Top 10 Major Digital Marketing Modules in 2024

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Digital marketing is promoting or marketing your brand through online technology or channels like a search engine, mailing, social media and websites.

According to Statista, Digital Advertising Market is expected to reach 345 million USD by the end of the year 2020 with Search Engine Advertising reaching 148 million USD in the year 2020.

Why Digital Marketing matters?

Digital Marketing has bridged the gap between offline shops and customer interaction. Since digital marketing uses online platforms for advertising, it is less time consuming, easy to access and most importantly, cost-effective.

The digital market is multifaceted, and hence, businesses and marketers can apply a variety of sure success marketing strategies through SEO and SEM, Social Media Marketing and Advertising, Content Creation for improving brand performance, engagement and creating awareness.

The reason digital marketing proves to be cost-effective as compared to traditional marketing or offline shops is that the marketer has full control over advertising. When businesses choose to advertise online, on social media, website or through emails, they can set a budget for ad space. 

In addition to that, they can track the metrics, performance statistics, choose/control their audience and also gain feedback.

Digital marketing also offers personalised options. For example, businesses can target their audience based on age, geographical location, and objective.

Many institutes offer Digital marketing training and courses for a better understanding of this field. Some major commonly taught Digital Marketing modules are mentioned below:

Do you want to master the essential disciplines in digital marketing? Check out the Digital Marketing Specialist course now!

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

The most trending and sustainable digital marketing module in 2020 has to be Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Over sixty-seven thousand people search on Google for every passing second. About 61% of marketers believe SEO has proved to be a breakthrough for digital marketing. 

Businesses with marketing strategies have now started to allocate about 41% of their marketing budget to SEO. One can expect it to reach 45% by the end of the year 2020. It substantiates how businesses understand and give importance to SEO.

So what exactly is SEO? Search Engine Optimization commonly referred to as SEO helps increase the visibility of your site and online presence to gain potential leads or traffic. 

Search Engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo through crawlers (bots) goes through each site that is closely related to the keywords input in the search engine and displays it on the first page of the preferred search engine, Search Engine Results Page (SERP). 

More the clicks on your site, more the relevance and popularity it will gain which will, in turn, increase the engagement of your site. Thus, SEO boosts Conversion Rates (CR) of your site.

SEO digital marketing modules will focus on the many factors that contribute to search engine algorithms like domain, URL, meta description, keywords, title tags, slugs, speed of your website, link-building, and many other features of SEO.

2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

Followed by SEO, SEM is the second most crucial module to understand Digital Marketing. Once you get an idea about what is SEO, how it works and what are the factors that contribute to it, the next step would be adapting this knowledge for advertising digitally.

Search Engine Marketing or SEM is the marketing of your business through paid advertisement so that your site appears on the top of the Search Engine Page Result (SERP) resulting in higher Conversion Rate and Return on Investment (ROI).

This digital marketing modules will focus on SEM terms like Paid Search Ads, Pay Per Click (PPC), Cost Per Click (CPC), Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM).

Further, the SEM module will focus on the most popular SEM platforms:

Google Ads:

Google’s online advertising platform Google Ads offers paid advertisements that will rank your site on top of the Search Engine Result Page (SERP). It works on the Pay-per-click ( PPC) feature.

Microsoft Advertising/ Bing Ads:

With help of Microsoft, Advertising service businesses get sponsored listing and advertisement on all across Microsoft search network with most results on search engine platforms, Bing and Yahoo. It is also a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising service.

3. Social Media Marketing (SMM):

The major factors that contribute to the online presence and engagement of your site are either through SEO or Social Media. And since we’re talking about digital marketing the most digital thing about the internet that will help reach a maximum number of people has to be Social Media. Digital marketing is incomplete without a Social Media campaign. So, it is important to study SEO along with SMM.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) through social media tries to leverage the audience for brand recognition, brand awareness and most importantly building strong networks and audience. It is also an easy to approach way for engagement, communication and interaction to the common people. Furthermore, Social Media Marketing (SMM) is multifaceted and cost-effective.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) module may include Social Media for content creation, Popular social media platforms and its competitiveness, understanding the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of SMM and so on.

4. Social Media Advertising (SMA):

After understanding all the Social Media Marketing factors, the next module will focus on Social Media Advertising (SMA). It is a harsh reality that the audience will only follow brands with maximum organic followers or reach on Social Media and quality content. So how do we gain the trust and loyalty of the people to build an organic audience for the brand?

This is where Social Media Advertising (SMA) comes in. Each popular social media platform has its Ad campaign designed specifically for digital advertising. The most popular social media ad campaigns are Facebook Ads with about 93% engagement, followed by Instagram with about 72% engagement.

Each of these social media ad services is easy to access and understand but there are some technicalities and relevant knowledge that goes into it and needs to be learned and practised. Hence, the SMA module will focus on using the social media ad campaign as a catalyst to reach the maximum audience and create brand awareness and recognition.

5. Email Marketing:

Email marketing has existed ever since the existence of the internet. It is the most effective way to target an audience and convert them into loyal customers. 

Even though most emails are considered spam and lay idle in customers’ inboxes, there’s a lot more that Email Marketing contributes to the betterment of your business if you use it wisely and effectively.

These Digital Marketing modules will focus on how to strategically use mailing in your favour through various tools and techniques.

What to learn for Email Marketing:

Email List Segmentation:

It is a technique that breaks down a list of email targets into smaller groups or segments. Instead of collectively sending out emails to masses, list segmentation categorizes the list based on the objective to reach it out to that specific category of people. So, this will require the knowledge of email segmentation software, page-level targeting and lead magnets.

Improving Open Rates:

 If you want the customer to open your mail there are a lot of factors businesses need to work on to improve the open rates. The most common factor being avoiding spam filters, sending your mail through the verified domain and whitelisting.

Personalization:

The key factor to make your client open the mail is a personalized subject line. So, a personalized mail with a conversational tone is highly preferred.

6. SEO Reporting:

You understand SEO and start applying the marketing strategies for SEM, but, What next? How will you know or track that the measurements taken for effective marketing is working?

SEO Report identifies the areas in your site that need improvement. Along with that, the SEO report also monitors the site’s performance and progress. In other words, the SEO reports works as an audit.

The SEO report dashboard consists of graphs and numerical representations of your site’s data, and progress. The dashboard tracks the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Conversion Rates, Link building, Bounce rates, Average page loading time, the overall traffic and SEO score/ ranking.

These digital marketing modules will cover how to set your Key Performance indicators for a better SEO report, setting up the SEO report dashboard, understanding the terms related t it.

7. Digital Marketing Metrics and KPIs:

In the SEO report, we talk about setting up Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). But what are the essential KPIs or metrics that will set-up a better SEO report? This is a question most digital marketers deal with.

These digital marketing modules will focus on all the essential KPIs and metrics required for a better site report. The most crucial digital marketing metrics and KPIs are mentioned below:

Website traffic:

The main objective of any business is either to track the number of visitors or driving the traffic to your site. The website traffic metric tracks the number of users visiting your site. This will help determine the rise or decline in the number of visitors which will further help the businesses conclude a valid reason for the cause.

Source for Traffic:

This indicator will track the leads or traffic generated through organic sources, social media, paid sources, traffic through referral programmes.

Bounce Rate:

Understanding the bounce rate is extremely crucial. Why? When you visit a site and exit without even engaging is bounce. The bounce rate indicates the percentage of visitors that left without engaging. The bounce rate preferably must be 0%. Various factors contribute to an increase in bounce rate like page loading time, or the site does not any relevant information.

Exit Rate:

The exit rate represents at what stage or part of your site the customer lost interest and exited. This rate provides an insight into the potential buyer’s journey.

Time on Page:

This metric indicates the average time spent on your site by the customer.

8. Google Tools for Digital Marketing:

If you think people use google mainly as a search engine then you are wrong, it is much more than that. Its various marketing tools has made digital marketing for small businesses so much easier. Plus, google marketing tools are cost-effective and provides the best possible results.

Following are some important Google marketing tools you’ll learn in your digital marketing module: 

Google Analytics:

Google Analytics analyses the performance of the sites through scoreboards. It provides the user with a report based on customer engagement which will help businesses understand their potential customer and their insights for your product or service.

Google Analytics has an in-built technical support that helps in analyzing huge data, audience reports and funnel analysis In addition to that, Google Analytics also allows its user sharing access, the user can connect the Google Analytics with Video 360 and Ad Manager.

Google Trends:

Trends are on-going and off-going but do you know that some websites can benefit through trends? Trends on social media are huge, it is something that is followed by many people because it was found distinct. So, many businesses keep a track on what’s trending update their sites or products accordingly. Launched in 2006, Google Trends is one such tool that provides data on what’s trending on Google. 

Google AdWords:

Google AdWords is when businesses Pay Per Click (PPC) for certain keywords. Suppose you are a digital marketing course provider, the Google Adwords will charge a fee for your course site to rank on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) when someone searches “Digital Marketing course provider” on Google.  

Google AdSense:

Launched in 2003, Google Adsense helps monetize your website traffic. Google Adsense matches your sites with advertisers looking for a host. It also provides high-level safety and security between the advertiser and the site. The advertisements could be anything ranging from site links, images, video ads, etc.

9. Marketing Automation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6c4-28FsAs&t=1s

Marketing Automation through a software helps businesses and marketers handle multiple online channels such as social media, emails and their website. 

This digital marketing modules will cover marketing Automation components like:

Central marketing Database:

It is a place where all the customer database, marketing database is stored and segmented when required to send out emails or personalised messages to the customers.

Engagement Marketing Engine:

Helps in the automation of marketing process for both online and offline channels.

Analytic Engine:

Measures the Return on Investment (ROI), and tests the impacts on revenue. 

The module will also cover the various Marketing Automation Tools:

Marketo:

Acquired by adobe, Marketo is a cloud-based marketing automation tool. The Marketo tool comes with a free trial and has no set-up charges. Marketo suite includes email marketing, lead management, website personalisation and budget management. 

Oracle Eloqua:

Oracle Eloqua is known for its exceptional service. Launched in 1999, Oracle Eloqua helps plan Business-to-business (B2B) automated marketing campaigns. It provides lead management tools, insights and reports on buyers journey.

Customer.io:

The customer.io tool helps businesses send messages, emails to the targeted audience. It also integrates data with your website and mobile app in real-time.

10. Website Planning:

One thing all marketers and businesses would want to avoid is the bounce rate. As mentioned earlier, it indicates the percentage of visitors that exited your site without even engaging. This could be because the site tool long enough to load, the accessibility was complex or the desired product or service wasn’t mentioned on the list. So how do we maintain the bounce rate and exit rate? 

This is where the study and planning of an easy to access website comes in. Website planning must include the application of design thinking phases, a distinct UX design and a user-friendly UI. The website defines to brand hence is of utmost importance that the site translates your product and service.

These digital marketing modules will cover all the necessary components required for a simple yet distinct UX and UI for your website.

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding what is SEO, How it works
• SEM for Digital Advertisements
• Using Social Media for Marketing
• Using Social Media for Advertising
• Email Marketing 
• SEO Reporting
• Studying Digital Marketing Metrics and KPIs
• Google Tools for Digital marketing
• Marketing Automation
• Planning a user-friendly Website

Recommended Reads:

• Top 10 Digital Marketing Courses in Lucknow
• Digital Marketing Courses in Pune with scope, Fees, Certification & Contact Details
• Best 13 Digital Marketing in Delhi with Placement
• Top 12  Digital Marketing Courses in Noida
• Digital Marketing Strategy: A Step-By-Step Guide

Conclusion:

Digital marketing world on the internet is vast and evolving. Your course providers will try their best to cover all the essential modules required for a better understanding of digital marketing, but, it’s a study partly based on experience and tactics.

So, it is advised that you enrol in a course that provides all the required modules one must need to understand the SEO, Social media and Google Tools. One can also learn digital marketing by following the existing businesses, their blogs, relevant videos and trend updates.

All the best!