Digital marketing in the Philippines has significantly grown in the recent years and is expected to continue flourishing in the years to come. This growth can be attributed to the local outsourcing industry among others, which boosted the ICT sector. Thus, providing many job opportunities for IT and other online-related work from big foreign companies.
Top Online Marketing Careers to Jump In
The fact that the Philippines had a 39% Internet penetration rate and a 101% mobile penetration rate in 2014 shows that the state of digital marketing in the country is highly promising. With this, aspiring marketers, as well as those considering to shift careers have a great chance to be at the forefront of a ripe job market that is ready to provide a multitude of different work options.
So, if you’re interested in establishing a career in online marketing, below are the top marketing disciplines you should look into.
- Social Media Marketing
Studies show that Filipinos are still going gaga over social media, spending as much as four hours each day on their favorite social media network. In fact, a growing number of them rely more on social media to communicate with friends and loved ones.
This gives brands an opportunity to connect and engage with their customers via social media as well. To do this, they will be in need of experts to help them develop a social media strategy and to implement and monitor their social media efforts.
These social media jobs include social media strategists, community managers, and social media marketing managers among others. These require specialized knowledge, which you can acquire by taking social media classes.
- E-commerce
In the Philippines, the e-commerce market is still positive and healthy, but is, at present, more focused on the B2C channel rather than the B2B market. Studies also reveal that a whopping 78% of e-commerce chatter are about products and services and that 50% talk about big discounts and promos by major online retailers.
This tells us just how active the online retail sector is. Selling offline and online differ in many ways, though, and the latter may require certain skill sets such as online writing, design, SEO, and customer service that you can only acquire through e-commerce training.
- Digital Media Planning
A digital media planner’s role is to create a digital media plan for a company, to include digital video, banner ads, search, social media promotion, mobile banners and videos, and digital audio among others. They network and negotiate with media partners to place media buys, forecast delivery, and estimate ad serving costs for the campaigns.
Digital media planning is a hot career nowadays given that brands are starting to focus more on using digital media rather than traditional media. In fact, the country has come up with a digital strategy for 2011 to 2016 that is aimed at “making the Philippines a truly digitally empowered nation through innovation, digital literacy and Internet access opportunities for all people in the country.”
Along with the positive digital marketing trends, this tells us that demand for digital media planners will be on the rise.
- Content Marketing
Content marketing involves creating and distributing relevant and valuable content aimed at attracting, acquiring, and engaging a defined target audience. The goal is to establish the brand as an expert in their field to create long-lasting customer relationships and drive profitable customer action.
Customers these days are smarter about the content that brands deliver and prefer to receive genuine, customer-focused information instead of the typical intrusive marketing communications. Content marketers need to use certain platforms such as blogs to tell the brand’s story effectively.
To do this, they have to be able to translate data in order to tell a good story. Content marketers also need to be strategic thinkers and have good project management and organizational skills.
- Mobile Marketing
Smartphone penetration in the country is the lowest in Southeast Asia at only 15%. Despite this, however, brands stand to benefit a lot from the fact that 88% of mobile Internet users in the country belong in the more productive and better-earning demographic, those aged 34 years and below.
Brands going for mobile marketing opens up a lot of doors for professionals with special skills in information technology, web development, graphic design, communications, and business. They must be able to understand the ins and outs of SMS, Multimedia Message Services, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising, and Mobile SEM among others.
This goes to show how many opportunities are available for Filipinos wishing to pursue a career in online marketing. If you feel that you are not yet equipped with the necessary skills needed to be successful in any of these careers, find a reputable digital marketing institute that provides online marketing classes so that you can acquire the know-how, skills, and certifications that you will need.
Author’s bio:
Jemar Nicdao is a 20-something social media enthusiast. His other interests include travelling, music, TV, films… and puppies.