Career opportunities for MBA in digital marketing

MBA in marketing, considered to be the most popular course among management students, has transformed itself digitally in the last decade.  This field drastically includes digital marketing strategies within its fold. Today marketing and digital marketing run together, and the main principles of both stay rooted in sales promotion of products and services in the market.

The strategies in digital marketing are widely different and more effective than the traditional tactics. With rising popularity and further diversification of the field, management experts needed to setup an independent digital marketing specialization for MBA courses. MBA in digital marketing is a bit confusing for the management aspirants, who do not understand the basic differences between these two fields. Digital Marketing is for those who find within themselves a creative spark and passion for the internet. 

The course needs to create brand awareness among the target group. To increase the communication, we use online advertisements; which is a part of digital marketing. Digital marketers measure the ROI (Return on Investment) of the various campaigns launched, which results in highest ROI. Myth says that digital marketers should be technically strong. The key is to understand how marketing works and how the strategies are implemented.

Scope of Digital Marketing in India

Digital Marketing is something much more than E-Commerce and can be done by someone who is interested to learn about it. Experts say that the domain of MBA in digital marketing has been around for almost 10 to 12 years. But in case of India, the field still remains nascent with rapid expansion in the last 2 to 3 years. MBA in digital marketing will help students with the necessary technical foundation and pivotal digital language concepts to tackle these challenges and make optimum use of the opportunities thrown up by this field.

The MBA with specialization in digital marketing will help you evolve targeted tactics and digital marketing strategy to measure, evaluate and plan digital marketing campaigns to garner new customers while retaining the old ones. Apart from the core marketing concepts, the MBA in digital marketing programme will also cover topics like Web analytics, Advertising communication, Buyer behavior, Marketing management, B2B   e-marketing, Internet marketing strategies.

The courses are also expected to advance further to incorporate new and upcoming fields like social media marketing, search engine marketing, inbound and outbound digital marketing and content marketing. There is lot of option in digital marketing career that fits to your choice. But before you take the things forward and dive in, you must understand the requirements, advantages and drawbacks.

Why MBA in Digital Marketing?

Aspirants should opt for MBA in marketing instead of narrowing their scope in digital marketing.  Cost-effectiveness, instant response, flexibility, convenience, and effectiveness have made it a big hit. Today, marketing and digital marketing work together. Absence of digital marketing strategy and lack of online presence would make customers shy. Digital marketing has had a very deep and lasting impact on the field of advertising and marketing. There is no doubt that this field is progressing towards digital platforms that require specialized marketing as well as management skills.

Therefore, career for MBA in digital marketing is a lucrative and a future-proof solution that will ensure long-term employability. Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter and similar social media platforms have impacted the way the world thinks and consequently acts in such a big way that its offshoot, has become the ‘in thing’ for marketing managers all over the world. Companies are increasingly becoming dependent on digital media as marketing and promotion get instant visibility and result are more pronounced. No wonder, digital marketing has become one of the coveted career options for management aspirants and professionals.

 Job Role & Opportunities

When it comes to career in Digital marketing, many options are available to the management professionals, who have specialized in this field. However, in order to keep our discussion focused upon career options available to MBA in digital marketing students, we shall only look at the top three ranking job profiles among them.

Digital Marketing Manager

Digital Marketing Managers are the buzz creators who carve our marketing strategies for digital platforms generating consumer interest in the offered product services. They are required to provide clear direction to other members of the team, including web designer, content writer, sales executives and social media experts. 

Common examples of their work include email marketing, e-Commerce, social media campaigns. Digital marketing managers are one of the fastest growing career options when it comes to digital marketing with 12% expected rise in employment opportunities this year alone.

Internet Marketing Manager

Internet marketing managers primarily function as market research analysts, studying customer behavior data to determine potential sale for the products and services on offer. They are required to translate business goals into successful SEO campaigns, analyze and help the performance of SEO efforts to increase search engine rankings for their websites. While MBA in digital marketing will surely equip students with basics, but top recruiters also prefer candidates who have special certification for market research and analysis. Some recruiters also prefer their internet marketing managers to be aware of graphics and web design concepts along with the use of open source data mining innovations.

Digital Sales Manager

Digital Sales Managers are responsible for ensuring excellent customer service, determined discount rates to offer on digital properties. MBA in digital marketing prepares digital sales managers by familiarizing them with concepts like ecommerce and operational strategies to build an online audience, managing mobile subscriptions, and general website management.

Scope in specific sector & Remuneration

Today, digital marketing is an integral part of every business. FMCG, Retail, Tourism, Banking, Hospitality, PR and Advertising, consultancy, are known to offer job opportunities. Recently, top Multi National Companies (MNCs) are hiring digital marketing experts who increase the ROI of their business. As digital marketing pertains to knowledge in science, statistics, artistic visualization and e-commerce, student of any field can take up digital marketing as a career.

Top Recruiters

The companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Jellyfish, IBM, and many others work on the model of digital marketing. They are offering a package of upto INR 20 lakhs yearly for the experts. On an average a fresh digital marketing manager draws a package of INR 4-5 lakhs. A fresh graduate is easily capable of getting a job with a salary close to 25K per month to 6 lakhs per annum. It is very surprising that this is the state of affairs in the country, because the opportunities for a Digital Marketing professional are huge in India right now.

Ashish Jha

The author is Program Director (PGDM) at IMS Noida, one of the leading Management Institutes in the country. He can be reached at +91 8506081900 email ID ashish.jha@imsnoida.com