Blogs

5979

What is Content Marketing? Most people use extremely technical terms to describe this newest kid on the Marketing block. However, at upGrad, we are focused only and solely on the customer. Our students are supreme and being in the business of education means you have the back-breaking responsibility of making an aspirational lots’ career. So, how do we approach Marketing and how is it different from what most other organizations do? The truth of the matter is – there’s no rocket science to it. We spend a lot of time mapping out our buyer’s personas, which is nothing but trying to get a grasp of who our audience is, understand their needs and more specifically, what their career paths have looked like so far, in what areas are they looking to upskill themselves, if they have questions on making such transitions, on salaries, growth, etc. Essentially, this is where all content marketing efforts begin. Step 1: Understand. Step 2: Empathize. Step 3: Ideate. Step 4: Create. And finally, Step 5 and 6… hold that thought. We’ll get to these a little bit later. So, how can you leverage design at this stage of TG identification and creating buyer personas? By creating proto-personas (similar to prototypes of products) for your inbound marketing strategy. Before you get into the research and creation process, you need to make sure you know whom you’re writing for and understand them. The background, desires, conflicts, and stories of your target audience are all extremely crucial factors to consider when you’re trying to understand whom to target, where to target them and what to target them with. To give you a brief example, at UpGrad, the process of understanding our customer, and subsequently the content to be created for them, would be something like this: Who is he/she? Maybe an IT professional with 2-5 years of experience. What does he/she want? To upskill to upcoming areas of technology and build a future-looking career that keeps him/her continuously relevant. Why does he/she want it? To quell a desire to be financially independent and be faced with multiple opportunities for career growth, at least every couple of years. What can we do about it? Offer them a value proposition. Direct them towards programs that can provide them with the skills they are looking for. Alternatively, if the person is still in the awareness or early consideration stage of the marketing funnel, we can provide them with career advice on how to transition, skills and background knowledge they will need, etc. Plus, we can share resources with them for further domain insight. As you can see, design-thinking at the stage of creating a model person to associate with can really complement your understanding of the customer and what type of content to deliver to them. Thinking like a designer can help bring that much-needed edge in the next two steps of Content Marketing as well. After all, the ideation and creation (or production) of content is a highly creative activity! Let’s look at some tips that can help you in the content creation process, along with some tools that have really mastered design-thinking as products: 1. & 2. Make an editorial calendar that runs like clockwork One of the ways you can do this is by signing up for a great planning tool that helps you sort content ideas across the buckets or domains relevant to your brand (main areas you will be writing in) and dividing these into further sub-categories if the need arises. You can also assign authors, editors, designers, etc, depending on how your team functions. This will also discipline your content team and ensure everyone is on the same page with regard to timelines. Check out one really cool and visual tool we discovered recently. Trello 3. Keep an eye on what your competitors are talking about Now, it’s time to fill up the editorial calendar. So how are you going to ensure that you stay ahead with some of the best content ideas in the business? You can generate ideas with the help of some extremely useful tools – (that Digital Marketing experts such as Brian Dean and Neil Patel also swear by) – such as Ahrefs, Buzzsumo and Moz. In fact, Ahrefs will tell you exactly what your competitors are talking about and you can use this information to cater to your own audience’s needs. These sites are also very effective in aiding link-building. Another one of the easiest ways to do this is through a simple Google search to track what are the top-ranking pieces of content in your domain or for the keyword you are trying to optimize. Make sure to always think back to your buyer personas and overall content buckets while researching and coming up with content ideas. Ahrefs and Buzzsumo Remember, Content Marketing is not just another channel to sell your product. It’s more about connecting and engaging with your customer and providing them with the answers that they’ve been looking for, through multiple channels. For example, at UpGrad, if we were creating content for our Digital Marketing Program’s target audience, we would have to first know whether the person we were targeting with that specific piece of content is a traditional marketer looking to transition into a Digital Marketing role, a complete amateur in the Marketing space or a more seasoned Digital Marketer who has some knowledge of trending channels and tools, and so on. Only after this can we attempt to answer questions about skills required to be a Digital Marketer, interviews and career paths within Digital Marketing, etc. If we decided to write an article on Digital Marketing Skills, we would discuss with our in-house experts in Digital Marketing, speak to other external influencers in the industry, conduct competitor research and use the above-mentioned tools to check out popular content on the topic before we begin to write/shoot. 4. It’s time to create content! Now this, understandably, is an uphill task for most marketing teams. This is what all those months of planning and research finally boil down to. And it’s almost too vast to contain in one bullet point; just because of the number of elements that go into creating content for marketing. So, why don’t we try and bring in the design element to see how we can best use it to create awesome content? Start with repurposing old content (once you have taken stock of your inventory and evaluated it). If your content piece did well in the past, it’s likely to do well in a different form too. Convert an old webinar into a presentation with the help of SlideShare. Turn a text article into an interactive infographic. An infographic is also a great way to show off your design skills. You could even convert videos into podcasts and the list goes on. While taking stock of your inventory you will also get a sense of what type of content has worked well so far and what has not. Which pieces went viral and which ones tanked. Moreover, you will get a sense of whether you have a repository of content that can be built upon and made into a guide or something more resourceful and evergreen. Trust me, we forget what we have in our arsenal unless we constantly revisit it! Let’s say you were creating an evergreen piece of content. Again, design plays a very important role here. How you design and position this resource could determine how much traffic you attract to it and probably even the number and kind of leads it generates. Is it a ‘How-To’ post? A customer testimonial? Or a curated list of tools? Each of these can have a unique design and position on your site to maximize whatever your goal is. Marketers often refer to some of these elements as CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) hooks. Why? Because they convert (traffic to leads) like crazy! Some examples of such lead capture forms: Your content needs to be fun, engaging and also reflective of your brand image and message. While this should allow marketers a greater amount of creative freedom, many tend to worry that they may go wrong. But take this advice – don’t fret too much. There are so many great tools and methods out there to create just the right kind of content your brand needs. Canva Use videos. Video content is highly-easily consumable and most of the internet’s content consuming audience is shifting to video, and many surveys reveal that they prefer them to text articles. Videos are design-friendly and can be created in very specific ways to target consumers across the funnel.   We saw how one can create multiple types of content using various innovative design techniques – the internet is filled with ideas. But is Content Marketing only about creating good content and letting it take its own course? No. Content creation is only half the job done. If you want to do complete justice to the work you’ve put in to create a highly valuable piece of content for your customer, then it’s your responsibility to take it on its rightful journey. What am I talking about? 5. Content Promotion That’s right. Content Marketing isn’t just about the 4 steps I described at the start of this post. Those only cover the strategy and production aspects. Step 5 is the rest of the game, where your content actually reaches those for whom it was created. So, what does content promotion include? Think about how you stumbled upon this post (it would be funny if it was through StumbleUpon. While some of you have subscribed to the upGrad Blog or check it regularly, many of you may have seen this post shared on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. Some of you could be parts of expert or influencer groups on social networks, around Content or Digital Marketing and may have found your way from there. On the other hand, you could’ve seen ads on social media, been sent an email or seen it come up on a search engine in response to something you searched for.  All of these cover three main types of promotion or distribution: On Owned Channels; On Earned Channels; and On Paid Channels. These broadly cover SEO, Email Marketing and Social Media Marketing. Marketers have also begun coming up with innovative ways of breaking through the content promotion clutter. Reaching out to influencers for quotes, backlinks, mentions, or reaching out to share content with those who have shared similar content in the past. But how can Design-Thinking boost Content Promotion? The answer is – in uncountable ways. Let’s try to see a couple of them: Create a visual social media calendar. Sync your marketing with events, holidays, festivals and trends. Basically, catch the pulse of your audience and try to engage with them in a language they understand, over things that have caught their attention. This is where your design capabilities can be used to the maximum – whether it’s creating interesting ads, infographics, other social media posts or even videos. Use tools such as Canva and many others to create these amazing social media posts. You can select from a wide range of templates and even send out customized emails and newsletters. By the way, tools like Autopilot, Pardot and many others are great tools to send out automated and mass email communication. Best Online Digital Marketing Courses Advanced Certificate in Brand Communication Management - MICA Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing and Communication - MICA Performance Marketing Bootcamp - Google Ads from upGrad To explore all our certification courses on Digital Marketing, kindly visit our page below. Digital Marketing Certification Autopilot Even today, a lot of Marketers do not pay as much attention to design as they do to other functions. Putting insightful content out there, for your TG, is important. But this also means that how they view your content, and what attracts them to it – and eventually keeps them there or takes them to other parts of your product/service offering – has a lot to do with the design elements built into the content. A word of advice – if you’re just setting up your content marketing processor are in a transition phase, make sure you pick your mass email tool carefully. To make your life simpler, you should find a tool that either has its own lead generation (forms) options or can integrate with one. HelloBar, MailChimp, etc are also examples of such reliable and widely used tools. Training themselves to adopt design-thinking is crucial for modern-day marketers. It’s time to stop perceiving design as dispensable to the Marketing and Content Marketing functions. In fact, incorporating a design mindset at each step of the Content Marketing pipeline will ensure that you are always focused on the end-goal: i.e., creating content that your customers want and in the way they want it. Now, for the final step, step 6. Top Digital Marketing Skills Online Advertising Courses Influencer Marketing Programs SEO Optimisation Courses Performance Marketing Certification Search Engine Marketing Course Email Marketing Strategy Content Marketing Strategy Social Media Advertising Digital Marketing Analytics Website Analytics Online Display Advertising Best Affiliate Programs 6. Tracking Content Metrics and Analysis Ever wondered how such a creative process can involve so much data?! Well, how are you ever going to measure success without it? How will you know whether the goals you set were realistic, need to be tweaked or entirely revamped? As you can see, it’s best to be friends with data. Lucky for you, Google Analytics comes to the rescue when you’re struggling with quantitative information. Its new feature, Data Studio, is a highly readable and easy to consume format that helps keep close track of new users, traffic, sessions, demographics of leads and any other marketing or sales data you may want to keep handy. Check it out. Google Analytics You can also explore certain other tools like Mixpanel for product analytics. So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and tap into all the design sensibilities within your Content Marketing team, to build a stronger brand that your audience can connect with and finds value in – helping you achieve your business goals! Watch this space for more content upgrades and content marketing ‘gyaan.’ Comment in the section below on how you liked this article, your own content marketing experience and how you’re going to apply the learnings. Or just say hi! Learn digital marketing courses online from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career. upGrad’s Exclusive Digital Marketing Webinar for you – What’s new in Marketing? document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/rumi-ambastha.mp4 Digital Marketing Free courses to Learn Influencer marketing free course Introduction to advertising free course Influencer marketing right free course SEO basics free course SEM basics free course Email marketing free course Social media marketing introduction free course How to leverage user generated content free course Content marketing free course Fundamentals of marketing free course Brand marketing masterclass free course Popular Digital Marketing Blogs Beginners Guide to YouTube Marketing : Complete List How to Monetize Your YouTube Channel? Top 5 Actionable Steps The Complete Guide on setting up a LinkedIn Company Page Everything You Need To Know About Digital Marketing A Complete Guide to Digital Marketing Strategy: What it is and How to create it? Digital Marketing Tutorial: A Step-by-Step Guide To Become an Expert Future of Digital Marketing: How It Goes From Here Importance of Digital Marketing: Top 10 Reasons Your Business Needs it Digital Marketing Challenges: How to Win Amidst the Challenges in Digital Marketing

by Apoorva Shankar

27 Jan 2021

Blogs

6487

As one of the Marketing Honchos on our list rightly claimed, there is no such thing as digital marketing. Today, we are all marketers in a digital world. Keeping this in mind, and the fact that we are in the middle of an exciting revolution (one that is impacting each and every industry, and therefore, every business function); as marketers you must not only get on board with what digital has to offer (for their brand, agency or even standalone) but also be well-versed with what all the new and exciting tools out there, can equip you with. A recent Group M report revealed, that Digital Ad spends in 2016 are expected to grow at a whopping 40% against an overall ad spend growth of just 15.9%! These figures make evident what we are seeing around us already, a digital revolution we cannot afford to ignore. So marketers unite! Whether it’s building a knowledge hub, building your career brick-by-brick, planning skill-sets or avoiding frequent mistakes, you must start preparing yourself to be an ace-marketer who is future ready. After all, marketing is central to the success of any business. Don’t believe us? Hear it from the best in the business! When the professional world is changing at such a rapid pace, how can marketing fall behind? This evolution and super-fast growth have meant that marketers need to learn new things every day. But this is not textbook knowledge. So, we bring to you a curation of what some of the heads of marketing of some leading firms and companies have to say, from their own experience. Use this as your very own ‘Marketing Bible’ and when in doubt – keep this handy! Pramod on Partnerships and Collaborations Partnerships, or figuring out how to create ecosystems, or where you can work with partners to drive intent towards your product. If your product is solving a problem, there should be an effort to ensure that every user gets there. For example, we work very closely with Uber on a global scale and it makes sense as our target audiences are similar. The use case is you discovering a restaurant & taking a cab to the restaurant, so it makes complete sense & it drives intent as well as brand awareness for both the audiences. 20 On-Page and Off-Page SEO Techniques: A Checklist On What Makes a Successful Marketer Growth hacking and attribution. I think a lot of marketers today are data-driven & it’s very critical that decisions & changes are being made on how users are behaving on your platform & how to drive new user’s growth and retention based on growth hacks. Small changes lead to high impact or moving the needle kind of momentum. Rajshree on TG Segmentation There is no one gospel truth. The truth of segmentation does not lie either in demographics or just in ‘psychographics’ – it is a very lattice network and you must look at multiple parameters. Apurva on Bi-Nodal Marketers You must learn to be bi-nodal marketers and be very comfortable not only in planning campaigns but also using data to optimize campaigns. This basically means you need to be full stock marketers! So, understand business objectives, understand marketing objectives, create digital marketing objectives, create plans around it, execute those programs and finally use the data to optimize the campaigns. If you are not doing this end-to-end, you are only doing a part of it and you will never be able to understand whether your plans were successful, why were they successful, which areas did they fail in? On T-Shaped Marketing Imagine the alphabet ‘T’. There is a stem which goes horizontally and there is a very deep vertical stem. So, you might be a specialist in search engine optimization or social media marketing or email marketing but you need to understand all the other components of digital marketing as well. If you are not a T shaped marketer and are very comfortable with (at least aware of) tactics other than yours, you will not be able to contribute effectively to the campaign. Influencer Marketing – The Silver Bullet On Crowd-Sourcing Content Crowdsourcing is changing the way marketing advertisements are being generated. Earlier advertising was all about brand managers going to agencies giving them a brief and coming up with campaigns, now a lot of content is being generated by users. So, your brand is not only controlled by the brand manager but the brand today is owned by the consumers. If you use the power of consumer-driven content, consumer generated content, crowdsourcing can work beautifully in amplifying your reach and amplifying the beauty of the content which is created around the brand. On Partnering with New-Age Agencies Brands are no more only partnering with traditional advertising agencies to create videos but they are also looking at new age video producers like the ViralFever or AIB to create very interesting viral videos which are being shared by people and are not only relying on paid forms of promotion. If you look at HCL’s campaign called ‘coolest interview ever’ which we did two years ago, it was the world’s first campaign which did an end-to-end recruitment process on Twitter! So not only did we seek applications on Twitter but we also got people to apply, we conducted the interview process on Twitter and we finally rolled out offer letters on Twitter! This campaign won a lot of awards. On Community-Building Community building as a concept in digital marketing is a great way to do ‘influencer’ marketing, you create a community around like-minded people and like-minded interest and you should have a very good community manager. If you look at our straight talk platform we have been running it for five years and it’s a great platform to get insights on behavior, engage with them with content which is very relevant. I would strongly recommend marketers to try community marketing to conduct influencer marketing. On Skill-Gaps The biggest skill gap in the current breed of digital marketers is that they completely lack business understanding. What they should understand is digital is a way to achieve an objective, the objective being business goals. It could be customer satisfaction, it could be increased in sales, it could be a gain in market share. They could be working in an insurance firm or a travel firm or an IT firm; the first step is understanding the business. The second skill gap which I see is, most digital marketers today don’t understand marketing technology Martech. If you don’t understand marketing technology and you are only a specialist in search engine optimization or social media you won’t understand concepts like a single view of the customer and your campaigns won’t be able to use a lot of interesting technology elements which are in play today. Best Ways to Use Instagram Marketing For Business On Analytics Last mile attribution is good for very nascent social media adopters but it’s not the right way to go about it from a very evolved digital marketing perspective. I would strongly recommend marketers to use either Omniture or Google analytics premium and do multi-channel attribution. Because it is unfair to attribute the last click 100% of weightage and today in social media you can attribute the success throughout the funnel! Woah, wait. Don’t tell me you aren’t all equipped and adept at managing Google Analytics already! Milind on Knowing Where Your Consumer Spends Time Realize that today 50% of the time spent in the world is on mobile as a device. And when I say mobile, that could be pure play phone, a smartphone, or a tab. You, as a marketer, would have to realize this and make mobile or digital as a center of the whole thought. So, don’t just advertise or market your product blindly. Listen to what Milind Pathak has said on ‘going where your consumer is’ (and the consumer is very mobile today) and reap the benefits of actual engagement with him/her in real time. Gayatri on Building Brands There is no one answer beyond just being fluid and ready to capitalize on whatever opportunities you see. If you are using TV to build reach, impact and an emotional affinity with your brand; to have the same objective from digital, I think you are just lazy in marketing, right? You should be using digital for very different reasons. If television is giving you reach, can digital give you engagement? Can outdoor give you a completely different way of communicating? I think earlier people used to talk about the concept of multimedia. What did multimedia mean? It said you have one idea and take that same idea and put it across media, and now what’s gaining currency is the idea of what they call transmedia. Transmedia is that you change the story, based on the medium. So, when I want television, I may have a certain story. When I am on Facebook, I have a conversation. When I am on outdoor, maybe all I do is create an image that I can burn in people’s minds. I think today’s millennials care about what the brand believes in and what the brand does to make the world a better place. So, the fundamentals don’t change, they are perhaps even more important, but just the way of managing the value chain is so much more complex. On Organizational Ability Sometimes I think that a young marketer would need to see themselves as a bit like an orchestra conductor where it’s not one instrument that’s going to make music, it’s multiple, and your job is to know the consumer well and manage the orchestra to play the music; conduct it in a way that best delivers to your brand. No one person can be in charge of this value chain anymore. What Skill Development Really Means and Why It’s Important for Success On a New Era Digital marketing is dead, there is only marketing in a digital age. Piyush on the Value of People’s Lives in Marketing Products and brands sound commercial. But if you take it to people’s lives, it is a way of life. So, you get up in the morning and brush your teeth. You have breakfast – you cook on your own or get something from outside, it becomes a part of people’s lives. So, if you are communicating something about people’s lives and do not take their lives into account, then I guess you are missing the point. As the world goes digital, knowledge is available to people on fingertips. It will not be people with the knowledge only (who succeed), it will be people who streamline their efforts to travel, meet people in their day to day life. Book knowledge and real knowledge of 2 different things. Books are available to everybody, those who can go and catch the pulse of the people are those who will have an edge. Data is important to tell me – so how is someone leading her life? But then that data is available to each one of us. Who’s the one to make sure that those 3 minutes that this person spent on something, out of those 3 minutes one and a half was mine? So, within those numbers, where is the idea of yours that kept somebody engaged? Best Digital Marketing Courses Online Advanced Certificate in Brand Communication Management - MICA Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing and Communication - MICA Performance Marketing Bootcamp - Google Ads from upGrad To Explore all our courses, visit our page below. Digital Marketing Courses Shubhajit on Flexible Marketing The tech industry is probably close to a 60:40 where I think you can plan about 60% of what you want to be. But you always need to have a large chunk of your marketing programs as very reactive and opportunistic depending on what is happening in the marketplace. I think the big judgment as marketing leaders we must bring is what part of your business can be planned and what part do you need to necessarily leave that flexibility for you to be able to react quickly. upGrad’s Exclusive Digital Marketing Webinar for you – Watch our “Webinar with Q&A Session on Digital Marketing” document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/kapil-panchal-alumni-talk-about-careers-in-dm.mp4   On What Holds Different TG’s Together The equity, the personality, what the brand stands for; should be the common glue that binds each of the different target segments. On Data-Driven Marketing You used to get aggregated data and then you would bring it down and make assumptions of how individuals behave. I think what you’re now doing is, you’re collecting data at an individual level and then coming back to the aggregate. I think that fundamentally shifts how you will approach marketing or any part of your business. We have to agree with Shubhajit on the point of data. Today we are in a unique and exciting sphere as marketers in a digital world, where aggregated or macro-level data is not enough. But what it is good for is breaking it down till it helps us understand the individual and his behavior. Doing this will ensure you are appealing to the exact needs of your consumer with your marketing strategies. On Knowing Your Audience Probably about 60% of purchases in the mobile category today is either by the youth or strongly influenced by the youth. So, if you’re a 45-50-year-old person, quite often you would ask your son or your daughter what phone to buy? I think that is something that we have kind of uncovered very early. The truth is that the youth is an incredible consumer of information related to tech. From both these perspectives, I think youth is exactly the right audience for a tech company to go after. Sujoy on Tapping Into Data Your phone knows if you are in office, if you are on the road or if you are in a metro train or at home. And that is very critical data for marketers to use. It’s important to step back and look at the way we as marketers address consumers on digital and mobile devices. Winning with Consumer Journeys On the Importance of Holistic Understanding Digital marketers are often very good at tactical understanding of channels but they need to bring to the table a holistic understanding of business, consumers and strong analytical ability. On Why It’s Important to Continuously Learn In a fast-paced space like digital marketing, it is important to continue to keep upskilling yourself. I take out 10 to 15 minutes at the start of every day to read up on the latest happenings in the industry and what people are talking about. Without that, it’s very easy to get left behind. Technology is changing very fast, not just technology but consumers are also changing very fast. So, it is an investment that we make for ourselves and our careers to continuously keep upskilling. On Community-Driven Marketing Community-driven marketing is a critical skill set or important focus to have on all platforms. Word-of-mouth is the strongest form of marketing you can possibly imagine. Go after the most active users and get them to be the evangelists of the product. Everything needs to start with the consumer and what business goals are for that consumer. Channel tactics come later and channels are just a way for businesses to reach consumers. On Banner-Blindness A problem that we have before us today as digital marketers are ‘banner blindness’. Consumers become banner blind when they stop noticing any digital advertising which is because they are bombarded with so much of it every day. We only have ourselves to blame as digital marketers because we put out boring or very intrusive advertising. Digital Marketing Free courses to Learn Influencer marketing free course Introduction to advertising free course Influencer marketing right free course SEO basics free course SEM basics free course Email marketing free course Social media marketing introduction free course How to leverage user generated content free course Content marketing free course Fundamentals of marketing free course Brand marketing masterclass free course Colvyn on Purpose of Marketing Now, in marketing or in advertising, it’s all about targeting a specific individual or customer, to try and get him/her to buy what you are selling. And that’s the value of building a brand. Today you will build on a digital platform. Ashok on Understanding Consumers Digital marketing is about understanding consumers and their behavior. Their consumption of digital media how they use it and then understand the correlation of the brand to the consumer in the digital medium. Also, the ability to build messages and communication programs that go beyond a singular platform and work across digital platforms that bring an understanding of consumer insights to the table. This is what clients and brands look for. On Digital Matrices It’s important to baseline what’s gone by and then plan. It is also important to correlate digital matrix with business and marketing matrix which is increasingly becoming the need of the hour. Digital Matrices by themselves are good lead indicators. If you get a good amount of traction in the digital space, say you get views for a video or shares or likes or growth in fan base. It could be used as an indicator towards achieving more marketing goals. On Learning the Fundamentals You need to understand the co-marketing fundamentals before you make a full-blown career in digital marketing. If you want to know a little more about digital marketing apart from being an average user and a very followed person on Instagram, then you should read what’s out there. You should take courses, that supplement your learning with core fundamentals. Be willing to unlearn and relearn so that you can stay current, you can stay relevant and you can be in demand and have a successful digital marketing career. You find a lot of people who have an expertise or alleged expertise on one or more platforms. But, they don’t bring a holistic picture, and an understanding of digital, to the table. On the New Traditional Digital is traditional today. Digital is no longer new media; it’s been around long enough to be traditional. Today a regular media plan has a digital presence. So, unless you are living under a rock, and you don’t even know your company has a website or has a social media presence, and you don’t incorporate any of that, into whatever you call traditional, I have got news for you, you are no longer a traditional marketer, you are a digital marketer. Check out UpGrad’s Digital Marketing Certification Program, for an industry-relevant take on sharpening your marketing skills and being future ready! Karan on Right Monitoring Tools Identify right tools to monitor your campaign and improvise as needed. On Managing All Kinds of Resources Manage resources (people, money & technology) to execute a campaign. Identify buyers’ persona. Drill down deeper to your target audience. Who is the buyer of your product or service, how do they make decisions where do they spend their time and how they think. Basically, defining target market gives you demographic information. And defining buyer persona gives you psychographic information. Identify right outreach channels, if you have detailed your buyer persona correctly, this should be an easy step. Buyer persona would tell you, where your target audience spends most of the time and that should decide your outreach channels. Identify right content, the images, the videos, the words used – all describe the brand and make a connection with the target audience. Why is content important for brand-building as well as connecting with your TG? Hear, hear! Karan Sarin said it. On the Role of a Brand To have a thriving community, a brand should play the role of an enabler. A brand needs to provide a platform to the users, and then step back, it also needs to provide a purpose and that’s when the real magic happens. Design-Thinking in Content Marketing: Some Ideas and Tools to Ace the Process On Using Data Look at data as your secret ingredient, as your raw material, it’s not about the data, it’s about the insights you derive from the data and what decisions you make with those insights.” In earlier times, marketers used to mostly make their best-educated guess about the demographics and the age of the target audience, but now with the digital information that is available, you can draw your buyer’s persona which is more accurate. You know which websites your buyers are visiting, which buttons they are clicking, what is their age; you can define them more accurately. To give you an example you can use Google trends, to see what are the latest topics, etc. and use the data to review your marketing strategy. In-demand Digital Marketing Skills Advertising Courses Influencer Marketing Courses SEO Courses Performance Marketing Courses SEM Courses Email Marketing Courses Content Marketing Courses Social Media Marketing Courses Marketing Analytics Courses Web Analytics Courses Display Advertising Courses Affiliate Marketing Courses On Skills to Polish There are multiple things you can consider while building a marketing plan; first and foremost what is your marketing objective, are you doing a campaign that is a sales campaign, or are you doing a promotional campaign or an awareness campaign? Pinpointing your marketing objective is your 1st step. T-shape marketer is somebody who has a broad understanding of different marketing channels and a deep domain expertise in either 1 or 2 areas. What you typically find in a market are domain experts, people who specialize in one specific area, but what you need is, and that is where the biggest gap is, people who come with broad understandings of different channels and have specializations in certain areas – that’s the most important. Top 3 hard skills, a marketer must have Knowledge of Target Market, Brand Building, & Analytics and Research. Must have Soft skills for a marketer are Emotional Intelligence & Common Sense. Haven’t had enough? 17 digital marketing skills for 2017 Do write us if you want to know more. Alternatively, enroll in our Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing & Communication for much more such industry-relevant insights from the best in the business; and BE the expert yourself! Popular Digital Marketing Blogs Beginners Guide to YouTube Marketing : Complete List How to Monetize Your YouTube Channel? Top 5 Actionable Steps The Complete Guide on setting up a LinkedIn Company Page Everything You Need To Know About Digital Marketing A Complete Guide to Digital Marketing Strategy: What it is and How to create it? Digital Marketing Tutorial: A Step-by-Step Guide To Become an Expert Future of Digital Marketing: How It Goes From Here Importance of Digital Marketing: Top 10 Reasons Your Business Needs it Digital Marketing Challenges: How to Win Amidst the Challenges in Digital Marketing

by Apoorva Shankar

23 Nov 2018

Blogs

5390

Over the last few years, digital marketing has shown and defined a new path for the marketing of brands and products. Every business today is compelled to be online and reach their target audience. Marketing of the product through websites is the first and foremost step in the process of digital marketing. While you, as a small or big business owner, might have a website and thousands of customers landing on it, your business may still not be fetching optimum leads. Best Online Digital Marketing Courses Advanced Certificate in Brand Communication Management - MICA Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing and Communication - MICA Performance Marketing Bootcamp - Google Ads from upGrad To explore all our certification courses on Digital Marketing, kindly visit our page below. Digital Marketing Certification To deploy a competitive digital marketing strategy to turn visitors into leads is not only an art but also a science dependent on analysis of audience behavior. The business and its product should be the right fit for the consumer’s requirements and the consumer should have easy access to your value proposition. Different organisations adopt different marketing strategies depending on the industry, buyer’s journey, demographics, psychographics, lifestyle, beliefs and value, geography and behavior of their audience. Top Digital Marketing Skills Online Advertising Courses Influencer Marketing Programs SEO Optimisation Courses Performance Marketing Certification Search Engine Marketing Course Email Marketing Strategy Content Marketing Strategy Social Media Advertising Digital Marketing Analytics Website Analytics Online Display Advertising Best Affiliate Programs Some of the marketing strategies and tactics which are used by Digital Marketers to turn visitors into leads: #1. Target rich and refined personas Research shows that a consumer spends less than 10 seconds browsing a web page or a product’s showcased value. A very small window for the marketers to capture audience attention. Gaining rich and refined knowledge about your target personas and their problems and showing exactly the necessary solutions to your audiences as per their need and comfort, is the way to combat this. This also gives the customer a good idea about your understanding of their problems. An extensive research study of the target audience through consumer surveys, case studies, market analysis, etc., can help in gaining a deeper understanding of your target persona. In short, marketing to everyone is marketing to no one. So, create an empathy map using user experience and market research results and find your exact target audience. #2. Remember that content is king This is now an old saying, but highly relevant even today. A content strategy is a unified approach to generate and distribute content through a number of different channels to accomplish the marketing objective. Content strategy will include generating the right content for the right audience and distributing the same through different marketing platforms. Hence, it is vital to know and understand the digital footprints of your target audience. Content can include what your consumer sees on your website, blog posts, videos, ‘thank you’ emails, digital media advertisements, etc. Digital Marketing Free courses to Learn Influencer marketing free course Introduction to advertising free course Influencer marketing right free course SEO basics free course SEM basics free course Email marketing free course Social media marketing introduction free course How to leverage user generated content free course Content marketing free course Fundamentals of marketing free course Brand marketing masterclass free course Great content is persuasive and always attracts visitors to your websites and convinces them to take the necessary action. In short, it is the art of communicating with your potential customers without actually having to sell to them. #3. Create well-defined landing pages An advanced search engine optimised landing page is critical to converting visitors into leads. It needs to reflect the value proposition as promised by the business. Keep one thing in mind though – never have multiple landing pages. A single landing page where the customer finishes the call-to-action and is satisfied, is a good practice to follow. Ensure that you are giving appropriate offers for a specific marketing purpose, as expected, and not misleading the visitors. Remove the extra links which might distract the customer. A well-structured lead landing page must include critical elements such as a headline, sub-headlines, and a brief description of the offer, a form to capture visitor’s information, as well as testimonials or security badges. It is advisable to keep it simple and embrace the white spaces while constructing a landing page. #4. Use videos solutions Today video marketing is an indispensable part of digital marketing. YouTube is one of the most used and dominant video marketing platforms. Producing content that is easy and swiftly comprehensible to the audience is the key to video marketing. Simple and sophisticated videos which solve real problems of customers can create high impact. Tell a tale through your video and do not sell the product directly in order to truly engage with your audience. The first ten seconds of the video are crucial to impress the audience and hit the bull’s eye. You can also optimise your videos and tag them as per the keywords used by the audience. A qualitative video which is optimised and designed as per your audience is the key to success in video marketing. #5. Ace email marketing Though it is a very old way of marketing, it is still not out of fashion. Email is a channel where you can find, engage and motivate your customers and increase your conversion rate in a very effective manner. Relevant, engaging and branded content in the email can persuade your customers to quickly take the necessary action. You can obtain and create email lists through search, display and social ads and ask your audience to fill out forms. You can also use an opt-in process to add new and potential subscribers. An effective email marketing campaign must have the basic elements of professional emails – a captivating subject line, pre-headers header, and a concise body of the email, unbroken links, and footer with an explicit CTA (call to action) note. Ensure that you are able to retain your customer’s focus. Popular Digital Marketing Blogs Beginners Guide to YouTube Marketing : Complete List How to Monetize Your YouTube Channel? Top 5 Actionable Steps The Complete Guide on setting up a LinkedIn Company Page Everything You Need To Know About Digital Marketing A Complete Guide to Digital Marketing Strategy: What it is and How to create it? Digital Marketing Tutorial: A Step-by-Step Guide To Become an Expert Future of Digital Marketing: How It Goes From Here Importance of Digital Marketing: Top 10 Reasons Your Business Needs it Digital Marketing Challenges: How to Win Amidst the Challenges in Digital Marketing #6. Retarget or remarket A digital marketing technique that enables marketers to reach out to customers who have already visited the website. Most PPC (pay per click) campaigns target customers who have an idea and are familiar with the brand and the product. The click-through rate of the remarketing campaigns is quite high with a very low cost per click. Remarketing can be implemented through making the product visible again to the customers, giving them new offers and deals, sharing updates on new product features, etc. You can plan and customise remarketing campaigns depending on the insights obtained from behavioral targeting or audience segmentation. Focus on content and education rather than a direct sales pitch. #7. Test various landing pages Whether it is a simple webpage on your website, blog post, social media ads, emails or any marketing campaigns, the most critical feature before reaching out to the customer is to test the landing pages. No matter how great your content on the landing page is, if it doesn’t appear in the right manner for the audience, it is futile. A very common way of testing the landing pages is A/B testing where you can create two versions of a landing page and make them compete with one another. You can then evaluate which version performs the best in achieving the marketing objective. You can only test one aspect of the landing page at a time. These are the main marketing strategies widely adopted by most of the digital media practitioners out there. There are other small steps which you can take once the digital marketing funnel is in place such as creating testimonials, exclusive interviews with industry tycoons, tweaking your call-to-action buttons as per the changing audience patterns, offering checklists, crafting user-friendly forms, etc. If you have a business and if you want to grow it consistently, you need to have a website which converts visitors into leads and potentially, into loyal customers of the future. By using the right digital marketing strategy and branding solutions at the right time, your business will slowly but steadily reap the benefits of the magic that is digital marketing. Learn digital marketing courses online from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career. Featured Programs for you – MICA PG Certification in Digital Marketing & Communication upGrad’s Exclusive Digital Marketing Webinar for you – What’s new in Marketing? document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/rumi-ambastha.mp4  

by Apoorva Shankar

06 Mar 2018

Blogs

5242

We, at UpGrad, have set out on a mission to build careers of tomorrow by delivering the best learning experience and that is what is central to everything we do. We believe that every professional today needs to constantly up-skill to remain relevant, in this ever-evolving era of technology and automation.  In our pursuit to help today’s professionals become future-ready and build the careers of tomorrow, we are proud to present UpGrad Learning Week. Check out our data science training to upskill yourself From Feb 13 to Feb 19, 2017 – 100+ hours of content on UpGrad‘s Learning Platform will be offered free-of-cost. Anyone can sign up for the learning week and get free 7-day access to our modules across courses such as Digital Marketing, Product Management & Entrepreneurship. In addition, UpGrad’s industry experts will be conducting free workshops and career counselling sessions throughout the week.  Our learners also read: Top Python Courses for Free So what’s in store? Data Analytics – Data Analytics Fundamentals, Machine Learning: Clustering Algorithms, Case Study: Uber’s Supply-Demand Gap & more. Digital Marketing – Social Media & Email Marketing, Digital Marketing Analytics, Website Designing for Marketers & more. Product Management – Product Planning, User Research, Case Study: Grofer’s Market Sizing & more. Entrepreneurship – Idea identification & assessment, Legal Foundation, Fundraising & Valuation & more. Read our popular Data Science Articles Data Science Career Path: A Comprehensive Career Guide Data Science Career Growth: The Future of Work is here Why is Data Science Important? 8 Ways Data Science Brings Value to the Business Relevance of Data Science for Managers The Ultimate Data Science Cheat Sheet Every Data Scientists Should Have Top 6 Reasons Why You Should Become a Data Scientist A Day in the Life of Data Scientist: What do they do? Myth Busted: Data Science doesn’t need Coding Business Intelligence vs Data Science: What are the differences? Featured Program for you: MS in Data Science from University of Arizona 100+ sessions, 10+ events, 25+ experts and a lot more awaits. Here’s a glimpse of some of the amazing events lined up: Trends and Opportunities in Digital Marketing, Data Analytics as well as Product Management. Content Marketing and SEO Fundamentals, Fundraising for Entrepreneurs and lots more – all conducted by renowned experts in these domains. upGrad’s Exclusive Data Science Webinar for you – ODE Thought Leadership Presentation document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/ppt-by-ode-infinity.mp4 Explore our Popular Data Science Degrees Executive Post Graduate Programme in Data Science from IIITB Professional Certificate Program in Data Science for Business Decision Making Master of Science in Data Science from University of Arizona Advanced Certificate Programme in Data Science from IIITB Professional Certificate Program in Data Science and Business Analytics from University of Maryland Data Science Degrees What more can I expect?  You can book a FREE Career Counselling Session with UpGrad Experts and get answers to all your questions. Read our Popular US - Data Science Articles Data Analysis Course with Certification JavaScript Free Online Course With Certification Most Asked Python Interview Questions & Answers Data Analyst Interview Questions and Answers Top Data Science Career Options in the USA SQL Vs MySQL – What’s The Difference An Ultimate Guide to Types of Data Python Developer Salary in the US Data Analyst Salary in the US: Average Salary Aiming for a specific job role? Targeting a specific company? Give a mock interview to our expert panel and prepare well! Top Essential Data Science Skills to Learn SL. No Top Data Science Skills to Learn 1 Data Analysis Certifications Inferential Statistics Certifications 2 Hypothesis Testing Certifications Logistic Regression Certifications 3 Linear Regression Certifications Linear Algebra for Analysis Certifications With this initiative, we aim to have 10,000 professionals learn new skills through the week and urge them to take charge of their career because there’s never been a better time than this! Check out the Master’s Degree program in Data Science from LJMU 

by Apoorva Shankar

09 Feb 2017

Blogs

5142

We, at UpGrad, are excited to announce a brand new partnership with various thought leaders in the Data Analytics industry – IIIT Bangalore, Genpact, Analytics Vidhya and Gramener – to bring to you a one-of-a-kind Analytics Roadshow! As part of this roadshow, we will be conducting several back-to-back events that focus on different aspects of analytics, creating interaction points across India, to do our bit for a future ready and analytical, young workforce.  Also Read: Analytics Vidhya article on the UpGrad Data Analytics Roadshow Here is the line-up for the roadshow, to give you a better sense of what to expect: 9 webinars – These webinars (remote) will be conducted by industry experts and are aimed at increasing analytics awareness, providing a way for aspirants to interact with industry practitioners and getting their tough questions answered. 11 workshops – The workshops will be in-person events to take these interactions to the next level. These would be spread across 6 cities – Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Pune. So, if you are in any of these cities, we are looking forward to interact with you. Featured Data Science program for you: Master of Science in Data Science from from IIIT-B 2 Conclaves – These conclaves are larger events with a pre-defined agendas and time for networking. The first conclave is happening on the 17th of December in Bengaluru.  Explore our Popular Data Science Online Certifications Executive Post Graduate Programme in Data Science from IIITB Professional Certificate Program in Data Science for Business Decision Making Master of Science in Data Science from University of Arizona Advanced Certificate Programme in Data Science from IIITB Professional Certificate Program in Data Science and Business Analytics from University of Maryland Data Science Online Certifications Hackathon – Time to pull up your sleeves and showcase your nifty skills. We will be announcing the format of the event shortly. “We find that the IT in­dustry is ab­sorb­ing al­most half of all of the ana­lyt­ics jobs. Banking is the second largest, but trails at al­most one fourth of IT’s re­cruit­ing volume. It is in­ter­est­ing that data rich in­dus­tries like Retail, Energy and Insurance are trail­ing near the bot­tom, lower than even con­struc­tion or me­dia, who handle less data. Perhaps these are ripe for dis­rup­tion through ana­lyt­ics?” Our learners also read: Learn Python Online for Free Mr. S. Anand, CEO of Gramener, wonders aloud. Read our popular Data Science Articles Data Science Career Path: A Comprehensive Career Guide Data Science Career Growth: The Future of Work is here Why is Data Science Important? 8 Ways Data Science Brings Value to the Business Relevance of Data Science for Managers The Ultimate Data Science Cheat Sheet Every Data Scientists Should Have Top 6 Reasons Why You Should Become a Data Scientist A Day in the Life of Data Scientist: What do they do? Myth Busted: Data Science doesn’t need Coding Business Intelligence vs Data Science: What are the differences? upGrad’s Exclusive Data Science Webinar for you – Watch our Webinar on The Future of Consumer Data in an Open Data Economy document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/sashi-edupuganti.mp4   Top Data Science Skills You Should Learn SL. No Top Data Science Skills to Learn 1 Data Analysis Online Certification Inferential Statistics Online Certification 2 Hypothesis Testing Online Certification Logistic Regression Online Certification 3 Linear Regression Certification Linear Algebra for Analysis Online Certification Get data science certification from the World’s top Universities. Learn Executive PG Programs, Advanced Certificate Programs, or Masters Programs to fast-track your career.

by Apoorva Shankar

15 Dec 2016

Blogs

5687

When Thulasiram enrolled in the UpGrad Data Analytics program, in its first cohort, he was not very different for us, from the rest of our students in this. While we still do not and should not treat learners differently, being in the business of education – we definitely see this particular student in a different light. His sheer resilience and passion for learning shaped his success story at UpGrad. Humble beginnings Born in the small town of Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, Thulasiram does not remember much of his childhood given that he enlisted in the Navy at a very young age of about 15 years. Right out of 10th standard, he trained for four years, acquiring a diploma in mechanical engineering. Thulasiram came from humble means. His father was the manager of a small general store and his mother a housewife. It’s difficult to dream big when leading a sheltered life with not many avenues for exposure to unconventional and exciting opportunities. But you can’t take learning out of the learner. “One thing I remember about school is our Math teacher,” reminisces Thulasiram, “He used to give us lot of puzzles to solve. I still remember one puzzle. If you take a chessboard and assume that all pawns are queens; you have to arrange them in such a way that none of the eight pawns should die. Every queen, should not affect another queen. It was a challenging task, but ultimately we did it, we solved it.” Navy & MBA At 35 years of age, Thulasiram has been in the navy for 19 years. Presently, he is an instructor at the Naval Institute of Aeronautical Technology. “I am from the navy and a lot of people don’t know that there is an aviation wing too. So, it’s like a dream; when you are a small child, you never dream of touching an aircraft, let alone maintaining it. I am very proud of doing this,” says Thulasiram on taking the initiative to upskill himself and becoming a naval-aeronautics instructor. When the system doesn’t push you, you have to take the initiative yourself. Thulasiram imbibed this attitude. He went on to enroll in an MBA program and believes that the program drastically helped improve his communication skills and plan his work better. How Can You Transition to Data Analytics? Data Analytics Like most of us, Thulasiram began hearing about the hugely popular and rapidly growing domain of data analytics all around him. Already equipped with the DNA of an avid learner and keen to pick up yet another skill, Thulasiram began researching the subject. He soon realised that this was going to be a task more rigorous and challenging than any he had faced so far. It seemed you had to be a computer God, equipped with analytical, mathematical, statistical and programming skills as prerequisites – a list that could deter even the most motivated individuals. This is where Thulsiram’s determination set him apart from most others. Despite his friends, colleagues and others that he ran the idea by, expressing apprehension and deterring him from undertaking such a program purely with his interests in mind – time was taken, difficulty level, etc. – Thulasiram, true to the spirit, decided to pursue it anyway. Referring to the crucial moment when he made the decision, he says, If it is easy, everybody will do it. So, there is no fun in doing something which everybody can do. I thought, let’s go for it. Let me push myself — challenge myself. Maybe, it will be a good challenge. Let’s go ahead and see whether I will be able to do it or not. UpGrad Having made up his mind, Thulasiram got straight down to work. After some online research, he decided that UpGrad’s Data Analytics program, offered in collaboration with IIIT-Bangalore that awarded a PG Diploma on successful completion, was the way to go. The experience, he says, has been nothing short of phenomenal. It is thrilling to pick up complex concepts like machine learning, programming, or statistics within a matter of three to four months – a feat he deems nearly impossible had the source or provider been one other than UpGrad. Our learners also read: Top Python Free Courses Favorite Elements Ask him what are the top two attractions for him in this program and, surprising us, he says deadlines! Deadlines and assignments. He feels that deadlines add the right amount of pressure he needs to push himself forward and manage time well. As far as assignments are concerned, Thulasiram’s views resonate with our own – that real-life case studies and application-based learning goes a long way. Working on such cases and seeing results is far superior to only theoretical learning. He adds, “flexibility is required because mostly only working professionals will be opting for this course. You can’t say that today you are free, because tomorrow some project may be landing in your hands. So, if there is no flexibility, it will be very difficult. With flexibility, we can plan things and maybe accordingly adjust work and family and studies,” giving the UpGrad mode of learning, yet another thumbs-up. Amongst many other great things he had to say, Thulasiram was surprised at the number of live sessions conducted with industry professionals/mentors every week. Along with the rest of his class, he particularly liked the one conducted by Mr. Anand from Gramener. Top Data Science Skills to Learn to upskill SL. No Top Data Science Skills to Learn 1 Data Analysis Online Courses Inferential Statistics Online Courses 2 Hypothesis Testing Online Courses Logistic Regression Online Courses 3 Linear Regression Courses Linear Algebra for Analysis Online Courses What Kind of Salaries do Data Scientists and Analysts Demand? Get data science certification from the World’s top Universities. Learn Executive PG Programs, Advanced Certificate Programs, or Masters Programs to fast-track your career. Read our popular Data Science Articles Data Science Career Path: A Comprehensive Career Guide Data Science Career Growth: The Future of Work is here Why is Data Science Important? 8 Ways Data Science Brings Value to the Business Relevance of Data Science for Managers The Ultimate Data Science Cheat Sheet Every Data Scientists Should Have Top 6 Reasons Why You Should Become a Data Scientist A Day in the Life of Data Scientist: What do they do? Myth Busted: Data Science doesn’t need Coding Business Intelligence vs Data Science: What are the differences? upGrad’s Exclusive Data Science Webinar for you – ODE Thought Leadership Presentation document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/ppt-by-ode-infinity.mp4 Explore our Popular Data Science Courses Executive Post Graduate Programme in Data Science from IIITB Professional Certificate Program in Data Science for Business Decision Making Master of Science in Data Science from University of Arizona Advanced Certificate Programme in Data Science from IIITB Professional Certificate Program in Data Science and Business Analytics from University of Maryland Data Science Courses “Have learned most here, only want to learn..” Interested only in learning, Thulasiram made this observation about the program – compared to his MBA or any other stage of life. He signs off calling it a game-changer and giving a strong recommendation to UpGrad’s Data Analytics program. We are truly grateful to Thulasiram and our entire student community who give us the zeal to move forward every day, with testimonials like these, and make the learning experience more authentic, engaging, and truly rewarding for each one of them. If you are curious to learn about data analytics, data science, check out IIIT-B & upGrad’s PG Diploma in Data Science which is created for working professionals and offers 10+ case studies & projects, practical hands-on workshops, mentorship with industry experts, 1-on-1 with industry mentors, 400+ hours of learning and job assistance with top firms.

by Apoorva Shankar

07 Dec 2016