Online Digital Marketing: Courses, Degree, Certification, Fees, Scope, Top Colleges

Digital marketing is a modern form of marketing that leverages electronic devices to communicate to an audience, primarily through online channels. The common ones include websites, search engine results pages (Google, Bing, etc), social media, emails, mobile apps, and videos. 

All these online digital marketing channels help a business promote its products or services. In a nutshell, digital marketing helps reach a wider audience, learn more about customer behaviour online, and measure marketing efforts accurately. 

Online digital marketing is also used for enhancing a brand’s offline marketing strategy. It can be used for marketing communications across offline channels that rely on electronic media. Some examples of offline channels that do not use the internet are television, radio, print, SMS, and electronic billboards. Explore more on the difference between online marketing and digital marketing. 

What Goes into an Online Digital Marketing Strategy

Online digital marketing training cover these areas of strategy.  

Knowing Your Business Objectives

See how digital marketing can align with your business strategy. 

Finalising the Budget for Each Digital Marketing Channel

Set a budget for each digital media that you will be using for business growth. Most forms of digital marketing are economical compared to the ROI you eventually earn. 

To know more about how paid marketing differs from organic searches, check out organic vs paid marketing strategies

Segmenting Your Audiences at a Microscopic Level

Identify your audiences and segment them based on demographic, technographic, psychographic, and firmographic data. It is ideal to segment audiences on a granular level.  

Assessing Metrics and Track Performance Regularly

Evaluate the most important metrics that are important for your digital marketing strategy. A few examples of metrics are click-through rates, engagement, customer lifetime value (CLV), etc. 

Read more about creating a digital marketing strategy for a brand.

Why Choose Online Digital Marketing Courses 

So why should you take online digital marketing courses now more than ever?

New technologies are changing customer behaviours online, and businesses everywhere are going through digital transformation. Due to these socio-economic factors and the recent pandemic, digital marketing is truly the next big thing for fast business growth all around the world.

Then Insider Intelligence eMarketer shows that CMOs in 2024 will focus more on social media marketing, followed by content marketing, brand building, and video marketing. Online digital marketing courses give you a working knowledge on how you can leverage such unprecedented changes.  

Also, India has the largest internet market after China. Since 2015, the Indian government's initiative has been to transform the country to be a ‘digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.’

Online digital marketing courses are soon becoming the go-to option for all. 

Top Digital Marketing Skills That Employers Value in 2024

1. SEO - Skills such as on-page, off-page and technical SEO help businesses create a good customer experience when they are visiting their websites.
2. Social Media Marketing - Nowadays, customer engagement and brand awareness are top priorities for brands. Not only should the professional have good knowledge of visual media, but also must be great at copywriting.
3. Content Marketing - After all SEO aspects are taken care of, it is content marketing that makes the customer journey smooth. This involves knowledge of email marketing as well.
4. Marketing Automation - Since more and more businesses are becoming tech-forward, it is expected that digital marketers should streamline marketing activities and reduce errors. Hands-on familiarity with even one marketing automation tool is a big plus. 
5. Data Analysis - With digital transformation, data has taken centre stage for all kinds of decision-making. Digital marketing professionals who want to move up in their careers, should be aware of data visualisation tools and Google Analytics.
6. Project Management - Digital marketers are required to constantly coordinate with clients, and team members and fulfil their own duties. They also have to put a buffer for changes at the last minute. Familiarity with project management best practices and tools can bring out efficiency in them.
7. GenAI: GenAI and automation technologies can either be a boon or bane, considering whether marketers can leverage them or not. The rising consumer and tech trends will not end. 73% of marketing departments are using GenAI (BotCo). 

How to Learn & Upskill as Professional in Digital Marketing in 2024

When you are planning a career in digital marketing, know that it is constantly evolving. Maybe you acquired some digital marketing training a few years back. But some tactics may be outdated this year or there are other challenges in the digital world that need more attention. 

One of the best ways to stay ahead is to keep yourself updated with news and trends. You have many free and subscription-based resources to learn digital marketing. 

Stay Ahead with Free Resources

Blogs from Search Engine Journal, Moz, Ahrefs, SEMrush, WebFX are simply great. To catch up on the latest news and trends, you may also want to check out the website of the Content Marketing Institute. It also has a free monthly magazine, Chief Content Officer, that covers updates on the latest trends in the content industry. 

Another recommendation on free resources for digital marketing is the Google Search Central blog. If you are interested in SEO, this is the holy grail of all resources. Do check out the best resources to learn SEO, too.  

To stay ahead of social media marketing trends, you may want to look at blogs from Sprout Social, Hootsuite, HubSpot Marketing Blog and Social Media Examiner. 

You can also join digital marketing groups and spaces on Reddit and Quora. These are also helpful when you think of joining discussions on organic traffic or asking doubts. 

Go For the Top Digital Marketing Courses and Specialise in One or More Domains

Since there are so many digital marketing courses, it is ideal that you pick a relevant one. It should be based on your existing skills and experience. Because there are courses that give you an overall idea of digital marketing and some of them even come with certifications too. They can be great for beginners. 

But if you have already entered a digital marketing career and plan to move up, you will need to go for advanced certifications. You may check out our Best Courses Guide - Digital Marketing. 

So, here is a list of beginner to advanced levels of digital marketing courses. 

1. Fundamentals of Digital Marketing from Google Digital Unlocked | Beginner
2. Digital Marketing Specialisation on Coursera | Beginner
3. Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing and Communication on upGrad | Intermediate
4. Digital Marketing Professional Program - in association with Google on Manipal ProLearn | Intermediate
5. Digital Marketing and Data Driven Analytics on edX | Intermediate
6. PG Program in Strategic Digital Marketing on Great Learning | Expert
7. Executive Program in Strategic Digital Marketing on upGrad | Expert

Apart from these digital marketing courses, you can also check out 

• SEO courses
• Email marketing courses
• Social media marketing courses

Online Digital Marketing Career Prospects & Job Roles

After completing online digital marketing certification/ degree courses, candidates can look for jobs under several profiles. Some of the job profiles for a digital marketer are mentioned here.

Online Digital Marketing Job Roles

Market Research Analyst: Roles of a market research analyst entail examining the market conditions and deriving the conditions into an opportunity leading to an increase in the sale of a product or service.

Content Marketer: The job role of content manager/ marketer includes creating and promoting engaging content on digital platforms organically. Candidates are expected to have a knowledge of SEO and the creation of SEO optimised content.

Digital Marketing Consultant: A marketing consultant has the responsibility of looking at SEO projects, social media promotion, web designing, and looking after advertising campaigns.

Also Read: Career as Digital Marketing Manager

Conversion Rate Optimizer: Roles and responsibilities of conversion rate optimizer include looking after the conversion points in marketing, managing and optimizing landing pages leading to an increase in the conversion rate.

SEO Expert: An SEO professional holds the responsibility for the development and implementation of strategies to boost the SEO rank of a web page.

Also Read: Scope and Future of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Social Media Manager: One who is expected to manage social media marketing campaigns, increase the brand’s presence, networking with social media influencers, handle social media posts and comments, and address customer feedback.

PPC Manager: Pay Per Click Manager holds the responsibility of implementing PPC media strategies and coordinates to understand, manage, and support the inorganic campaigns.

Email Marketer: Responsibilities of an email marketer includes identification of target customers and growing email chain. Email marketing experts design and implement email marketing campaigns.

Also Read: 5 Reasons to Choose a Career in Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing Job Roles and Salary

source: Payscale.com

Also Read: Career in Digital Marketing

How to Get a Job in Digital Marketing

As a fresher or when you are switching your career to digital marketing

You can start with beginner-level digital marketing courses. Go for courses that come with certification and hands-on projects. Check out the beginner-level digital marketing courses from Google and Coursera mentioned above. 

You may also check out how to choose the best course in digital marketing. 

1. Keep yourself updated on the latest trends as mentioned in the free resources section above. 
2. At the same time, gather some practical experience doing an internship. 
3. Look for the industry that you will be comfortable working in. There are plenty of digital marketing jobs across all sectors, but not all have the same demand. 

As an intermediate

You can go for advanced courses that are usually available for postgraduate students. Check out the universities that are partnering with MOOC platforms. 

The reason why universities are being suggested here is that the certifications will add value to your resume than a non-university-accredited certification. MOOC platforms such as Coursera, edX, upGrad, partner with top universities known for offering high-quality training in digital marketing. 

Also, learn why should you choose Coursera for digital marketing courses. You may also have to learn some tools such as Google Analytics 4 as most intermediate digital marketing jobs demand such technical knowledge. Check out the latest Google Analytics 4 courses.