Traditional marketing jobs are being replaced by new, innovative ways of connecting with customers. Thanks to the internet and social media, traditional marketing jobs – such as newspaper adverts, radio spot bids, and mailshots – are being supplemented by online marketing jobs. As the name would suggest, online marketing involves the use of marketing channels and methods that are available online. This may include paid ads on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter; digital marketing, which involves the use of SEO, SEM, and email marketing to gain visibility and drive traffic to a website; or content marketing, which involves creating and sharing informative and engaging content to attract potential customers.
The Rise Of Online Marketing
The opportunities for digital marketing jobs are vast, and the field is growing rapidly. According to Future Inc., a research and business consulting firm specialising in digital marketing and social media, over the next five years the market size of the online marketing job market is expected to grow from 370,000 to almost 1.3 million jobs worldwide. And that’s just for jobs that exist now; it’s estimated that there will be additional growth of at least 50% in the next five years. As a result, competitive salaries are becoming more accessible, and it’s open to more people than ever before.
Why is the market for online marketing jobs expanding so rapidly? There are several factors at play, not least of which is greater opportunity and accessibility due to the growing internet. People are able to research products and services and compare pricing and features more easily than ever before due to the internet. Because of this, they’re more likely to discover a need and meet that need on the internet rather than through traditional marketing channels. As a result, more and more businesses are realising the advantages of online marketing and taking the plunge, whether they’re just starting out or whether they’re already well established.
The Growth Of Online Marketing
The use of social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter to connect with customers and prospects is becoming a common practice, as companies realise that these are powerful tools for marketing and sales. In fact, the use of social media in marketing and sales has grown from 6% to 23% over the last two years, and that growth is expected to continue, according to HubSpot.
What’s more, a survey conducted by the digital marketing platform Miva in August 2018 revealed that 37% of businesses have increased their use of social media to market to customers, with 14% planning on using social media in the next six months.
So it’s clear that businesses are seeing the power of social media to grow their bottom line, and they’re taking note.
The Growth Of Online Marketing Platforms
One of the biggest issues for any business that wants to utilise online marketing is exposure — getting your content in front of the right eyeballs is essential if you want to achieve any results. In an effort to solve this problem, many companies have developed platforms designed to increase the exposure of content by making it discoverable. Simply put, online marketing platforms allow businesses to create content and distribute it to the right audience — usually defined by interest, job title, or geography — through a variety of distribution platforms.
As a result, content may appear in top news feeds on social media sites, or it may be curated and made available for a specific audience on a digital marketing platform. The beauty of these platforms is that they take the hard work out of finding and engaging with your audience; all you have to do is throw your content online and let the platform do the rest.
The rise of TikTok, a video-based social media platform that was initially restricted to users in the United States, but now has a presence in over 200 countries, illustrates the success of these types of platforms.
TikTok is one of the biggest and most successful social media platforms around today, and the fact that it’s completely free is helping to drive its popularity. The app connects users based on their shared interests, exposing them to content that relates to their passions. The platform is incredibly popular among Gen Z and millennials, with 58% using it and 20% using it daily. This is great news for businesses that want to market to this demographic as they’re more likely to be using these types of services and more forgiving of advertisements and clutter. In fact, 69% of millennials said they would happily spend more time on a site if it meant getting useful content faster, compared to 56% of Gen Zers.
The Increasingly Mobile World
Whether we like it or not, the world is moving towards a mobile-first world. Many platforms and services have been built with this fact in mind, with businesses able to reach customers where they are, when they’re most likely to be interacting with a brand or service – on their phones.
This trend is great for businesses, as it means that customers can access information anywhere, at any time. According to HubSpot, customers visit websites 67% of the time on their mobile phones, as compared to 33% on desktop computers. So if you want to appeal to this audience, make sure that your website is responsive and functions well on mobile phones.
Additionally, the increasing use of mobile phones and the declining use of landlines means that businesses increasingly operate on an online basis. As a result, more and more people are becoming ‘digital nomads’, moving flexibly between client work and travel, marketing and sales, or content creation and management.
When it comes to marketing and sales jobs, the demand is here; opportunities for digital nomads to work remotely are increasing year after year.
The bottom line is this: the demand for online marketing jobs is set to increase dramatically in the next five years. If you’re looking to enter the field or want to advance your career, now is the right time to do so.