Rise of Digital Marketing: From a Certificate Course to a Professional Master’s degree

The concept of traditional marketing is steadily giving way to booming digital marketing. Companies are now spending more heavily on digital marketing than more traditional advertising like ATL/BTL/OOH/Events. Advertising through digital marketing allows brands to deliver personalized messages, targeting potential customers’ personalized gadgets at a much lesser cost than a commercial broadcasted on television. 

Traditional marketing addresses the entire mass in general, which proves to be more expensive, whereas digital marketing initiatives are more targeted to specific audiences. Industries can monitor a customer’s online activities on a daily basis by using techniques like predictive analytics and data science. Digital campaigns can be stopped, modified, and measured more accurately vis-a-vis conventional media like Print/TV or radio.

Industries are increasingly investing most of their Marketing budgets on digital campaigns (SEO/SEM/SMM/Influencer marketing/Content marketing etc) as that is where the target audience spends most of their time via multiple touch points such as mobiles, tabs, laptops, etc. Certain types of digital marketing such as online gamification, and user CTAs (Call to actions like form fills/brochure downloads/chatbots) are more engaging for the audience and help to sustain their interest in the brand communication. 

The USA is known to be the epicentre of technology and home to players like Google/Facebook and Amazon. The scope and impact of Digital marketing is expected to grow exponentially in the near future, owing to rising trends of smartphone penetration and internet access across the globe. Since companies are heavily investing in Digital marketing campaigns, it is creating a demand for a more in-depth study of the subject. It is because of this reason that many universities in the US have now come up with specialized Master’s programs in the field of Digital Marketing. It is pretty evident that Digital Marketing is going to stay and not go anywhere. Therefore gaining a Master’s degree in the field of Digital marketing can be considered beneficial for students who want to gain in-depth knowledge of the latest technologies and innovations in marketing, business intelligence, marketing research, data science, and artificial intelligence while also gaining the skills and knowledge necessary to become a market research analyst, brand manager, marketing manager or promotion manager

Below is a list of some of the Digital Marketing Degrees offered in the U.S.: 

• Masters (Ms) in Social Media Marketing
• Masters (Ms) in Marketing Analytics
• Masters (Ms) Digital Marketing and Design 
• Master of Arts in Marketing and Digital Media (MA)
• MBA in Digital Marketing
• Master of Science in Integrated Marketing Communications