While looking for a higher role in the Digital Marketing industry, you must have what it takes to be the hire the organization is looking for. And when you are applying to the role of a Digital Marketing Manager, you have to showcase your best skills. You need to market yourself digitally to the employer. To begin with, you need to have a captivating resume that displays the right set of skills and experience you hold, a story told in simple words.

Digital Marketing has become highly desirable in today’s job marketplace. Since, this industry is highly competitive, there are hundreds of resumes against every vacancy being published by the companies. To stand out, your resume must highlight the areas which will grab eyeballs. Apart from gaining more skills and experience, personal branding plays a significant part in a resume.

A resume is something that allows you to market yourself in the best possible manner while considering that there are numerous candidates standing in the queue. So let’s understand how to write a Digital Marketing Manager resume portraying yourself as an expert in all the important aspects of the role that the industry demands.

Focus on Building Quality Resume

Unlike any SEM campaign, you must get a high level candidate Quality Score and your resume must be capable of making an impression. Remember, you have three minutes to impress the recruiter. Your resume must highlight your significant achievements and key milestones that you have conquered through your career while working as an SEO expert, SEO supervisor, digital marketing analyst or any similar roles in the past.

You are going to apply for the position of Manager, so your resume must include leadership, mentorship, account management and man-management skills and also must demonstrate qualities that distinguish you from other interested candidates.

You must possess skill sets which speak to your ability to strategize and deliver effective digital marketing campaigns and mention the significant KPIs and results that you achieved. Your resume must make you come across as a confident, skillful and successful professional.

Avoid Making it Too Long

Do not exceed more than two pages, in fact, lesser the content the better. Brevity is much sought after here. In fact, many companies insist on one page resumes only. You need to learn the art of conveying all your information, be it a list of past employers, or a list of awards and achievements.

While describing the past accomplishments, try to make use of action verbs amalgamating it with quantitative data. And since space is a constraint, avoid adding your own photo to the resumes unless a recruiter has explicitly asked for it. Make optimum use of the space available.

Go Reverse-Chronological

While writing a Digital Marketing Manager resume, always try to add information in reverse-chronological format. This is the most recommended format that successfully impresses the HR managers. Start with the introduction paragraph followed with skills and interests. Add your goals and explain how you can make a difference and be a game changer for the company.

Then add the educational qualifications in reverse- chronological manner starting from the most recent one. Make your work history and experience the star of the show and highlight all the key roles you have performed in the past. Begin with the most current role and frame out a reverse timeline revealing your professional progress all these years throughout your career.

Creativity is the need of the hour. Add your advertising and digital marketing skillset which clearly showcases the creative aspect of your job and personality. Keywords are undeniably important whether it is an SEO campaign or a Digital Marketing Manager’s resume. So try to add as many keywords as you can; but they have to closely relate to the requirements being displayed in the job advertisement.

Reverse-chronological resume follows a defined format where the candidate’s details are displayed as following:

• Contact Details
• Professional Summary/ Resume Objectives
• Work History/ Work Experience
• Education
• Skills
• Additional Info (if any)

What to Add to the Digital Marketing Manager Resume

Now let us look at what are the different things that you have to add to your digital marketing resume to make it complete and attractive.

Summary Statement: Adding a Summary Statement gives weightage to the resume as it is your introduction in a nutshell. It is a focal point of your resume that provides a brief synopsis of the skills and work experience. Begin with telling the recruiter about yourself, who you are and what you want to achieve in your career.

Add the key details about the work experience and list the attributes that makes you a prime candidate for this position. Here, you can use attractive words such as ‘fluently transitions’ or ‘niche market campaigns’, etc. while making a statement. Briefly describe your motivation for pursuing a career in the Digital Marketing industry.

Note: Add a minimum of three succinct and impressive statements that precisely explain your qualification, skills and job title.

Professional Summary: Next, include a Professional Summary section that denotes the professional skills in a bulleted format. Since you are applying for a management role, therefore, it is beneficial to add relevant experience even if you gained it in a different area or industry.

The best practice here is not to add more than six skills to make this section look neat, crisp, impressive and prevent it from being messy. Give the recruiters a strong indication that you are the right candidate for the digital marketing manager position by adding a specific set of capabilities under this section.

Note: The professional summary must include skills directly relevant to the position such as the ‘SEO Specialist’, ‘SEM Expert’ etc.

Experience Section: Let your work experiences be your storyteller that paves the way for you to bag the new position by adding the meaningful details about your work history. Illustrate your duties, results and impact for all your former job positions which can contribute positively towards you getting the Digital Marketing Manager role. Also, include the period of employment for each position and the duties performed starting with the most recent role. The recruiters definitely do not want to read bulk content, so keep it simple in bulleted points.

The Digital Marketing industry follows a hierarchical order in terms of the roles and responsibilities. Being a Digital Marketing Manager signifies that you are packed with certain skills as it requires several years of experience in the industry to reach this level. So, do not hesitate to add all the employers you have served in the past.

Note: Current positions must be written in present tense while all the past positions must include past tense.

Highlight your Digital Qualities

Digital qualities are the attributes worth demonstrating and not just mentioning. List your capabilities that pitches you as an innovative person who is comfortable implementing all the latest digital marketing tools for project purposes. It has to be a blend of innovative technology and ideas which result in generating more business leads and increase sales. Having superior technology skills is a key ingredient to this role.

One of the primary roles of the Digital Marketing Manager is to identify and evaluate new technology and utilize the Web analytics tools for measuring the website traffic with the intent to optimize the marketing campaign, social media, email marketing, etc. in a better way.

Demonstrate your ability to convert the visitor into customer to boost the sales graph. Show your efficiency and proficiency in running a digital marketing campaign successfully.

Reveal your digital skills and list the perceptible outcomes attained as a result of using these skills. After all it is important for you to know exactly the roles and responsibilities of a Digital Marketing Manager and demonstrate the same through your resume.

Simply put, the digital marketing managers are accountable for developing, executing and managing digital marketing campaigns to promote a company or its products and services. Your resume should speak of you having the ability and experience to execute these skills.

Apart from this, as a Digital Marketing Manager, you will be responsible for enhancing brand awareness through various digital channels. Not to mention, driving website traffic, acquiring leads and ensuring higher organic rating in search engine listings for your employer’s or client’s website.

Certifications Speak for your Talent

Certification is the way to become in demand. Over the next couple of years, studies show that there will be a huge dearth of digital marketing professionals globally. According to a study, there will be more than 1,50,000 jobs worldwide with a very little talent to fill them up. Individuals with Digital Marketing Certification will be in high demand and you need to tailor your resume accordingly in order to ensure that it meets this rising demand.

Since, certifications are the evidence of specialized skills and knowledge, list all your relevant certifications in the education section of your resume. To some extent, the certifications often display the set of tasks and proficiencies required to perform a digital marketing manager’s role efficiently.

The certifications are sometimes as impressive as a four-year professional degree. It’s not even important to list all the certifications you have done so far, in fact, add those that closely match the job description.

That being said, I am not a huge advocate of certifications because they show you what you know, but not what you can do. What employers expect right now is proof that you can execute something. That’s why projects are important. If you do a project and implement what you have learned, your project becomes your resume.

Why A Strong Resume is Required?

The Digital Marketing field is growing at a fast pace and there seems to be an imminent boom in the number of positions up for grabs. If you incorporate all these best practices in your digital marketing manager resume, you will have a better chance to make a positive impression and get called for an interview.

Another important thing that you should consider while writing a resume for Digital Marketing Manager position is the use of appropriate keywords. To get hired for the position, the keywords are one of the basic things that allow the resume to pass the ATS (Application Tracking System).

ATS tracks and scans the resume and other attached documents for the keywords relevant to the job description. Afterwards, it picks the one that best matches the requirements included in the job listing. Include keywords such as digital marketing, SMM analyst, niche advertising and brand promotion to make it past the Application Tracking System.

Mistakes To Avoid While Writing A Resume

Since you are applying for Digital Marketing Manager role, you must be aware of the importance of proofreading to avoid grammatical errors and typos. Another crucial thing is the failure to include the key skills that the job demands.

As a marketing manager, you should have a good grasp over promotional techniques, advertising practices and IT skills. It is not always important to list all the details such as the last drawn salary, hours of working or former supervisor’s details until you are asked to do so.

Avoid attaching a generic resume with your job application for the position of Digital Marketing Manager. Modify and align your resume to the most relevant roles and responsibilities included in the job advertisement.

Tips for Writing a Digital Marketing Manager Resume

All the above mentioned guidelines must be followed and taken care of throughout the process of writing the resume for the role of Digital Marketing Manager. However, one thing that can be compromised to some extent is the resume format.

To keep it in reverse-chronological format reflects professionalism; though there are two other formats that can be considered. Let’s understand what these formats are and how they are distinguished.

• Reverse chronological resume focuses more on the work experience
• Skills based resume format, as the name suggests highlights the skills
• Hybrid/ Combination resume format aims at highlighting both the skills and the experience

What’s the Best Format for Resume?

To understand the resume formats for digital marketing manager position further, it is crucial to know the importance of all three formats.

The selection of resume format solely depends upon the career path.

• Reverse-chronological resume is appropriate for the industry that demands a lot of experience.
• Skills based resume or functional resume format fits the role that asks for a broader skillset and hands on portfolio of projects.
• Hybrid or Combination resume format applies to the senior level position or highly specialized role where both skills and work experience is required.

Conclusion

Digital Marketing Manager is a very competitive role and the candidates require a special skillset to get hired for this position. Undoubtedly, it takes time to frame a well-written resume, but the time is well-spent as it will greatly increase your chances to secure the job. Your resume is the first impression to your prospective employer and it better be good. It could pave the way for your successful career in the future.

As opposed to the traditional form of marketing, digital media has changed the flow of business, making it even faster, smoother and taking it to social forums for one-to-one interaction with customers and clients. So one thought that would inherently come to your mind is that what makes digital marketing so different and why is it so in-market now?

Digital marketing is an overpowering tool. It lets business owners promote their product and services on various platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter.

With a prime motto to generate more customers and retain the existing ones, digital marketing has been well-accepted by people globally. In that context, what you can do for your business to grow is to adapt to changing times, blend in with customer tastes and migrate to the platforms where your customers are most likely to be active.

It becomes easier to understand the vast majority of the audience that you’d get access to if you know that according to a report in 2017, there are approximately 196.02 million social media users in India and 2.46 billion users worldwide. That makes it imperative for you to use social media for your business. The onus here is that this marketing strategy demands lesser time, lesser effort, and lesser money.

In this post, I have listed Top 10 Social Media Marketing Companies in Hyderabad which can be your business partner to take your business to the next level by producing a large customer base, higher revenue, and creating an impressive brand image, no matter the size of your business.

So let us take a look:

1. ShootOrder

ShootOrder is a division of Ivent It Solutions Pvt. Ltd. and is a privately held digital marketing company in Hyderabad, India. With an endless hunger for perfection they have brought resounding success for clients with their creative, innovative and strategic marketing campaigns. Their talented pool of experts is well known for perfection and for delivering results on time, which has led to increased business for their clients.

Their biggest strength being client-relationship, they have been delivering top-notch services to more than 200 clients globally, in the area of SEO services, pay per click advertising (PPC), social media marketing, email marketing, web hosting, web designing, CMS custom development, e-commerce custom development, PHP development, and web application development.

They love their work, and that is evident by the fact that they have been thriving in this business and serving global clientele without a glitch or any sense of dissatisfaction with their services from clients. Over the years, they have developed their own set of digital marketing tools, which makes ShootOrder unique, cost-effective and an expert in their field.

• Location: Hyderabad
• Founded In: 2012
• Top Clients: Centuary, Hindware, BMW, Amravati, Nalsar, Hetero, Oasis, Hare Krishna, The Times Group, Delhi Public School, Ping, LACG, Moya, Rangat
• Awards: Google Partner
• Website: ShootOrder.com

2. Brightcom

Being in the business of digital marketing for almost two decades now, Brightcom has developed mechanisms to lead enterprises into an increase growth rate and return on investment. Their “compass” proprietary technology and teams of trusted experts across the globe have branded them as an entry point for all the best the programmatic world has to offer.

They optimise each campaign according to the client’s specific needs and unique target audience, with cherry-picked publishers and view ability as their fundamental value.

Their video advertising services across mobile, desktop and connected devices ensure maximum monetization and advances targeting for consistent, successful results for their clients. They have made a name for themselves across the globe and have marked their presence in cities like New York, Mexico, Hyderabad, Manila.

Their whole-hearted focus on the needs of their clients to offer them premium traffic, quality assurance and media opportunities, makes them a leader in the market. With specially selected partners like Microsoft, AoI, Smart+, Reckitt Benckiser, and Rubicon, they have ensured superior product delivery.

• Location: Hyderabad
• Founded In: 1999
• Top Clients: Havas Digital, JWT, Mediacom, Mindshare, Neo@Ogilvy, Ogilvy One, OMD, Satchi&Satchi, TBWA, and ZenithOptiMedia
• Awards: Finalist for Best AD Tech Tool at Cynopsis Digital Model D Awards 2016.
• Website: Brightcom.com

3. Tempest Advertising

Tempest has been in the business of making businesses work better for almost two decades now. A leading company that has established a name for itself in providing complete solutions for all advertising and digital marketing including Brand management, Media planning, Corporate Brand positioning, Ad campaigns across all media like digital, print, radio, TV, new media, outdoors. They don’t just communicate with buyers to sell but also advertise to make people’s lives better.

They are among the top 25 digital agencies in India-specialising in Digital Media, member of Tribe Global- a worldwide independent agency network and provide 360-degree communication solutions with expertise in web designing & development, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, PR, events, corporate logos, and brochures. They have clients from across sectors like Agri, FMCG, Real estate, Industrial, Automobile, Software, Healthcare, Hospitality and Education with the likes of Essilor, GVK, Ramoji Film City, Pepsi and Saint Gobain.

• Location: Hyderabad and other major cities
• Founded In: 1998
• Top Clients: Essilor, GVK, Ramoji Film City, Pepsi and Saint Gobain
• Website: Tempest Advertising

4. First Show

A company that was formed as ideation of young and crazy entrepreneurs, First Show has been providing excellent services to its clients since its inception. With an appetite to be unique, they began their journey with no rules or boundaries. They believe in thinking out of the box and delivering eccentric yet practical ideas. Firstshow has been around for three years and has grown and matured professionally, personally and perceptively.

Through serving clients with top-notch products via Online Advertising, Websites development and design, Digital Strategy, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Management, and Marketing Automation, they have developed for themselves a trust among their clients. It would not be incorrect if we say that they breathe digital, think digital and talk digital.

• Location: Hyderabad
• Founded In: 2015
• Top Clients: MastGo, Season Buy, Mahavir Group, Blush, Wham, UPX, Sanskriti, Chai Bisket, Asian Cinemas, Beer County, Dr Reddy’s, Pier 33, Vivah, and many more
  Awards: Google partner, ADEX’14 Gold Category: Corporate Identity Kit

5. Artbeat Communication

Having been based out of Hyderabad since the year 2000, they are the best choice to opt for if you’re looking for advertising in this region. Not only are they well versed with the local markets of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana but also know the exact pulse of the target audience. They have a loyal and broad base of clients across industries like FMCG, Education, Corporate, Food and Beverages, Health, Hospitality and Real Estate, owing to their timely delivery and best products.

They are an expert online digital marketing agency and offer highly professional, and cost-effective digital marketing services and creative content to clients, with tailor-made solutions are for each client. They serve in the domain of website hosting, website creation, and domain name integration and also provide a holistic approach to Digital Marketing Strategy that integrates technology, content, creatives, SEO, analytics and organic ranking on search engines and paid marketing. With affordable services and an exquisite understanding of the market, they have undoubtedly become a top choice of consumers.

• Location: Hyderabad
• Founded In: 2007
• Top Clients: Lakhotia, Varshi, Grahasti, Phoenix, Select Cafe, Not Made in China,Cascade, Mode, Dadus, Jharokha, Karvy, and others.

6. WebEnrich

WebErich provides its clients with Internet Marketing, Web Design & Development services and has a team of highly professional and creative technical and marketing experts. Their USP is the way they modify the digital marketing campaigns as per the client’s needs, to maximize the ROI.

Over the last eight years of its existence, WebEnrich has successfully established a vast list of clientele to which it has been providing increased traffic and top search engine rankings. Their comprehensive collection of tools and professional services propel the client’s website to greater heights of success in areas of digital marketing. WebEnrich takes pride in delivering Innovative designs, customer-centric services and a talented and experienced team that continually strives to provide practical solutions to the customers.

• Location: Hyderabad and Melbourne
• Founded In: 2009
• Top Clients: ICFAI, CalendarLabs.com, PROP Tiger, Aayushiddhi, AbodesIndia, Air Ticket Saver, Aviation Longbook, Fundly, Globus and others
• Awards: Google Partner, Bing ads

7. Yyttrium

YIT is dedicated to helping its clients in website design, website usability and digital marketing including e-commerce solutions, web application development & integration, landing pages design, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), SEM (Search Engine Marketing), social media marketing, social media marketing analytics, digital media strategy and digital marketing campaigns.

With a team that always works its best to provide cutting-edge solutions, they have surely set a benchmark by themselves. Their high quality work and the ability to understand the client’s expectations has always given them remarkable success as an agency.

With a straightforward but effective process, they have been developing tailor-made solutions for the Indian market for B2C and B2B digital marketing company/services. Their expert team understands and analyses the client’s requirements to come up with personalized plans for expanding growth and returns of their customers. Yttrium Info Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (YIT), is a full-service web design and digital marketing agency based out of Hyderabad, India.

They were established as one of the leading providers of integrated website design, website development, website maintenance, and digital marketing solutions. Cost-effective digital marketing services support all the websites they design, hence they help in not just creating the website but effectively promote it online, which now they have done for almost over 100 clients now.

• Location: Hyderabad
• Founded In: 2012
• Top Clients: GHCS, iamhungry, RS Residency Hotel, My Bonus, ISCON, Shreyas Foundation

8. Infinity Reach

Infinity Reach has been consistently delivering outstanding results combining creative ideas with their vast experience and superior technologies. Their focus is on building sustainable, and meaningful relationships with their clients and create for them, digital media campaigns par excellence. They have been consistently working towards building brand names for organisations from various industries like Corporates, Food and Beverage, Health and Fitness, and E-commerce.

They define digital strategies focusing on achieving the critical commercial goals of clients, raising their revenue, increasing efficiency, reducing cost, and communicating better with the target audience. Their focal services are Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Advanced Web Analytics, Email Marketing, Pay Per Click, and Content Strategy.

• Location: Hyderabad
• Founded In: 2009
• Top Clients: W Design Studio, Dega New, GMR, SMR, Radha TMT, Wizcraft, Escape Hunt, Hemtor, Hyderabad Nights, Shorts, The Dollar Business

9. GeeksChip

If there has been one company that has jumped from “a digital marketing company” to “the digital marketing company”, then that has been GeeksChip. GeeksChip is a team of professional digital marketing experts who strive to transform the client’s digital marketing experience and enhance the client’s growth. They have been immensely successful with their SEO strategies to put their clients right at the top of search engine rankings.

GeeksChip is armed with skilled and experienced marketing professionals who are proficient at designing creative social media campaigns in various social forums to positively influence the rate of conversion.

They also analyze the client’s performance regularly and accordingly build the client’s marketing blueprint for an effective result. In Geekschip, they follow customer-centric work culture and offer – Facebook marketing, Twitter marketing, Instagram marketing, LinkedIn marketing, Pinterest marketing, social media audit, social media account management, and Social Media Marketing Services at a very reasonable price slab and across industries like Information Technology, Hospitality, Banking, Transport, Manufacture, Infrastructure, Education, Energy, Financial Services, Real Estate, Health Care, Automobile Industry, eCommerce, and Law Firms.

GeeksChip puts constant effort to deliver the best quality services to its clients and offers products like SEO Services, SMM Services, PPC Services, DM Services, ORM Services, and WEB Design. Geekschip – a new kid on the block with a bucketful of digi-business solutions across the world and is honed to deliver top rated, power packed and value-added ranking optimization services to help businesses peak on Search Engine Result Page.

• Location: Hyderabad
• Founded In: 2013

10. Digital Catalysts

Digital Catalysts or DigiCats has a collective domain experience of over 100 years and is a firm that provides 360 Degree Digital Marketing solutions. They leverage businesses by making brands more findable and accessible online and take pride in having businesses of varied sizes and across various industries making them a leader in the digital marketing game.

Their Digital Marketing, Web Building, Web Marketing and Interactive Marketing services are handcrafted to meet brand requirements specifically. They also conduct detailed audits to get an intricate understanding of the clients’ problems and the challenges being faced and then formulate a business strategy.

DigiCats aims to help businesses build their brand value, increase brand visibility and generate business via their personalised strategies and services that merge into new and exciting marketing approaches with the tested ones. From understanding the client’s business model to creating appropriate online marketing strategies and generating desired results, they definitely help in making your business stand apart.

• Location: Hyderabad
• Founded In: 2009
• Top Clients: FabIndia, Bata, Garden Vareli, Neeru’s, Lu Lu webstore, Pizza Hut, Monster, Orient, Humara Shop, Sahara Force India, Air Costa, Abhi Bus, Girijan and many others.
  Awards: Finalist for Best AD Tech Tool at Cynopsis Digital Model D Awards 2016.

The speed at which the world of web design and web marketing is changing is overwhelming. There is a tremendous pressure on businesses to be competitive and innovative as every day sees the release of new google algorithms, new product launches and new competitors.

That is when it becomes all the more critical for businesses to have a reliable, efficient and cost-effective web marketing and development provider by their side.

Digital marketing is definitely reliable and can draw millions of consumers to you in a matter of milliseconds by increasing your visibility. So it makes more money for you with less expenditure and hence gives the best possible ROI. But a productive and successful social media campaign demands experience, tools, techniques and a continuous market study.

Thus, it is essential for you to hire the best suited digital marketing company. Here is the list of the best social media marketing companies that may aid your business to climb sky high. Go digital, be social, market efficiently and enhance your online visibility dragging more eyeballs to increase your sales and revenue.

If you know the power of email marketing, you are probably looking how to get started with email marketing. As discussed in the previous emails and blog posts, email marketing is one of the most important components of digital marketing.

But how exactly do you get started? What are the steps you need to take to get up and running with email and ensure your campaigns are a success?

In this blog post, I’ll walk you through the steps of getting started with email marketing and ensure your first campaign is a success.

Let’s start.

Step 1: Set Your Goals

I guess you would be a little disappointed to read the Step 1. You would have already wanted to sign up for an email marketing tool and send your first email. But, it’s not how it works, and you know that too.

Before diving in head first, you should take a moment to think about your goals and what you want to achieve with email marketing.

Because, it’s the goal that’ll dictate everything else you do – the type of campaigns you send, whom you send, what content you include, and how you measure the performance.

Most people start with signing up to an email marketing tool and then don’t do anything else. The culprit is not having goals. Without a destination to reach, you wouldn’t be able to pick a route to travel. (I’ve always wanted to write such zen-like sentence).

Email marketing, being the single most powerful channel to reach your audience, can be used to achieve a number of different goals. So, it’s worth spending your time thinking clearly about the results you want to achieve with it before jumping in.

It could be anything.

• Driving new signups for your product or service
• Generating and nurturing leads for your sales team
• Driving more attendees for your event or webinar or
• Generating more sales

To give you an example, my goals for email marketing for Digital Deepak are:

• Get 1,000 new email subscribers per day into my funnel
• Nurture these email subscribers with valuable content for at least 30 days
• Promote my digital marketing courses to my email list and make revenue to fund further lead generation.

Step 2: Build Your List

Congrats! Now you’ve decided your goals. It’s time to build your list (or grow your list if you already have one). All you need to build a list is a simple formula and a right email marketing tool.

An incentive (also known as the lead magnet) + easy signup option = big email list.

Let me explain it.

To build a list, there are only two components you need to get right.

The lead magnet and a simple signup process.

Let us talk a bit about these components.

1. The Lead Magnet

People are skeptic by nature. They don’t want to share personal details like email address and mobile number. There is an intrinsic resistance to share such details.

The lead magnet is the incentive (or an ethical bribe) you need to give to your prospects to break the resistance and share their email address with you (thus giving you permission to send them emails).

The lead magnet can be anything:

• An Ebook
• A webinar
• An email course
• A free course
• A case study
• An infographic
• Discounts (or coupons)

You need to remember one rule. The lead magnet you choose should be relevant to the goal you want to achieve.

2. A Simple Signup Process

People are lazy by nature. Unless you make the signup process as simple as possible, they won’t be signing up even if your lead magnet is worth a lot.

You can check out my sign up process at www.LearnDigitalMarketing.com. It is a simple one page website with an option to enter name and email ID. (There is a high chance that you are receiving this email from me right now because you entered your email ID on that page, right?)

3. The Tool:

After people optin to your email list, you also need a right email marketing tool to capture and build your email list.

I recommend MailChimp / MailerLite as the free options to start with. But, choosing the right email marketing tool is a big decision. You can read the article I posted on top 5 email marketing tools for startups if you need help in making a decision.

Let’s take my case. Once I wanted to build a list, I wanted to offer an incentive that is irresistible and valuable. So, I created the Free Digital Marketing Course with 25 videos.

And then I created the simple signup process. You enter your name and email address. Nothing else.

The 25 video Free Digital Marketing Course and the simple Name and email signup form have helped me to build a list of 250,000 subscribers and growing it.

Step 3: Pick A Right Campaign Type

Congrats again! You are halfway through it. You’ve completed selecting the goal and building the list. Now is the time to pick a right campaign type that’ll help you achieve your goals.

There are several types of email campaigns you can use, but we will focus on the top 2 here.

1. Newsletter: This is the most common type of email campaign used by both b2b and b2c businesses. A newsletter is a great way to keep in touch with the list of people who already know you. It’ll help to place your product or services top of mind and drive people back to your website.

2. Announcement Emails: This is something you’re really familiar with. You would’ve seen it in action on my list.

Whenever I publish a new blog post, I send an email to the entire list announcing the new content I just published. If you were part of my free digital marketing course list, you might have received the new lesson announcement emails.

This is a great way to announce your list about the new content or product or service you’ve launched. It instantly drives a massive traffic to your business (depending on the size of your list).

I get tens of thousands of visits each time I mail my list announcing my new blog post. Both these email campaigns can be used to drive visitors to the website, get signups to new products, create awareness, and nurture your leads.

4. Set Up & Measure Your Campaign

We’ve reached the final step of the email marketing setup process. Now it’s time to put email marketing in action and measure the performance.

Setting up the campaign: Login to your favorite email tool and set up your first email campaign (following their specific instructions).

Start the campaign.

Measuring Your Campaign Performance: Once your first email is out of the door, getting opened and clicked, you’ll be able to track and measure the performance.

You can track the performance in two places – your email marketing tool and your website analytics tool.

You can track a variety of metrics like open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and bounce rates, etc. from your email marketing tool.

That’s it. You are all set to start your email marketing campaigns.

Well, I know this blog post just covered the overview of starting with email marketing.

But worry not. In the next blog post, I will be sharing more email marketing tips and tricks to help you become a successful email marketer.

Have questions about email marketing? Let me know in the comments below.

– Deepak Kanakaraju

“The Money Is In The List”

First I heard this quote in 2015.

Till then I wasn’t giving much thought about emails and list building. I was just focusing on writing blog posts and sharing them on my social profiles.

When I read it “Money is in the list” it struck me hard.

Why am I not building a list?

I didn’t have an answer for that.

But, then I decided to build a list.

Now, I have 200,000+ people in my list, and it’s the channel that drives my sales and revenue. (And you are one of my subscribers).

I’m planning to grow my list to 1 million people by the end of this year.

So, what changed?

Well, I realized the power of email marketing.

If you don’t have a list or not thinking about building a list, stop everything you do and start building your list.

Because “The Money Is In The List”.

If there is one popular saying in digital marketing that’s true, it got to be this.

And, it’s not just because of money.

1. Email is the #1 preferred communication channel. At least 91% of the consumers check their email on a daily basis and 72% of the consumers prefer email as their source of business communication.

2. Email drives more conversions than any other marketing channel, including search and social combined. If you are more focused on conversions, you should focus more on email.

3. Emails also have higher click-through rates and higher ROI than any other channels. You are 6x more likely to get a click-through from an email campaign than you are from a tweet.

4. When it comes to purchases made as a result of receiving a marketing message, email has the highest conversion rate (66%), when compared to social, direct mail and more.

5. A message is 5x more likely to be seen in email than via Facebook. The organic reach days are over on Facebook. If you want to reach more of your fans, you need to pay.

6. About 53% of emails are opened on mobile devices, and 23% of readers who open an email on a mobile device open it again later. If you add the fact, 88% of the smartphone users actively check email on their phones, email becomes the best channel to reach the mobile audience.

7. You own your list. This is the most important reason to build a list. On Facebook or any social network, your account could be suspended or deleted at any time, for any reason, without notice. You could lose all your fans in an instant, and all the efforts you have put could go waste. However, when it comes email, you own your email list. No one can take those leads away from you.

It should be clear by now that email marketing is probably the most powerful channel when it comes to customer acquisition, retention, and conversions.

I can’t imagine how my business will run without email marketing. It is the prime channel of communication with my followers. Though I have a following on Facebook Groups, Facebook Pages, Twitter and LinkedIn, Email Marketing remains the foundation of my online communication.

So, are you ready to dive into email marketing and boost your conversions, sales, and revenue?

Today, marketing isn’t the same as it was a decade ago. With the internet ruling our world, businesses have undergone a massive transformation, and so has the marketing techniques. Thanks to the increasing proliferation of the internet and smartphones in every aspect of our lives, we now spend a significant amount of time ‘online’ in the digital realm. Enter, Digital Marketing.

Digital technologies have compelled businesses to shift their focus from profit-maximization to optimizing customer satisfaction. Thanks to digital technologies, customers are now more aware. They are able to connect and engage with brands like never before. In such a scenario, if you are not marketing your products/services online, you are missing out on a world of opportunities. This is where Digital Marketing comes in. A well-planned and crafted Digital Marketing strategy will not only help you identify your target audience but also help you connect with them.

If you are looking for the perfect Digital Marketing agency in Delhi, we have, not one, but ten excellent Digital Marketing agencies listed for you!

1. Webchutney

Webchutney was launched way back in 1999 with a precise aim – to “get businesses to advertise online.” It is a marketing agency under the DAN group (Dentsu Aegis Network). The creators of Dentsu Webchutney, Sidharth and Sudesh, focus on catering to the digital and online marketing needs of businesses through a combination of technology and creativity.

Webchutney offers a host of useful services like Web development, website design, viral marketing, mobile marketing, social media marketing, and online advertising, to name a few. While the journey of Webchutney started from a single room in Moti Bagh in New Delhi, today, it has offices located in Mumbai and Bangalore.

• Founded In: 1999
• Top Clients: Microsoft, Unilever, Marico, MasterCard, Barclays, Proctor & Gamble, Budweiser, Wipro,
• HDFC, Airtel, Titan
• Awards: DMAI awards for its projects for Standard Chartered, Remit2India, and Cleartrip.

2. iProspect India

Another gem under the DAN group (Dentsu Aegis Network) group is iProspect India. Keeping the needs of the customer at the highest level, iProspect India assures to deliver best-in-class services. To enhance the performance, this marketing agency adopts the agile approach to build real-time reports, predicting new and upcoming trends to analyze the market situation and discover opportunities that guarantee maximum ROI for businesses.

It offers valuable digital marketing services and tools such as Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Management, Data and Analytics, Lead Generation and Affiliates, Conversion Optimization, and much more.

• Founded In:  1997
• Top Clients: Cleartrip, HDFC, CRY, Citibank, Club Mahindra, Koovs, Kotak Mahindra, Pepperfry, Shop Clue
• Awards: DMAi 2013 Synergy Award, Bronze – At the Aegis Media Global Awards 2013, DMAi Silver Award 2012 Business Category

3. Mirum India

Mirum India – formerly known Social Wavelength – is a part of the WPP network. With a presence in 25 countries and more than 46 offices, Mirum India offers comprehensive and actionable digital solutions for over 50 brands, both Indian and International.

Mirum India specializes in Digital Communication, Digital Media Planning and Buying, Website, App Development, Social Media Listening, Marketing Automation, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Digital Marketing, Creative Studio, Market Research, among other things.

• Founded In: 2009
• Top Clients: Airtel, Microsoft, Unilever, Marico, Titan, MasterCard, Barclays, Proctor & Gamble, Budweiser, Wipro, HDFC
• Awards: Most innovative use of social media 2013, Social media campaign of the year 2012, Social Media Agency of the year 2011 and 2012, Entrepreneur of the year 2011, Red herring Asia award 2011

4. WATConsult

WATConsult holds the reputation of being the only Indian Digital Marketing agency to be ranked among the Top 10 Globally (MMA Global Smarties Business Impact Index 2018). With innovative and cutting-edge digital business solutions like SocialCRM, RECOGN, audientise, ecommencify, and INNOWAT, you can never go wrong with WATConsult.

It is dedicated to helping brands build better marketing strategies and roadmaps that will further enable them to connect with their target audience. Not just that, WATConsult also equips businesses to explore new horizons in the digital landscape with its expert services in domains like Digital Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Search Marketing, Digital Analytics, and Digital Video Production, to name a few.

• Founded In: 2007
• Top Clients: Jockey, Peter England, Only, Jack & Jones, Body Shop, Vero Moda, Kotak Life Insurance, Mother Dairy, Vivanta
• Awards: IAMAI Indian Digital Awards 2017 for Himalaya, Digixx 2017 for Digibank by DBS Bank

5. FoxyMoron

FoxyMoron was started by a group of four aspiring youngsters – Pratik Gupta, Paritosh Ajmera, Suveer Bajaj and Harshil Karia way back in 2008.

From having a single room headquarter in Mumbai, FoxyMoron has come a long way to become an Rs. 15 crore company that specializes in Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Digital Media Planning & Buying, Mobile Applications, Online Reputation Management, Web Design & Development, and Digital Insights and Analytics.

FoxyMoron got its big break with PVR and ever since there has been no looking back – it has to its credit some of the most innovative and award-winning campaigns.

• Founded In: 2008
• Top Clients: Dell, Asian Paints, Taj Hotels, Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians, Star Bharat, Pizza Express, Club Mahindra, Viacom18, Mad Over Donuts, ITC
• Awards: Two Gold and Two Silver Medals at the Second Edition of Best Social Media Brand Awards 2018, Campaign India Digital Crest Awards 2018, First Indian Digital Agency To Bag The International Annual Shorty Industry Award, Facebook Studio Awards 2014.

6. Blogworks

Blogworks is a Digital Marketing agency based out of Delhi. It aims to help brands build a compelling online presence and connect with their target audience with innovative Digital Marketing strategies and campaigns. So, if you are looking for a one-stop-shop for all your Digital Marketing needs, Blogworks is an excellent choice.

Blogworks specializes in Content Syndication, Brand Storytelling, Social Content, Creative Ideation, Motion Graphics, Web and Mobile Development, and Media Planning & Buying. With its team of expert Digital Marketers and advanced digital solutions, Blogworks helps businesses boost their marketing ROI by accurately analysing data and social conversations and draw insights in real-time.

• Founded In: 2006
• Top Clients: Harley Davidson, Marks and Spencer, Mahindra, Allen Solly, Fastrack, Sennheiser, Jack Daniel’s India, s.Oliver, Essar, Ford India, Samsung.

7. Resultrix

Headquartered in USA (Seattle), Resultrix has offices in New Delhi and Mumbai. This Digital Marketing agency boasts of a pay-for-performance search model and is supported by an award-winning creative team of Digital Marketing experts.

Resultrix helps its clients in both creating and enhancing brand awareness, customer engagement, and lead conversions. With an array of interactive services like Affiliate & Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Resultrix assures that your customers always have a memorable experience while interacting and engaging with your brand. It holds the reputation of being a Google AdWords Certified Partner, Google Analytics Certified Partner, and a Microsoft adExcellence Company.

• Founded In: 2008
• Top Clients: Corbis, Yahoo, DBS Bank, Master Card, Bing, Disney, Virgin Mobile, ICICI Bank, Intel, Zune, Max Bupa, Frasers.
• Awards: Media360 India Awards for The Memory Project for HDFC Life

8. Adsyndicate

Adsyndicate is India’s largest independent advertising agency that contributed to building many renowned and memorable brands. It is also one of the best independent 360-degree communication agency specialising in Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, Marketing Automation, Web Design and Development, Search Engine Marketing, Media Planning & Buying, Brand Management, Video Production and Promotion, Online Reputation Management, and more.

With over 25 years of industry experience, Adsyndicate is the perfect choice for Digital Marketing and Advertising – you will get consultancy solutions to everything, be it BTL advertising or digital advertising, and everything else in between!

• Founded In: 1997
• Top Clients: Tata Motors, ISUZU, Union Bank of India, State Bank of India, Reserve Bank of India. Mahindra, Nissan, Manipal University, Western Digital, ABB, Damac, Sandisk.
• Awards: The Most Innovative Technology Initiative of the Year award by Loyalty Summit 2019

9. SapientRazorfish

SapientRazorfish was formed in 2016 when Publicis. Sapient (part of the Publicis Groupe) announced the merger of Razorfish and SapientNitro.

SapientRazorfish has over 30 years of experience in the field of Digital Marketing and Digital Business Transformation. It combines the agile approach with the startup mindset to help businesses realize the full potential of their venture while simultaneously improving customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. It offers unique services like Strategy and Consulting, Customer Experience & Design, Technology & Engineering, Data & AI, and Innovation & Digital Product Management.

• Founded In: 1990
• Top Clients: McDonald’s, Bridgestone, Mercedes, Audi.
• Awards: SAP Hybris 2017 Partner of the Year Award for Global Services, Named leader in IDC MarketScape Reports

10. To The New

TO THE NEW is a digital technology company that offers end-to-end product development services to businesses. It seeks to transform businesses through a combination of pioneering Digital Technologies, Experience Design, Development & Engineering, and Analytics-led Marketing.

It has a host of innovative solutions like OTT Platform Development (for Media & Entertainment companies), MF Ready (for Mutual Fund companies), Online Product Chassis (for Insurance companies), MyCloud (AWS Cloud usage and cost optimization platform), and HAWK (an application infrastructure monitoring platform).

The services offered by TO THE NEW include Digital Marketing, Web Content Management, Web and Mobile Application Development, Video Managed Services, Cloud Managed Services, and Blockchain Development Services.

• Founded In: 1990
• Top Clients: Air Asia, Maruti Suzuki, P&G, Castrol, ZeeTv, LG
• Awards: Excellence in Digital Transformation Award, Most Promising Digital Marketing Partner by Adobe, Best Digital Integrated Campaign Award -CMO Asia Awards, Great Place to work, Bronze at Campaign India Digital Crest Awards 2015, Red Herring Top 100 Asia 2015 Winner, Bronze Effie Award for the best Digital Campaigns for Castrol India

Final Words

Digital Marketing helps you to reimagine your business altogether. By crafting a concrete and effective Digital Marketing plan/campaign, you will not only witness a significant increase in your ROI and sales volumes but by connecting with your target audience, you will also add credibility to your brand name.

Needless to say, Digital Marketing efforts are much more cost-effective than conventional marketing methods; they result in improved conversion rates; allow you to identify your competitors; expand your outreach, and the list could go on and on.

To sum up, we would only like to remind you that this nifty tool has tremendous potential. Hence, you should make the most of it by collaborating with able and established Digital Marketing partners.

When human beings first invented language, it was limited to spoken language. People communicated about food, hunting, and expanding into new territories. It was an upgrade from sign language, but it still wasn’t revolutionary. We are not too better off from our relatives – the chimpanzees.

People realized that written language was important to communicate across time and space with other human begins. When written language was invented, people wrote on stone tablets and tree barks. We didn’t have WordPress, or even the type writer, or even ink and paper. There was no technology for replication of what you wrote either.

There was only one copy of anything that was ever written, and accessing that information was not easy. There was no index, no library, no sorting. It was just all over the place, and storage of this data was not easy either. Written texts would get lost, stolen, misplaced, and it was difficult to carry it around. Humans were hunter gatherers for nearly 50,000 years before the start of the agricultural revolution.

In our existence as Homo Sapiens for the last 70,000 years, we have invented the printing press only in the 17th century. That’s in the last 0.004% of our time on earth. Before Gutenberg invented the printing press there was only one copy of every book ever written, unless someone manually wrote a book copying another book. The spread of knowledge and information was controlled and limited.

The invention of the printing press gave rise to journals, newspapers and magazines apart from standard books. For the first time, content could be created once, and then consumed by a multiple audiences at different places and times. This was truly a huge step for mankind.

We were not satisfied with the limitations in printed content. We wanted more. We invented radio and for the first time ever we could send audio over over the air as frequency modulated radio waves. Audio was not enough, we wanted video too. The television was invented and for the first time ever, people could experience audio visual content.

The television started with monochrome, then we had colour TVs. TV was a great upgrade from the radio, but it was still a one way communication channel. Though the display technology improved over the decades tremendously to give us flatscreen 55″ OLED TVs, it was still a one way communication. Users could not send data back to the TV and there did not interact with the TV.

The internet and computer revolution changed everything. Today we have a multitude of high bandwidth two-way communication channels, thanks to the internet.

We can write and publish articles instantly on blogs, publish ebooks over the digital medium, publish 4k YouTube videos and distribute it to the whole world, have online discussion groups, send out electronic emails and more. Now the next challenge, how do we use these channels for our advantage in the best way possible? That’s what this chapter is about.

In this chapter, let’s have a look at the top 9 digital distribution channels for content over the internet.

1. Blogs

Blogging is one of the quickest and easiest ways to publish content online. My blog DigitalDeepak.com gets more than 3,000 new users per day from various traffic sources. It did not cost me anything to start my blog apart from domain registration and web-hosting costs (which is negligible compared to the revenue I can make from my blog).

Blogging is one of the best ways to publish content online in a chronological order. With the latest content management systems, it is easier than ever to add images, organize and interlink blog posts. Blogging is also the best way to get free traffic from the search engines. Google has done a great job in organizing the world’s information but without content on the web, people will not use Google in the first place.

Who creates the content? Bloggers and digital marketers. Google cannot exist without websites and content, and if you create great content, and do proper SEO, you will be able to attract highly targeted traffic from the search engines. Search engines like Google depend on webmasters to make the search engine work and make it useful to the people who use the search engines.

When I got started with blogging in 2008, there were many content management systems. Over time, one system has taken the leap in becoming the best content management system, and the best part is that is free and open source. It’s called WordPress.

WordPress content management system powers more than 25% of the web. The WordPress library also has plenty of plugins and themes to enhance the function and aesthetics of your website.

My blog DigitalDeepak.com has been built on the WordPress platform, and WordPress by default is optimized for the search engines. It is easy to take backups and update the theme of your website. The WordPress team also comes up with regular updates, and over a period of time, it has become the fastest, easiest and most secure way to publish content on the web.

There are two version of WordPress. One is WordPress.com where you can host your blog for free, and the other one is WordPress.org where you can download and install a content management system on your domain. I recommend that you create your own self-hosted WordPress blog on your own domain name.

The best time to start a blog was 10 years back. The second best time is today. It takes time to grow an online blog and it happens with good quality content published over a period of time. As a digital marketer, you should never ignore blogging as a communication channel.

I have been blogging since 2013, and for nearly 4 years, I did not publish more than a few articles on my blog per month, but I was consistent. That consistency has given me 1000s of backlinks over the years, and it has helped me a lot in attracting traffic from the search engines. (More about SEO will be discussed in the future chapters).

2. eBooks

An eBook are a great format for distributing content on the web. Reports, whitepapers, online journals, 20-50 page documents etc. are published in the form of an eBook. Usually, ebooks are published as a PDF file and hosted online.

There are many other platforms that can host ebooks as well such as Kindle, Apple iBooks and more. If you want the best possible content footprint, it is recommended to publish your ebooks on as many ebook distribution channels as possible.

PDF ebooks are light weight (small size on memory), and most of the operating systems today can open PDF files even without requiring an Adobe Reader. People prefer ebooks that can deliver short and precise information on the topic of their curiosity.

eBooks are better than blog posts in the volume of content that can be published under one topic, and they are better than books because they can be transmitted on the web instantly, stored easily and doesn’t cost anything for printing and packaging.

Bloggers give away ebooks for free on their blogs to attract their visitors to trade their contact information (called Lead Magnets). I’ve published my own ebook on Amazon called: How to Get Your Dream Digital Marketing Job. It has been downloaded more than 100,000 times and it has 100s of five star reviews on Amazon. This ebook has been published on the Kindle platform and also a PDF on my own blog.

New people discover my ebook on Amazon directly, and then they become a reader of my blog. If you are not publishing ebooks, you will miss out on high quality audience who could become regular readers of your content channel.

You can also publish a collection of blog posts into an ebook. You are still creating value because you are putting content into context that is useful for people who are looking for specific information.

Since ebooks are easy to create, the supply of ebooks has also gone up a lot. Identifying valuable ebooks from the bad ones has become difficult for internet users. To make sure that you ebooks have high perceived value, focus on the design and the content. The personal brand of the author writing the ebook also influences the perceived value of the ebooks that you publish and release.

3. Books

Book are the oldest form of content distribution channel and it has not lost its shine yet. People still love books and there is nothing like a weekend spent reading a good book. eBooks may be better than books for 20-50 pages of information, but for anything that is 150+ pages long, printed books are the best.

Books are non-distracting unlike our electronic devices and sometimes too much technology is also a distraction in our lives than being a blessing.

Print books have a great feel to it and people still prefer reading from printed books over reading the same on mobile or laptop. Books have high perceived value, and as a personal brand, publishing a print book helps you improve your authority in the market.

Blog posts are very easy to publish. eBooks are hard to publish than blog posts, but its still not THAT hard. Books are very hard to publish. A full book contains at least 30,000 words, and writing so many thousands of words and putting them into context is easier said than done. It requires discipline, commitment and consistency to get a book published.

Not everyone might read books, but still a lot of people buy books and the fact that you are a book author helps you get better traction for your blog, ebooks and other formats of content like video and podcasts. We naturally perceive book authors as experts, even if we haven’t read their books.

I have published a guide to self-publishing a book on my blog and you can follow those steps to become a self-published author. You no longer need to wait for a book publisher to choose you as an author. There are plenty of self-publishing book companies that can help you release a book into the market with all the bells and whistles. You will be able to get ISBN codes issued for your book as well as get placements for your books inside book stores.

4. Videos

Online videos were not popular for a long time even after the widespread usage of the internet. The concept of streaming videos did not exist. People used to wait a long time for videos to get downloaded and handling large files on the computer was difficult. I started using the internet in 2007 when I had a 56.6 kbps dial-up modem and it used to take as long as an hour to download a 10mb file.

In the past decade, countries all over the world have started having better internet connectivity. Brands like Jio in India have redefined mobile connectivity speeds over the 4G network. The internet penetration is even happening in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and online video platforms like YouTube have started competing with television. As of 2017, India already had 34.4% of the population use the internet.

As of now, YouTube us the No.1 video platform in the world, and if you are not using YouTube, you are probably missing out on a huge chunk of the audience who are comfortable consuming content over video. Today, online video has started giving a tough competition to TV.

Video marketing also helps you to engage your existing audience with audio visual content. My YouTube channel has 35,000+ subscribers, and each new video gets more than one thousand views organically without any paid promotion.

If you do not want to host your video on YouTube, you can host your own online videos. Platforms like Vimeo help you host online videos at a small cost. You will be able to host your own online videos without YouTUbe’ branding.

5. Social Media

Social media is one of internet’s best features. In fact, in many countries, social media sites are the internet itself. There have been many successful social websites before Facebook that are no longer there. Tomorrow, we might get different social networks focused on different niches. Social media channels will come and go, but social media will not go away.

Today we have Facebook, which is based on personal relationships, LinkedIn, based on professional relationships, Tinder, based on romantic relationships, Twitter, based on micro-blogging and so on. Each social media network has different features because they are meant for different purposes.

Sharing content on social media is one of the best ways to reach your target audience. Most of your target audience is hanging out on social media.

The organic reach of posts on social media has gone down in the recent years because more brands are competing for the attention of the same audience, but still, social media cannot be ignored. When you engage your audience with the right content at the right time, you might be able to reach a good percentage of people who have opted-in to receive communication from you, and it’s free.

I constantly share micro-posts on my social media channels. I tweet, I post on Facebook and I post on LinkedIn. Many times, these are ideas that I get during blog post writing. Apart from posting fresh content on these channels, I also share links to my blog posts. The comments that I get for these posts also helps me in market research and understanding my audience better.

Having a constant feedback from my audience about the performance of my posts also helps me fine tune my content strategy. When some posts perform better than expected, I post more content related to the high performing posts.

6. Podcasts

Most of us have become knowledge workers today. We work on computers and do not physical labour anymore. It can be quite challenging to engage ourselves with written text after spending most of our time looking at screens. That’s where podcasts come into play.

Podcasts are audio files with content. Sometimes it’s the same content available in text and video. I learn a lot through audio. Sometimes, audio is an extremely efficient form of communication. When we are driving, or doing household chores that doesn’t require all our mental energy, we can learn new things from listening to audio.

When I drive to my hometown, I usually listen to books on Audible and listen to podcasts on Spotify. Boring tasks like driving can become more manageable if we engage ourselves in listening to something. It’s the best use of our time while we are engaged in mundane tasks.

There are many channels for podcasts like SoundCloud, iTunes, Spotify and so on. Podcasts can also be hosted directly on the websites of your brand. You can upload the audio files to Dropbox or Amazon Drive and share the links via email. You can also upload the podcasts on YouTube with a static image on the video.

You can repurpose the existing content that you have into audio files to reach the audience who likes to consume content via audio. You will be able to hire voice over artists at places like voices.com and fiverr.com. You can ask them to narrate the blog posts you have written and save them as audio files. This can become your podcast series. You will have a unique set of highly engaged, high quality audience following you on audio.

Podcasts work wonders when you supplement it with other forms of content such as blog posts, ebooks and videos. It helps with personal branding and brand recall. Podcasts also help us communicate better than text because we can add our voice tone and style to what we say. It also helps form a better connect with our audience.

7. Forums and Groups

Online forums (usually called as Bulletin Boards) are websites where there is a community of people interested in a specific subject. Just like creating a blog with a content management system like WordPress, you can create an online bulletin board with tools like vBulletin and phpBB.

There are also online social networks built around bulletin boards. Reddit is an online platform with a large number of “sub-reddits” each focusing on a specific topic. If you are not yet a member of Reddit, you should definitely give it a try.

There are many groups inside Facebook as well. I have created a Facebook Group called “Learn Digital Marketing”, and as of now the group has more than 130,000 members. Groups not only help you publish content and share content from other channels, it also helps you do market research.

I post a lot of polls, videos, blog post links, podcast links etc. on my Facebook group and I have a highly engaged audience tuning into my communication on Facebook groups. Groups and forums can be a source of high quality traffic to your blog, and a great source of revenue for your products and services.

The best part about online groups is that the interaction is real time and public. Sometimes, online groups can be addictive, but also profitable. I spend more than 30 minutes a day interacting with my audience and followers on my Facebook Group.

It takes time to grow an online group. People will join a group only if there are good conversations happening. But you will have good conversations happening only if people join a group. It is a catch-22 situation. The only way to grow an online group is to start early, and post content on the group yourself during the initial take-off period.

8. Email

For most of the internet users, the first thing they do once they go online is check email. For the people who check social media updates first, the second thing they do is check email.

Email is a very personal space and the communication is very specific. The content that we publish on blog cannot be customized based on who is viewing the content. However, with the latest email marketing platforms, you can send a different message for each and every subscribed based on time, their behaviour and their information.

Email marketing is also the channel that contributes to the highest revenue percentage in my business. People are more likely to take an action on email than communication on any other digital medium. Your brand recall can be driven on other channels, but email is the best medium for call to action.

Another good part about email is that you can automate the messages and setup a sequence. Once the sequence is setup, you will be able to automate it for new people who join your newsletter. Email marketing helps a lot with marketing automation and designing marketing funnels. We will discuss more on marketing automation in the future chapters.

9. Offline Meetups

Offline meet-ups are not a part of digital marketing medium, but offline meet-ups strengthen online communication. The internet works because people use it from the other side of the screen and people want to connect with other people. Offline interactions strengthen interpersonal bonds and that reflects in online communication.

The best way to increase the open rate of your email list is to meet your subscribers in person. I have an email list of people who have attended my offline events, and the open rate on the email campaigns to this cohort of my subscribers has very high open rate.

If we have met in person, and if you get an email from me, you are far more likely to open the mail. You remember me better, not just as an online profile picture, but a real human being. Think about how you react to incoming emails from an unknown entity, and a person who you have met in person before.

We conduct digital marketing events called HighTraffic Summit where we address an audience of 100-150 people. The more of my audience I meet in person, the better I learn about their needs, and the better I get them to pay attention to me. Events not just help me in building my brand, but also helps me in marketing research. The best of my audience, who are my true fans, usually find a way to come to the event and meet me in person. Some people even travel from other cities to visit me and other trainers at my events.

We have a social club called Digital Marketing Club where like minded people come together to network and learn from each other. We have specific online groups for the people who are members of the club, and the activity and engagement in such micro-groups is far higher than other groups. That’s because people know each other, and remember each other better. We digital marketers need to put the social back in social media.

Apart from offline meet-ups helping us strengthen online communication, it can also be a great way to create highly valuable content. For example, a talk by an expert in an event can be video graphed and posted on YouTube. The same talk can be converted into an article by a content writer. The same talk can be converted into a podcast through a narrator. Offline meet-ups helps you amplify online content.

Final Words

There are more content formats like print magazines, journals and mobile apps which I have not included in the above list because such channels are not within the reach of everyone. We are planning to launch our own performance marketing magazine sometime in the near future which will supplement our branding efforts.

So far, we have discussed about the power of content, how to create content for the user, how to research user’s needs and how to distribute content. It is important to use all the possible channels in the digital medium to distribute content.

In the next article, we will discuss about how we can take the attention that content generates, and convert it into a transaction, through the power of the marketing funnel.

Which is the one place where you will see words like these being thrown around?

• 492% increase in downloads with a 51% reduction in cost?
• Double the revenue!
• 69% decrease in cost per install.

In the Galleria of Digital marketing hallways, slogans like these are common. In times when traditional marketing strategies have taken a back seat, digital marketing is luring companies, firms, and even medicine practitioners to adopt this into their marketing strategies and enhance their revenue. Digitalisation has taken over our lives and it is here to stay.

Most companies will promise to provide you with end-to-end services like website design and development, Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing. So, it is imperative to understand what your requirements are and whether the digital marketing firm will be able to meet them in the designated budget.

So what is it that leading companies promise to offer? How should one decide what is best for them and their firm? Cost-cutting? Increased exposure? Greater hits? Reliability? Conversion rates? That’s a lot to process, right there!

Fret not. If you are in the home of Bajirao Peshwa’s Shanivar Vada, the city of Pune, and are looking to collaborate with the top-notch digital media marketing companies, here’s a list that can guide you better in terms of the principal factors you must consider before choosing one. The ten best digital marketing agencies in Pune are:

1. SocialChamps

“Driven by Data, Inspired by Creativity” is the motto that drives SocialChamps. With a cumulative experience of over 80 years, and having created more than 100 viral marketing campaigns with 400+ brands, this company has marked its presence in over 20 countries.

SocialChamps conducts in-depth research, customer feedback, and robust analytics to make decisions and strategies for the campaigns. They provide services like SMM, SEO, SEM, Digital Consultation, Email Campaigns, Analytics, Design and Branding, Web Development, and Automation. They also are leading by example in bringing up new ideas and adding value to their marketing campaigns in the domain of real estate, entertainment, e-commerce, hospitality, B2B Marketing, Health & Fitness, Education, and many others.

Commencing their business from 2011, they have had firms like Sandvik, Le Meridian, ABP, Bajaj Finance, and Saarthi among its clients. Their services like Social Media Management, Search Engine Marketing, Digital Consultation, Email Campaigns and Web Development have enabled their clients to acquire, engage, and retain their customers over the years – and reliably at that.

• Location: Pune
• Founded In: 2011
• Top Clients:  ABPMajha.in, Le Meridien, Sandvik Coromant, CP Plus, Esri India, Bajaj Finance, and over 400+ brands
• Awards: Great User Experience 2018 Award by Finances Online, Rising Star 2018 Award by Finances Online

2. Merkle Sokrati

Sokrati is a company that believes that one solution does not fit all. A company whose foundation was laid by ex-Amazonians in 2009 has come a long way via integrating Facebook, marking its presence in the US and UK, extending services to mobile, and finally launching the OnlineSales.ai service in 2016.

The Sokrati business is very top-heavy – like consulting and auditing – and has the big-4 in its kitty. It has been providing solutions in the industry of E-commerce, Telecom, Entertainment, BSFI, Travel, and B2B Marketing with companies like SnapDeal, Ola, Carat Lane and eBay as its clients.

Sokrati has been handholding its clients and providing data-driven marketing solutions in the areas of acquisition, SEO and content, retention, lead nurturing, and inventory based marketing.

They have bagged the Best Quality Accounts award at Google India PSP Awards in 2014 and 2015, and the award for Largest Increase in Overall Revenue at Google India PSP Awards in 2014.

These, along with the laurel of TiE Billion $ Baby and Delloite’s technology fast 50, stands as a testimonial to the various success stories of Sokrati. Among their many successes includes the following: 5X improvement in iOS installs for Shoppers Stop’s app, 55% reduction in CPA for Fastrack Sunglasses, 50% greater conversions in 2 months for CoverFox, and 6X increase in Product Coverage for eBay.

• Location: Pune
• Founded In: 2009
• Top Clients:  eBay, Kotak Life Insurance, Tolexo, Coverfox, Ola, Snapdeal, Swiggy, Faasos, and others
• Awards: Search Agency of the Year 2018 by Media Post

3. SRV Media

SRV believes in its core strength of innovation and performance. Their experts help clients to understand how to increase their performance in businesses and in identifying appropriate digital marketing methods that can help them reach the right audience. Launched in 2011 by alumni of Symbiosis Centre for Information Technology, it has now grown to an INR 150 million digital marketing company.

SRV has services like Social media marketing & Media Buying, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Video Making, Designing, Search Engine Marketing, Website Development, Mobile App development, and Public Relations. Over the years, it has served clients across various domains, and its client list includes L&T, Joy, and many more. It has handled more than 540 projects and has a 99% client retention, making it bag various awards & accreditation like Nasscom Member, Google Premier Partner, and Bing Certified.

Having worked in the industry of Healthcare, Real Estate, Consulting, Information Technology, Non-Profit, Food and Restaurants, E-Commerce, Education and Manufacturing, it has handled budgets of more than INR 100 crores. With its tools like Sentiment Analysis, Traffic Analysis, and Optimisation and Data Analysis, it is definitely among the client’s top lists.

• Location: Pune
• Founded In: 2011
• Client Industries: Healthcare, Real Estate, Consulting, Information Technology, Non-Profit, Food and Restaurants, E-Commerce, Education and Manufacturing
• Awards: Nasscom Member, Google Premier Partner, Bing Certified

4. iKnowledgeFactory

IKF’s experts aim to help organisations unleash the true potential of Digital Branding and Marketing by assisting them to create a sustainable digital footprint. They believe in being transparent in their policies; ensure being respectable in their work and conduct; challenge the old and execute the new with an innovative approach; being inspired and inspiring while doing every task like a real professional. Thus, they form their core brand value of T.R.I.I.P.

They have clients like Bharat Electronics, Goa Shipment Yard, ARAI, Mahindra System, Fleet Guard, The Art of Living, Peppermint, Mother’s Recipe, Pratham, Eco Pro, Kaivyan, Lupin, Linde Material Handling, TATA Autocomp Systems, and Saibalaji Education Society.

Delivering high-performance digital marketing, web designing, application development, content marketing, and video production solutions to their employees, IKF ensures incorporation of both innovation and knowledge in its campaign. With over 18 years of experience, they have become pioneers in crafting a platform for robust online presence, caring for their clients’ digital brand and identity and amplifying experiences through ingenious and creative solutions.

• Location: Pune
• Founded In: 2000
• Top Clients: Bharat Electronics, Goa Shipyard Limited, Mazagaon Dockyard, Varroc, Mahindra Systech, Peppermint and many more.

5. Talkd

Talkd is a one-of-a-kind creative agency which exclusively caters to technology companies around the globe. Very well known among its clients as the one-stop shop for the entire product, sales, and marketing function. Through their unique approach of storytelling, lead farming and design thinking, they serve new-age tech companies to excel their brand and business. Talkd has three exclusive and interconnected branches – TalkdAgency, TalkdLead, and TalkdUX. Each department offers a set of services specifically suited for technology companies.

TalkdAgency handles the development of marketing strategies for brands through content, campaigns, and design. TalkdLead incorporates Lead Farming approach, coupled with the Science of Sales Enablement. TalkdUX is responsible for creating dynamic user experiences by adopting a human-centric approach. A very robust mechanism of operation of these three branches has earned them clients like Google, SAP, Godrej, Amdocs, Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, KPIT, Nitor, and Mastek.

Among many other accolades, Talkd has also received ‘The Pride of Maharashtra’ award in 2017. Its three business units control the client’s product function, sales function, and CMO function, as well as amplify their brand and identity through creativity, design thinking, and market expertise. This makes it among the best for designing a digital marketing campaign.

• Location: Pune
• Founded In: 2009
• Top Clients: Google, SAP, Godrej, Amdocs, Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, KPIT, Nitor, Masek and others
• Awards: The Pride of Maharashtra Award 2017, Red Herring 100 Winner Asia, Recognized by Silicon India Magazine in Digital Marketing 2016

6. Orangus

Orangus is an award-winning Global Digital Marketing agency, started in the year 2018, intending to give the best quality results. In a brief period, Orangus has proven their worth and handled over 5000 projects, providing its clients 360 Degree Solutions and helping them with Custom Logos, Brand Identity, Designing, Development, Graphic Designing, Web Designing, Web Development, App Development, SEO, Social Media, Video Marketing, Strategy & Marketing.

Orangus’s clients include HorTech, Misto, Hectolab and OvelTYShop. It is a leading performance marketing agency which is driving measurable growth for its clients. They also offer paid Search service and operate to maximise the ROI of clients.

• Location: Pune
• Founded In: 2018
• Top Clients: HorTech, Misto, Hectolab, OvelTYShop, and others.
• Awards: Google Global Award Winner Growing Business Online

7. The Circus Works

The Circus Works partners with its clients to connect brands to customers through strategies and creative design. Their services include print advertising, public relations, event management, exhibition management, corporate films, TVCs, online advertising, web designing, and web development. With a team of passionate individuals, they are a think tank of ideas from people who have tremendous experience in the field of advertising.

What stands out is that they consider their projects as a ceremonious process, celebrating their concepts with perceptive visualisation. They look into all matters that have anything and everything to do with the client’s brand and give it that boost it requires, through unparalleled communication. The Circus Works is a holistic advertising stronghold that runs on business development and sales, creative, social media marketing, SEO and client management teams that work in cohesion and deliver its customers the best possible products.

They are Pune’s leading agency for digital marketing campaigns and has delivered excellent results with clients like Oakwood Premier, Della Resorts and Villas, fbb, Femina Miss India, the Courtyard Mariott, Symbiosis International University, Urban Homes, Happy Feet, and Radisson Blu.

• Location: Pune
• Founded In: 2008
• Top Clients:  Oakwood Premier, Della Resorts and Villas, fbb, Femina Miss India, the Courtyard Mariott, Symbiosis International University, Urban Homes, Happy Feet, Radisson Blu, and others

8. Skovian

Established in 2011, Skovian Ventures is a company partnering with firms of various sizes all around the globe. They offer services ranging from Websites and Web Portals development, Search Engine Optimization, Online Advertising, Social Media Marketing, Online Reputation Management, UI / UX Design, Domain Names, and Web Hosting, and Custom Integrations.

Their commitment to excellence, the speciality of bringing refreshing ideas with devoted customer service, and fast turnaround times have been instrumental in their rapid growth. They have worked with the likes of TATA Motors, Trinity Motors, MAI Hyundai, MAI TVS, Mahindra Rise, Yash Honda, Bonai Namaste, Royal China, Six Pack Nutrition, Castrol, Orient Health Services, and Amar Builders.

• Location: Pune
• Founded In: 2011
• Top Clients: TATA Motors, Trinity Motors, MAI Hyundai, MAI TVS, Mahindra Rise, Yash Honda, Bonai Namaste, Royal China, Six Pack Nutrition, Castrol, Orient Health Services, Amar Builders and others.

9. Ethinos

Ethinos follows a five-step process for catering to all the problems of its clients. They strategise, frame the Big-Idea, form the Concept Platform, then Design and Develop and Analyse and Grow. With a team of dedicated experts and professionals, they create a clear, compelling, and memorable message for their clients. At 200%, they are Google’s fastest growing partners, with over 100 employees that have a collective experience of more than 450 years.

Owing to its extraordinary work with clients like Times of India, Capgemini, FC Goa, Wipro, Ambuja Cement, Nascom, KPMG OLYMPUS, NIIT, ICICI Bank, Idea, NDTV, HDFC Bank and Go Daddy, it has won awards like Best Digital Campaign for a Cause and has been featured in many news articles.

• Location: Pune and other major Indian cities
• Founded In: 2010
• Top Clients: Times of India, Capgemini, FC Goa, Wipro, Ambuja Cement, Nascom, KPMG OLYMPUS, NIIT, ICICI Bank, Idea, NDTV, HDFC Bank, Go Daddy and others
• Awards: Best Digital Campaign for a Cause, Indian Digital Media Awards, Drivers of digital summit and awards 2017, 2013 Promotion Marketing Awards of Asia

10. Tempest

Tempest has been in the business of making businesses work better for almost two decades now. They don’t just communicate with buyers to sell but also advertise to make people’s lives better.

They are among the top 25 digital agencies in India-specialising in Digital Media, member of Tribe Global- a worldwide independent agency network and provide 360-degree communication solutions.

They have clients from across sectors like Agri, FMCG, Real estate, Industrial, Automobile, Software, Healthcare, Hospitality and Education with the likes of Essilor, GVK, Ramoji Film City, Pepsi and Saint Gobain.

• Location: Pune and other locations in India
• Founded In: 1998
• Top Clients: Andhra Pradesh – The essence of Incredible India, Dr. Reddys, Bharat Biotech, Essilor, Godrej, ISB, Pepsi and others

While it is true that marketing today is undergoing a paradigm shift, it is also essential that businesses select the correct agency that can tailor-make campaigns according to their needs. Sometime shortly in the future, we’ll have access to our television, internet, phone, radio, music, photos, videos and more through a single appliance.

The agencies that understand this likely change in how people use technology to gather information and make decisions are going to be among the leaders in the digital marketing sector. If you are looking to invest in technology-based marketing innovations in Pune, you needn’t go beyond this list.

Homo Sapiens (or in other words, us) have been known to have existed in the current form on the planet earth for the past 70,000 years. For a very long time, until recently, we were not the most effective species. We had huge brains, children born prematurely, lower muscle strength than other species of humans, and we were pretty vulnerable to nature.

We were originally in the African region and then we expanded internationally. Before Homo Sapiens, we had Homo Erectus, who lived somewhere in the middle of the food chain for 2.5 million years on earth. 70,000 Years back, we also had Neanderthals, and many other species of human beings.

However, Homo Sapiens were the only ones with enhanced cognitive abilities. With the addon cognition, we could form better social ties with better communication. Our investment in the brain, at the cost of a muscular and strong body started paying off very late. However, it was the best investment we’ve ever made a species.

Neanderthals were far more stronger than us, but they couldn’t exist in groups of more than 50 people because their cognition did not allow them to communicate better. Chimpanzees also exist only in small groups of 20-50, each group having its own Alpha male and a social structure.

Homo Sapiens were able to be in groups of 500 or even 1000 people because they could communicate with each other better.

One of the things that brought Homo Sapiens together to form large communities was – stories.

Homo Sapiens are the only species of animals who could imagine something beyond what actually exists. They were able to create stories about God and guardian spirits.

The Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel is the oldest known piece of art by Homo Sapiens. This sculpture dates to around 30,000 years back.

This is proof that, Homo Sapiens were the first species to be able to go beyond communication – and that’s imagination.

Communication and interpersonal relationships brought up to 50 people together – a size of a small tribal group. Their goal was to care for the tribe, and make sure everyone survives. However, if the common goal is to feed and nurture the tribe, it became conflicting with sizes of 100+.

With myths, belief in God and imagination, it was possible to get many people believe in a common thing – a God, or a guardian Lion Man who is the supreme leader, whom we should please. Since then there has been a lot of different Gods and beliefs, but the purpose of creating a God figure was to bring people together with a common thread of belief system.

People are so varied and different and there is no such thing as average. To start with, we are already males, females, and the trans community. And then we have differences in bodily features, lineage, wealth, control, power and so on.

It is very hard to bring people together with commonalities in the current reality, and hence an imagined belief about a God which felt good and was grand, something that gave hope about life after death, was a strong reason for people to come together.

Today, we have more channels of common beliefs and goals. And that’s because of the gift of language and communication. Private Limited Companies, Brands, Gods, Religions, Beliefs, and everything else that brings large number of people together are just stories that bring us together. It lies in our imagination, and the thought is a common thread between a large number of humans.

A corporation with a common goal to create wealth for all the stakeholders is a temple in itself. If the goal of God and religion is to bring people together to work together, a brand is not very different from a religion.

Having something in common brings people of different tribes together and the easies thing to have in common is a belief system. A common belief goes beyond biology and DNA, and that’s how humans are able to mobilize large groups of people from different biological backgrounds to stand for a common goal.

It is known that somewhere 40,000 years back Neanderthals became extinct, and it is most likely that Homo Sapiens destroyed them and drove them to extinction. The earliest form of ethnic cleansing by wiping out an entire race. And one of the reasons Homo Sapiens succeeded in the great war was because Neanderthals lived in small communities of 50 people with little to no contact with other tribes.

Homo Sapiens were able to get in touch with other tribes, trade tools and food with them, imagine up a form of currency, and share beliefs about the world and the existence. Homo Sapiens could form groups of 500-1000 people. Though Homo Sapiens had far less physical strength than the Neanderthals, a small group of 50-100 Neanderthals were no match for 500-1000 Homo Sapiens.

We were able to form large groups because we had the ability to communicate, and share stories, with a large number of people. The stories resonated because it captured people’s imagination, gave them hope, and something to look forward to beyond the daily grind of hunting and gathering. This became a common belief and a connecting thread between different tribes of human beings. That’s how tribes came together to form larger tribes.

The Alpha male in human communities is not the one who is the tallest and the strongest, but the person who can bring people together with a common belief system. Because bringing people together has given us a far more evolutionary advantage than the strengths of a single human human being.

Even in groups of Chimpanzees, the Alpha male of a group of 20-50 chimps was not the strongest or the mightiest one, but the one with the highest ability to maintain social harmony within the group – thus preventing the chimps from fighting with each other for resources such as food and mates.

Today, we have countries with 100s of millions of people, and we have formed larger groups than ever. The concept of a country, a brand, a God, a way of life is something that exists only in our imagination, and the purpose it serves is to connect all of us together with a common belief and makes us work in unison for the benefit of all the parties involved.

Even Tyrion in the last episode of Game of Thrones says the same thing…

What unites us is stories. Beliefs. Something that all of us can believe in, and feel a common connection, irrespective of our ethnic, professional, intellectual and monetary backgrounds.

We are humans, because we can tell stories. Without stories, we would have never defeated the Neanderthals and we might not have existed on this planet in the first place, let alone dominate it.

And the digital revolution in the past few decades has given every man on this planet earth to tell a story, that once published, can be seen by the whole planet, within a few seconds.

We have communication technologies like blogging, online video, live conferencing and a lot more. What we need to use this communication technology for is to tell stories. Stories that unite people together, and can synchronize the efforts of all the people, for the common benefit of all the people involved.

70,000 years of human evolution has led us to this point, to help us communicate our stories better.

So tell a story. People will pay attention to you. Just like this true story about the history of humans I told you in this blog post.

70,000 years of human evolution has given us digital marketing as a gift. Use it.