DIGITAL MARKETING in INDIA- 2020 AND BEYOND
INTRODUCTION
As we all are well aware, India is the fastest-growing economy in the world. India, post independence, started its journey as an agrarian nation, but slowly spread its wings across sectors; textile, manufacturing, service, IT, automobile and so on.
With businesses being established, and with the boom of internet, the marketing strategies slowly moved towards the digital world. Thus, India too became the user of digital marketing.
evolution OF DIGITAL MARKETING
1990 - The term "digital marketing" was coined.
1993 - First clickable web-ad banner.
1994 - First E-commerce transaction done over web.
1996 - Search Engines like LookSmart, Alexa, and HotBot were launched.
1997 - First social media site, sixdegrees.com, was launched (lasted till 2001).
1998 - Search engine Legend, Google, was launched.
2000 - Internet bubble burst with smaller search engines wiped out.
2002 - LinkedIn Launched.
2003 - Content management system, Wordpress, launched.
2004 - Our two favorites, Gmail and Facebook were launched and went live.
2005 - The one tool we cannot live without today in 2020, YouTube was launched.
2007 - iPhone launched. Tumblr was launched. FlipKart was founded in India.
2008 - AppStore was introduced.
2009 - Google AdWords introduced.
2010 - Whatsapp was launched.
2011 - Siri introduced to world.
2012 - Amazon was started in India.
2013 - Google Glass and 4K Displays.
2014 - Number of smart phone users overshadowed PC users.
2015 - Live streaming becomes popular.
2016 - Mobile and app marketing.
2017 - 80% of businesses in India increased their digital marketing budget.
2018 - Report of 500 billion internet users in India.
2019 - Constant growth of Digital Marketing with over 87% of Indians using mobile phones with internet in it.
The evolution over the last decade seems overwhelming with constant growth in the sector of digital marketing.
India always relied on traditional marketing with TV ads, pamphlets, radio adverts, and so on. This was until the internet emerged and it became a door-to-door affair these days. In India, one might not even have a proper job, but internet is there on everyone's phone. So much so, even job hunting has come down to internet and online. Gone are those days where people used to wait for the day's newspaper to look for vacancies and opportunities in the sector of their interest and education.
INDIA AND DIGITAL MARKETING
India, as known to all, is the second most populous country. Just with the sheer population, the invent of new businesses and strategies to market is humongous. Internet hasn't left anyone these days.
My mother, who is 65 years old, is an excellent cook and a dressmaker. She is youtube savvy, and she keeps churning out new dishes from her kitchen and stitches fashionable designer wears to us. This happened after she was introduced to smart phones 6 years ago.
Wondering, why I'm saying all these. I did mention about youtube there, which is a medium of social media marketing and content marketing. People who publish videos are doing so to exhibit their talent and in turn earn money through ads, and such content is reaching nook and corner of our country. This is just a glimpse of the connection of digital marketing with Indians.
Even the smallest shop or a sports center or a gym these days have a Facebook Page for their business, thus trying to reach the target audience, regionwise. Such is the scope of digital marketing.
FUTURE OF DIGITAL MARKETING IN INDIA
Every business in the country, big and small, wants to be part of the digital marketing platform. The main reason being the reach through digital mediums. With this kind of reach, the future businesses would digitize as soon as they register the business.
Being digital is equal to being global. Even small scale cottage industries and handicraft industries have started exporting their products, thanks to internet that people worldwide know what is being marketed and a the market is spread across for such products.
The beauty of digital marketing is it can reach the right audience, unlike our traditional marketing. When the right audience is tapped, the returns are higher, and as a result the business booms.
Also, with target audience clearly defined, the cost of marketing is low, and returns higher. Business, at the end of the day, is looking to generate revenue and this happens through digital marketing. Subsequently, all business turn to digital marketing, which in turn creates more digital marketing professionals, who produce newer and better marketing ideas, and new businesses emerge and the cycle goes on and on. Ultimately, what I'm trying to say is more startups and businesses are started, more demand for digital marketing.
In fact, in my opinion. As we digitized, there are births of new startups and business.
Say, for example. Traditionally, we would know the eateries / restaurants only in our locality or the areas we frequently visit. When marketing became digital, a person in one corner of the city gets familiar about the restaurant in the other corner of the city, and nonetheless wants to visit the place based on the rave reviews (again on social media, digitized world). So, now the restaurant has opened doors to the whole city which is a wider radius compared to the locality radius.
Also, continuing the same restaurant example, theoretically people start dining out more often and cultivates that as a habit. Banking on this habit, a new app is developed, which delivers you the food from the restaurant at your doorstep. Now, that's an emergence of new business, again that business is promoted via digital medium, and boom success. To run one business, another one emerges, and again this cycle goes on and on.
The delivery partners are reliant on two wheelers, so the business goes up there. They wear uniforms, so the clothing business is up too. The payment gets cashless with cards and other modes of payments through wallets, again emergence of wallets.
Do you all think I deviated from what I was discussing earlier? No, I'm still on topic. A restaurant marketed through digital medium, and from a consumer point of view, to eat 2 idlies from his favorite restaurant, at the comfort of his home, gave birth to several other businesses. Such is the magnitude of digital marketing.
Also, digital marketing has improved the economy of the whole country. As I mentioned earlier, agriculture was the backbone of our nation. Later, IT was outsourced from Western Countries, and it boomed in the country, but again it was restricted to metropolitan cities. Now, with the boom of digital marketing, that itself is providing opportunities for many and with the rise of new business, again people are taken care of with jobs of their interest.
One of the major advantages of digital marketing is, it is an essential function of all and any businesses.
The presence of internet in every household in the form of mobile forms has revolutionized our life in general and digital marketing in particular. The way of life of any common man has changed now: Online shopping; buying groceries online; booking tickets online; access to any new releases, songs, albums, or movies through YouTube and streaming partners; and much more.
WHAT IS INFIMIND'S ROLE HERE?
We, at Infimind, realized the effectiveness, flexibility, and convenience Digital Marketing provides and also we are of the understand, this subject is to be taught. With India seeing a bright future in Digital Marketing, if there are not enough people to handle the volume of workload, it's a shame that we didn't produce that many people to face the challenge.
We have thus taken the challenge of providing a short-term course on Digital Marketing, both online and offline, where a student would be learning everything that is required to be a future digital marketer.
Do, visit us here to know more about what I'm talking about.
Also, if you still are unsure about what digital marketing is, do read our articles in our blog page which definitely would shed light on the topic and you will have a better understand of this whole industry.