Since last year the buzz-word in India is digitalization. From mandatory Aadhar card-linking schemes to the rise of crypto-currencies, everyone felt the power of digital in India. With digital fast becoming the norm, businesses are adopting digital marketing as their preferred strategy for business growth. Over $135 Billion being spend in online advertising globally, Digital Marketing is emerging as one of the fastest growing industries today. Asia is leading the trend with over 30% annual growth. Digital marketing benefits businesses of all sizes in developing countries. The smallest can enter the market and the biggest can access the most remote part of it.
Marketo, Inc., a marketing automation platform focused on account-based marketing, including email, mobile, social, digital ads, web management and analytics, describes digital marketing as follows –
At a high level, digital marketing refers to advertising delivered through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. While this term covers a wide range of marketing activities, all of which are not universally agreed upon, we’ll focus on the most common types below.
Today a digital marketer earns anywhere between Rs 15,000 – 250,000 per month. Digital Vidya, Asia’s leading Digital Marketing & Data Analytics training company and the first to launch Social Media Marketing Workshop Series in India, has already trained over 4500 professionals (including CXO’s) from 2000+ brands in their 190+ pieces of training across Asia since Jan 2010.
According to Vaibhav Vats, Co-Founder, Digiperform-Digital Marketing Training Platform, with more and more people getting used to a digital-first lifestyle, digital marketing is increasing the average earning potential by linking professionals to the much-larger targeted buyer segment online.
Top 5 Digital Marketing Trends in 2018
In 2018, 5 digital marketing trends you should consider optimizing as a digital markeeter for will be:
- Voice Search: Voice is the future. More and more people are using voice-based devices for everything from home automation to internet surfing.
- Mobile Traffic: Mobile was a hit last year and will keep on growing. Optimizing your websites for mobile will help you in attracting higher traffic, as well as unlocking better sales and engagement opportunities.
- Live Videos: Live videos were all the rage in 2017, with everyone from brands to individual users leveraging them to reach out to their target audiences. The real-time engagement that live videos enable makes it essential for your brand to focus on this increasingly popular medium.
- Facebook & Instagram ads: Leading social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have added many innovative algorithms for better consumer outreach and targeting. Given the performance that such targeted ads deliver, it is a good idea for you to explore advertising on these platforms.
- Augmented Reality: 2018 will be a year of 3As for AR, as this innovative technology becomes more acceptable, adaptable, and affordable for mass marketing.”
Dinesh Agarwal, Founder and CEO – IndiaMART feels e-commerce can help lleviating poverty in developing countries by enabling better business opportunities. E-commerce platforms had been playing a critical role in the development of India by democratizing resources and opportunities, especially for the rural communities. He also quoted a survey which showed how small Indian businesses using online marketing initiatives were likely to grow by up to 50% more than those businesses which remained offline.
With the number of internet users in India expected to cross 500 million by June 2018, businesses in developing nations are all set to take due advantage of digital marketing for global operations.