Learn to sell, with a smiley

It's that time of the year again, when students have to make choices that will define their careers. To have many choices is wonderful but when all appear compelling, making an informed decision is a challenge. TOI's 'Mission Admission' guides students through the season. Today's focus: Digital Marketing and Social Media Digital Marketing Selling Of Products, Services Using Digital Technologies - Is A Hot Trend

People are prisoners of their phones," says a meme. "That's why they are called cell phones." Much has been written about our addiction to mobile phones, and most of that is read on mobile phones. In fact, the aforesaid meme would not have become popular had it not been circulated through cell phones.

Such is the reach of digital media that an increasing number of people shop, bank, do business and entertain themselves on digital platforms. As this compels companies to revisit their marketing strategies, a career in digital marketing and social media could be rewarding .

"Companies are going through a digital transformation. Digital first companies like Ola, Paytm and Flipkart are pushing the envelope, connecting industries to consumers. Watch the next decade," says Arjun Shankar, chief delivery & operations officer, skills and career group, NIIT Limited.

For the uninitiated, digital marketing is the marketing of products or services using digital technologies with the objective of promoting brands, engaging with customers and increasing sales. A career in digital marketing would encompass several sub areas including search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media, email, mobile and web analytics. SEO entails maximising number of visitors to a website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. SEM is about building visibility through advertising.

While digital marketing is included as a sub topic in mass media and management courses of fered by coll eges, a host of institutes offer online certificate and diploma courses too. From a basic course in digital marketing, they offer certificate courses in specific areas such as social media marketing, pay per click (PPC) and mobile app marketing.

Deepak Kanakaraju, digital marketing manager at RazonPay says, "A digital marketing course teaches you setting up websites to building online presence and creating web content. It entails using SEO and SEM to reach out to prospective visitors and harnessing the power of social media tools and tapping into online advertising, email and mobile marketing." Kanakaraju suggests starting one's own blog. "Keep a minimal budget and carry out SEO and SEM for your blog. It will test your marketing capabilities," he says.While basics of advertising and marketing are a must, one has to choose his sub area according to his penchant, says Vedanarayan Vedantham, senior director marketing, Simplilearn. For those with a flair for writing, there is content writing; web analytics could suit those who love numbers. Adapting to the latest technologies is vital. "With consumers using such forums to discuss everything from personal issues to product complaints and reviews, companies need to keep a watch and respond in an agile manner," says Saurav Gupta, digital marketing executive with an ad agency . One can choose to work with a digital marketing agency or in the industry within the marketing team. Kanakaraju suggests working with startups for maximum exposure. "Startups are not reliant on traditional methods and are tech savvy . So there is plenty of scope to experiment," he says.
Source: Learn to sell, with a smiley