Rising Demand of Digital Marketers! Challenges faced by businesses

Digital technologies are rapidly advancing in the economic landscape. Organizations are getting inclined towards digital marketing as it is considered to be a cost effective medium of generating impeccable business results. Most of the large business organizations are already in the action mode and have positioned themselves to seamlessly capture the real business benefits. Various surveys were conducted to check the efficacy and investment in this medium of marketing. The results were quite shocking as it was found that companies embracing digital marketing are up by 63% from last year. This also leads to the increase in digital marketing budgets, which is also expected to increase by 10% in 2014. Most of the marketers are quite sure that digital spend will soon overtake traditional media as the entire market is shifting their business marketing trends from traditional to digital. In fact, buyers are also checking out services and information in their own way, often searched through the internet. For example, if an individual is looking for an ac repair service in his local residency area in Delhi, the first thought in his mind would be to search on the internet where he can find numerous options and choose the one that fits his budget and time. Today, India is developing as a digital outsourcing hub for diverse services including social media, online advertising, website design and a lot more. Moreover, Digital media spends are on a global increase with Asia Pacific leading the trend with 25% annual growth. When compared with other industries, it was found that when other industries are struggling with only 10 to 12% growth, digital marketing is booming high with 30% growth rate. All these stats simply indicate the requirement for digital marketers in the coming years. According to a report published by Ma foi, 10,000 jobs related to social media alone were created in 2012. By 2016 there will be a huge demand of 1.5 lakhs digital marketers in order to make effective business decisions. However, survey reports show that companies are in need of solid and accurate digital talent education skills. Around 80 percent of companies face significant challenge in locating, hiring and retaining top talent. Survey reports show that there are more projects and positions are available than that can be filled with qualified talent. In a recent Adobe survey, marketers reported “Lack of training in new marketing skills (30%) and organizational inability to adapt (30%) are cited as key obstacles to becoming the marketers they aspire to be” What could be reason for shortage of Digital Marketing Talent? Digital marketing becoming more complex  As digital marketing becomes more complex in terms of the options of technology and channels, the complexity of campaigns and integrated digital marketing approaches, so the greater need for digital marketing training. Therefore, there are some very strong reasons that demand investing in Digital Marketing Trainings

• Growth of Digital Marketing – According to a report by e-commerce, 71% of businesses plan to increase digital marketing budgets this year
• New Business opportunities in Digital
• Everyone plays an important role in enhancing the digital reputation of the company
• Save Money!!

 Current Training Gap Studies show that around half of students switch career paths after graduation. But many are now making transition to digital marketing because of its huge potential. Lack of investment and alignment with digital marketing strategy is worrisome as it means that companies still have a long way to go before they can resolve their digital skills issue.

• Current approaches to develop digital skills are broken
• According to a survey conducted by capgemini, 87% companies believe that Digital Transformation is a competitive opportunity, but only 46% are investing in developing Digital Skills
• Studies show that training programs are out of sync. Only 4% companies are aligning their training efforts with their digital strategy.
• Human resources function is not actively involved in digital skills development.

Conclusion The pace for technological change is accelerating and executives in every industry are paying attention. Although, they face a vast set of alternatives for gaining digital advantage, unfortunately they also hear a bewildering barrage of advice, which is sometimes conflicting and often wrong. Inappropriate or incomplete knowledge can lead to unfortunate and costly decisions.