR 3,50,000 (and a high of INR 800,000).
Also, for the same keyword ‘digital marketing’ on Naukri.com, we found 20,000 jobs currently in India with the most jobs available in Delhi followed by Mumbai, Bangalore, and Indore.
Beyond this, LinkedIn has a total of 16,377 whereas Shine.com has over 6500 jobs available in digital marketing.
In this guide, we will help you with a step by step process to build a rewarding career in digital marketing. It took us a good amount to time (16 years to be precise) and effort to realize what exactly the industry expects from a digital marketing practitioner. In these years, we hired hundreds of digital marketing resources with diverse backgrounds and skillsets, from a fresher with no experience to a senior who has worked with 5-6 different companies and has an experience of over 10 years.
Before we move ahead. You need to answer the following questions in yes or no? (grab a pen and a paper quickly). We will come back to it towards the end of this article.
Do you have a LinkedIn profile?
Do you understand and write in English?
Do you find yourself creative?
Do you have friends who are digital marketers?
Have you started learning by yourself yet?
All the companies and industries around the world are going towards digital and by the year 2020 they will have an online presence, thus it will create huge career opportunities. According to the research, compared to the traditional economy, the digital economy is growing 10 times faster. It is a progressive field technology is changing day by day, you need to continuously develop your skills to grow your career.
One of the highest positions in the field of Digital Marketing is a Digital Marketing Head/Manager/VP. Unlike traditional marketing positions, in digital marketing, you need a minimum of 5 years of experience and balanced exposure to SEM, SEO and SMM along with an understanding of creative design, automation, and analytics. A Digital Marketing Head generally looks after the overall marketing mix and ensures that his/her team meets the KPIs associated with the expected business outcomes.
Why Digital Marketing after all?
According to a news update by Time of India, India will cross 730M Internet users by 2020. Interestingly, over 75% of new user growth will come from Rural India driven by Mobile Phones. India will continue to remain the fastest-growing country in terms of internet users’ growth.
Digital Media Spend in India to cross Rs 19,000 Crores by 2020: According to Economic Times, Digital advertising to grow at 32% CAGR to reach Rs 19,000 crore by 2020. The primary factors for this growth include the growing penetration of smartphones and lower data tariffs.
The Career Options in Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing provides numerous opportunities across domains. The most common verticals are – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Analyst, Social Media Optimisation, Social Media Marketing, Web designing, Content writing, Search Engine Marketing or PPC Expert, Creative Designer, Video Production Specialist, Digital Marketing Strategist, etc.
How much money you will be able to earn?
There is no absolute number, which means it depends on various factors. Listing down some of the common factors and its impact on the salaries you might be scoring.
Location: Companies in Tier I cities will pay you 40-70% more than Tier II and III cities. Opportunity wise Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Gurgaon are the cities with most opportunities in terms of numbers.
Team size: Unfortunately very few agencies in India have a team size of 200+ and hence opportunities in these organizations are relatively less than that of product and service-based companies. However, with the growth of digital, even smaller companies are hiring full-stack digital marketing experts and paying well.
Agency or Product/Service Company: If you wish to grow faster and have the tenacity to work long hours then agencies like Webchutney, Pinstorm, WatConsult, Gozoop, Intellemo, EveryMedia, Social Wavelength, Phonethics, TechShu, etc are the best platform to learn and grow faster. The reason for being a diversity of projects managed by a smart team with varied skill-sets. Alternatively, if you wish to work on a single project wholeheartedly then a product or service-based company can be the right fit for you. Also, in this kind of an organization, the exposure is limited. Hence, you should consider working for an agency in the early years of your career and move to a product or service-based company after at least 4-5 years for an exciting salary package.
Exposure to Projects: Having an understanding of digital theoretically won’t be enough, you need a hands-on experience with the channels. The more diverse industries you work on, the better. If you have a portfolio in a specific industry then you will be preferred over others for that industry.
Past Salary: This factor is equally important and will be considered in the hiring process. However, it also depends on your negotiation skills and the needs of the organization at that point.
Here are the 5 Most Common Positions for which you can be hired in this domain.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Analyst
SEO guys are the ones who are responsible for getting traffic to the website by improving the ranking over the search engines. They make sure the website is optimized and device friendly with all proper links and submissions of blogs and articles to increase the traffic and session on the website.
Avg Salary – Rs 2.5 – 6 Lacs per annum
Social Media Optimisation/ Marketing
Social Media Executive or Manager are the guys who handles social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest etc. They keep follow all kinds of social media and keep them update regarding social media trends, coordinate with the copy & designing team.
To be in such a position you should have sound social media platforms knowledge and full of a creative mind that helps to increase the reach and engagement.
Avg Salary – 3.5-7 Lacs per annum
Search Engine Marketing or PPC Expert
They are the one who generates a lot of leads/inquires for business growth. Few are the major responsibility they take care of keyword research for ad copies and search volume, managing ad groups, ads optimization, optimizing landing pages, generate analytics & reports and coordinate with the designing team.
For those who have a good analytical mind, SEM is a good digital marketing career option for them
Avg Salary – 3.5 – 5 Lacs per annum
Content Writer & Content Marketer
A content writer, need to work with the SEO team for creating the optimized and keyword-rich content.
If you want you can also work on a project basis or as a freelancer. As the content requirement increased drastically this profile is in hot position. You should have a good command and hold on language with the creativity in the thought process.
Avg Salary – 3 – 5 Lacs per annum
Web Developer & Web Designer
To be a website developer you will for coding and maintaining websites. To running the amazing website smoothly you guys make sure of it. Web designers are the ones who create wonderful websites with proper presentation, UI/UX and keeping in mind the customer journey.
Avg Salary – Rs 3 – 5 Lacs per annum
Once you have the knowledge of digital marketing based on your interest and experience, you can work in either of the following organizations.
Digital Marketing Agency: There are multiple size digital marketing agencies, who serve multiple kinds of digital marketing services such as SEO, SMO, SEM, etc. Even the traditional and old advertising agency are forced to offer the same services. If you will be working with such agencies, you will get an opportunity to work with multiple clients and get exposure to multiple industries.
Big brand with in-house Digital Marketing team: You can also work under a particular brand or an organization that actively do digital marketing for the growth. Here you need to work under a small digital marketing team.
Digital Marketing Tool/Platform developing/support Company: You can also grow in your career in digital marketing by working for tool or platform companies such as Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, SEMRush, FanPageKarma, Similar web and many others. The working style will be very much different as compared to agencies or under a brand, here learning and analysis thought is a huge factor.
While having a conversation with Aji Issac Mathew, CEO | Indus Net TechShu (eastern India’s largest digital marketing agency), we tried to understand how he built his own digital marketing agency and how he started his career in digital marketing with literally ZERO understanding of digital.
As it’s a grooming industry, employers on a global scale are looking for skilled employees that can fill the gaps in their organizations and take the same to the next level. In case you are a fresher or an experienced professional who wishes to grow faster in this booming industry, here is a quick video for you to have an understanding of the reasons why digital marketing professionals fail even after having an experience.
If you remember, we started this article with a couple of questions. Here is what you are going to do:
Do you find yourself creative? If the answer is yes. Excellent. If the answer is no, then ask yourself how you can be creative. Do some research on this topic, you will find plenty of articles and YouTube videos on this.
Do you have friends who are digital marketers? You must have, even if you don’t have such people as friends, identify and connect with some on social media (preferably LinkedIn). Ask them about the sources and communities where you can find engaging conversations around digital.
Have you started learning by yourself yet? No? Don’t worry. We’ve got your back
If you have any queries beyond this, you can always connect with a Career Growth Consultant by sending us an email at support@digitalmarketinguniversity.com
This year’s LikeMinds event was a great success with keynotes and masterclasses from many of the world’s most insightful thought leaders from a broad range of industries and backgrounds. We have curated the list of all the speakers who participated and made the day worthwhile for the audience pool of 400+ entrepreneurs and business leaders. We believe that learning is a continuous journey and we at DMU make sure that you keep yourself updated with whatever new is happening in the digital marketing ecosystem.
Keynote Speakers
Keynote 1:How to Rocket Power Your Business. By Felix Velarde (LinkedIn / Twitter)
Keynote 2: Phoning It In – Why We Aren’t Reaching Our Full Potential In a Constantly on World. By Laura Willis (LinkedIn / Twitter) Co-founder at Shine Offline
Keynote 3: The Three Most Untapped Levers of Productivity. By Minter Dial (LinkedIn / Twitter)Founder at The Myndset
Keynote 4: Why Companies do Innovation Theatre Instead of Actual Innovation. By Nicole Yershon (LinkedIn / Twitter) Founder at NY Collective
Keynote 5: Developing Creative Superpowers. By Daniele Fiandaca (LinkedIn / Twitter) Co-founder at Utopia
Keynote 6: I Told You. It’s All Connected. By Suki Fuller (LinkedIn / Twitter) Founder Miribure
Keynote 7: Are You Feeling Lucky? By Chris Moss (LinkedIn / Twitter) Founder, MAV3RICK
Keynote 8: Stand out: The Shift From MORE to MEANINGFUL. By Luke Lang (LinkedIn / Twitter) Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Crowdcube
Keynote 9: Sensing the Future. By Kim Arazi (LinkedIn / Twitter) Founder, Innosensi
Keynote 10: How To Get To Great Ideas. By Dave Birss (LinkedIn / Twitter) Author
Keynote 11: How to Create Human Blockchains. By Adah Parris (LinkedIn / Twitter) TED 2019 Emerging Innovator and one of the Top 100 Black and Minority Ethnic Leaders in Tech in the UK
Keynote 12: What I Learnt From Working with Google. By Robert Craven (LinkedIn / Twitter) Founder, Grow Your Digital Agency Initiative
Speakers from the Masterclass
The LikeMinds team has curated a broad range of experts in their field to help delegates understand the different platforms and frameworks in more detail that can help you grow and scale a business. From how to use LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram or how to create effective advertising campaigns on social media to building a sales pipeline and learning how to network confidently, the experts are on hand to help the audience navigate some of the more complex challenges in building a business and brand in the 21st century.
John Harvey (LinkedIn), Samphire Club on Networking
15 Most successful digital campaigns and what you can learn from them!
Every single day we spend hours scrolling up and down on our mobiles. Looking at the statistics of people spending time on social media, it’s for sure that brands that fail to market themselves using this method are missing out on a great way of creating their presence in a place where their audiences are actively hanging out.
Statistics reveal that there are several businesses working merely on marketing and branding through social media. If we look at the numbers, social media users grew by 202 million between April 2018 and April 2019.
In this article, we have compiled more than a dozen global digital marketing campaigns that have made a mark through their remarkably meaningful content and designs.
Instagram’s Most-liked Egg Teams Up With Hulu
A picture of a plain little egg on Instagram beat Kylie Jenner as the most-liked Instagram post of all time. Weeks after garnering millions of Likes, we saw Instagram’s most-liked egg cracking to reveal a mental health advert. Revealed post-Super Bowl on Hulu in a short video, we see the egg saying “Recently I’ve started to crack” before it begins to crumble. The video finishes, before a URL for Mental Health America, appears.
Worldwide Breast Cancer – Know your Lemons
Worldwide Breast Cancer broke the taboo and fear of breast cancer by sharing an illustration that used 12 lemons to show the signs of breast cancer. The image has been picked up on multiple social media platforms and has been seen by over 200 million people so far.
Old Spice’s ‘Smell Like a Man, Man’ campaign launched just prior to the 2010 Superbowl became a viral video sensation. It’s received more than 50 million views on YouTube. 5 months after the campaign was launched, Old Spice came up with a Response Campaign, as they wanted to engage with their users in a more personal way. On the morning of July 13, 2010, Old Spice posted a simple message on their social channels which said
For the next two days, Isaiah Mustafa, dubbed as “Mr Old Spice,” responded to the tweets with the help of nearly 200 personalized video responses that were posted on YouTube. More than 2,000 users sent queries which included Ashton Kutcher, Digg co-founder Kevin Rose, and ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos. The “response” videos received super positive response, they were viewed more than 46 million times. In fact, in the first 24 hours the response videos were viewed more times on YouTube than President Obama’s 2008 election-night acceptance speech.
Here’re some interesting numbers to look at
1.2 billion earned media impressions, including features on national broadcast networks and international media outlets
2700% increase in Twitter followers
800% increase in Facebook fan interaction
300% increase in traffic to the Old Spice website
Old Spice has become the #1 Most Viewed Sponsored YouTube Channel
This Twitter Program Generated $180,000 In Purchases For A Leading Coffee Chain
The @Tweetacoffee program lets users in U.S. buy coffee for friends on Twitter. Users had to sync their Starbucks account to their Twitter account and tweet to @tweetacoffee and the Twitter handle of the friend they wanted to gift the coffee to. Starbucks then sent the recipient a $5 digital eGift. The recipients could redeem the Starbucks Card e-gift at the participating stores in the U.S. The program was a follow up to Starbucks Facebook eGift service which let users send gift certificates to other Facebook users.
Impact
In less than two months, since its launch, the program generated $180,000 in purchases, as per the research firm Keyhole. Their research also found on the first day of the program, 32% of the purchases occurred. Also, more than 27,000 fans used the program and 34% of users bought multiple gift cards, the research firm said.
Key Takeaway
Human interaction is at the center of the campaign. You want to send a cup of coffee to your friend/colleague/family – you can do it via a tweet. It’s simple and easy! The simplicity and the seamlessness of the entire experience – right from ordering to the recipient getting the eGift- made it a hit ( and a talking point) with the users + publishers. And since it was launched on Twitter, it gave the brand an easy opportunity to leverage the social channel’s amplification power.
Intel Social Media App Campaign. +130,000,000 Impressions On Facebook WithIn 2 Weeks Of Launch
The app lets users connect to the Intel Museum of Me site via their Facebook account. Once connected, the app gathers social data and images of the users to create a mock museum exhibit in the form of a three-minute-long video. There’s one room in the exhibit that features pictures of the user, one features pictures of their friends, and there’s also a room that displays the user’s most posted words. Once the video stops playing, the users get an invite to share their Museum of Me exhibit with their friends on Facebook. The app was more than helping users visualize their Facebook activities. It was an ad for the company’s Core i5 processors. However, it doesn’t become clear until the very end of the video.
Impact:
Within 2 weeks of launch, it garnered +540,000 likes, +790,000 shares on Facebook, and +130,000,000 impressions on Facebook. It also won numerous awards including six Cannes Lions: 3 Gold, 2 Silver and a Bronze.
First-Ever Drinkable Advertising Campaign Coca Cola
Coke Zero launched its drinkable advertising campaign in 2015 during the Final Four and returned in a big way where we saw the brand partnering with ESPN’s ‘College Game Day.’ The campaign was aimed at making more people try the zero-calorie drink through different channels, including billboards, TV, radio, and social media.
The renewed campaign included 10 new football-themed spots where several ESPN personalities such as Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit were seen asking the viewers to open the Shazam app on their mobile phones and place it near the ad.
At ESPN ‘Game Day’ sites, ‘drinkable jerseys’ were given to select college students. Social media activities included ‘drinkable content’ with coupons related to ‘Game Day’ broadcasts.
Coke Zero Sugar’s ad awareness score significantly improved after the campaign. Its score rose from 6% in early July to 17% in the last weeks of August. Also, the purchase consideration rose from 11 to 16 over the same time period. It was reported that Coke Zero’s global sales volume rose by 6% in the second quarter (following the Final Four push), a 1% increase over its first-quarter results.
Get free access to $35 course on Digital Marketing Campaigns, click here and use code GrowWithDMU while you enroll for free.
The Name Change Stunt Helped This Company Sell 4 Times More Burgers
When IHOP, the pancake chain, changed its name to IHOB, the internet went crazy over what the “B” stood for.
A week later, the company revealed that the B stood for Burgers and the brand did a lot of activities around promoting their new “Ultimate Steakburgers” which included changing store signage and the Twitter handle to IHOb.
“IHOP makes world-famous pancakes, so we felt like the best way to convince them that we are as serious about our new line of Ultimate Steakburgers as we are about our pancakes, was to change our name to IHOb,” said Brad Haley, chief marketing officer for IHOb restaurants, in a statement. “We’ve pancaked pancakes for 60 years now, so it’s the perfect time to start burgerin’ burgers.”
However, the change of IHOP to IHOb wasn’t a permanent one; the company reverted to IHOP – but the stunt proved to be one of the greatest brand awareness campaigns. The company’s “word of mouth” score soared high following the name change as per YouGov’s BrandIndex data. In fact, it reached its highest since 2012.
Between June 1 and June 13, there were 1.8 Million mentions of IHOB and 1 million mentions of IHOP on Twitter, as per social media management company Sprinklr. The name change helped the company sell 4 times more burgers, at one point the company was selling 500,000 burgers per week, Chief Marketing Officer Brad Haley said at a marketing conference.
This Delivery Campaign Fetches 50.8 Million Impressions
On May 30, 2018, a 40-foot long Amazon delivery box ( BTW it was Amazon’s largest delivery ever) with air holes and the “Jurassic World” logo was spotted across the streets of L.A. The box was delivered to The Grove shopping mall and was escorted by a motorcade of Jeep Wranglers from the port of Los Angeles . It also featured the hashtag #AmazonFindsAWay which directed users to social media to unearth the mystery of the contents of the box and get tickets for the film. The delivery box also featured a SmileCode which after scanned using Amazon’s app opened a landing page with a video and discounted tickets for the film ( which released on June 22). Also featured was an Alexa-powered voice experience that offered clues accompanied by screeching, roaring and rending noises ( which one can relate very well with Jurassic) when prompted with “Alexa, ask Jurassic Park what’s in the box.”
The shipping label was made out to Jurassic World protagonists Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard).
On June 2nd, 2018 Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard opened the box and revealed the content of the box in front of a large curious crowd. Inside the box was a life-size Tyrannosaurus rex!
Impact:
The package and its big reveal garnered a great deal of attention on social media. #AmazonFindsAWay garnered 50.8 million impressions, as per the data from Brandwatch show.
Key Takeaways:
It’s a textbook example of how to leverage the excitement surrounding a current event – in this case, it was the excitement around the release of ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’.
Such unique cross-channel activations give brands an opportunity to engage with their audience and generate a buzz that traditional siloed marketing activities like TV ads, display banners or traditional billboards can’t.
It’s a collaboration between several brands – Amazon, Jeep, and Universal Pictures’ Jurassic World franchise — thus showing brands can leverage Amazon’s vast range of services ( from delivery services, e-commerce to voice assistants) to create unique campaigns to engage with their audiences. Such kinds of cross-channel marketing stunts are positioning Amazon as a quickly growing advertising platform. It’s to be noted that in 2013, Amazon partnered with Nissan to deliver three new Versa Note hatchbacks in giant Amazon boxes to car buyers who made their purchase on Amazon.
Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches Campaign
Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches Campaign that aimed to show women that they were more beautiful than they thought they were. An FBI-trained sketch artist was asked to make sketches of women whom he couldn’t see. The portraits were based on the descriptions the women provided and the descriptions provided by strangers. The resulting sketches – the ones based on strangers’ descriptions were more beautiful and looked more like their subjects than the ones that were based on the descriptions provided by the women themselves. The idea was – women are too critical of themselves; hence, the tagline: “YOU are more beautiful than you think!”
Impact
In the first month of the launch, the video was watched 114 million times. And the campaign was the most-watched internet video of 2013. The campaign has generated almost four billion PR and blogger media impressions.
Always #LikeAGirl
This amazing campaign was created to raise awareness on how gender stereotypes have a big impact on girls during puberty. The campaign was inspired by a study from Research Now and sponsored by Always – which found that more than half of the girls who responded said they experienced a drop in confidence at puberty. The #LikeaGirl campaign began with a YouTube video posted in June 2014 where young women and men were asked to do things ‘like a girl’, for example to fight like a girl or throw like a girl. Women, boys, and men reacted in a silly and self-deprecating manner. However, when prepubescent girls were asked to do the same activities, they reacted with confidence and amazing self-belief.
Impact
The #LikeaGirl campaign began with a YouTube video and racked up 31 million views in one week. Always Twitter followers tripled in the first three months and the YouTube Channel subscribers increased by 4339%. There were 177,000 #LikeAGirl tweets in the first three months, including celebs such as Melinda Gates, Gloria Steinem, Chelsea Clinton, and Sarah Silverman. The company reported a higher-than-average lift in brand preference and said that the purchase intent grew more than 50% among the target audience. In a study conducted in December 2014, almost 70% of women and 60% of men said “The video changed my perception of the phrase ‘like a girl'” The popularity of the campaign inspired P&G to air a shortened version for the Super Bowl. The ad aired just twice, but it scored an Ad Effectiveness Rating of 8.8, which was well above the industry average of 4.5.
Key Takeaway
The Always #LikeAGirl campaign is a great example of how social media can help emotional marketing campaigns become viral. In this case, the very relatable hashtag #LikeAGirl not only created awareness but a community around the brand.
Anar Foundation “Only for Children”
Sometimes child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it.
A Spanish charity’s unique take on combating child abuse. The poster can be fully seen only be children due to a lenticular printing technique. When an adult sees the poster he/she only sees a frightened child whereas a child (or anyone under 1.35m tall) sees the message “If somebody hurts you, phone us and we’ll help you”.
ALS Association – Ice Bucket Challenge
The Ice Bucket Challenge is one of the most talked-about health awareness campaigns with participation from a host of celebrities including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Kim Kardashian, and Taylor Swift. Aimed at raising awareness about the disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), the campaign went so viral that in just eight weeks it managed to raise $115 million for the ALS Association. Know more details about the campaign here. See what the founders of the challenge have to say.
Words Can Be Weapons
Repeated extreme verbal abuse is traumatic and as damaging as physical abuse. The multimedia campaign based in China raises awareness about the damage done to kids when they’re constantly being subject to verbal abuse. The video shows 6 teenagers in Shenyang Detention Center recalling their painful childhood memories & how words like Moron, Go away and die, You’re a Disgrace left permanent scars on their psyche. Watch the video; it beautifully shows the words turning into weapons these teenagers used for committing crimes. Started by the Center For Psychological Research in Shenyang in partnership with Ogilvy and Mather Beijing, the campaign wants parents to abandon the old sticks and stones attitude.
Working with artist Yong Xie, Ogilvy Beijing turned the abusive words into pieces of nickel-plated steel. These pieces were reassembled to create weapons such as guns and knives to show how abusive and hurtful words are like weapons. These were showcased at an exhibition in a shopping center in Shenyang via a special site where visitors could watch films and explore the backstories. Also, a hotline was set up where young people experiencing abuse could call in.
The campaign reached 3.2m people. Also, it was reported that 300 calls were made in two weeks to the helpline.
The film, recorded using Google Glass, depicts the journey of a young man from San Francisco to a remote village in India to surprise his mom with a hidden envelope. The video shows a man packing his things in a bag. We see his wife handing him a brown envelope. We then see him traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Tokyo, finally ending up at his place in a remote village in India. Throughout the journey, he holds the brown envelope. When he goes inside his home, he gives his mother the envelope which had a picture of an ultrasound.
The film was created by the alumnus of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, Aneesh Chaganty. Aneesh filmed his entire journey using Google Glass.
Impact
It earned over 56,000 views within the day it was published.
Key Takeaway
The high emotional quotient of the video touched the heartstrings of anyone who saw it. The post was shared by the famous Tollywood (Telugu film industry) director S S Rajamouli on his Facebook timeline as a Mother’s Day greeting and it played a key role in amplifying the reach of the video.
25-minute IKEA Ad Fetches 2.5M Views On YouTube
“Oddly, IKEA” – part of IKEA’s back-to-school marketing campaign – is a 25-minute commercial featuring everyday objects such as fitted sheets, lamps, and metal hangers with the narrator describing each object with different soothing sounds to elicit a positive ASMR feeling for viewers. It was IKEA’s first experimentation with ASMR content and it ran as an extension to the TVC.
Impact
The video caught media and users’ attention and has had 2.5m views on YouTube till date. IKEA says there was a 4.5% increase in sales in-store and a 5.1% increase online during the advertising campaign.
Expert Observation
“A series like this is very much in keeping with the Ikea character…Plus, the format of ASMR videos allows you to deliver product benefits in a pleasant, calming way, something a TV spot or print ad doesn’t always succeed at. We hope this demonstrates to everyone who watches that Ikea has solutions that make your homework better. But really, we hope it does what it’s supposed to do: help everyone who watches it relax a little.” – Ogilvy’s creative director Della Mathew and Ikea external communications specialist Kerri Homsher
Key Takeaway
At the time of the launch, YouTube searches for ASMR witnessed a rapid rise. As per Google data, interest in ASMR doubled from June 2016 to June 2018. It wasn’t just IKEA that was paying attention to the growing popularity of ASMR videos. Other brands including Dove Chocolate and KFC have also leveraged the sensorial experience of ASMR.
Curious to learn about 50 more campaigns? Get free access to $35 course on Digital Marketing Campaigns, click here and use code GrowWithDMU while you enroll for free.
Over the years, the Mom-and-pop stores have evolved and the business owners are more informed about online methods to attract customers. In fact, a survey reveals that 
