Top 3 Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Digital Marketing

The culture when it was mandatory to work from fixed offices on fixed durations is passé. Welcome to the Digital Age! Digital Technologies know no boundaries or time constraints. Digital Marketing can be done from anywhere and at any time. This is its biggest strength, which offers multiple entrepreneurial opportunities in this growing domain.

As per eMarketer, the number of Internet Users in India will cross 500 million soon and online advertising spend in India will touch $2.8 billion by 2021. There are more than 500 digital marketing agencies ranging from couple of people teams to 1000+ people companies. These figures speak volume about the scope of Digital Marketing in India.

For anyone who wants to be his own boss and enjoys freedom to work from any place, here are 3 kinds of opportunities in digital marketing:

1) Be a Freelancer
Offering digital marketing services as a freelancer is one of the easiest ways to satiate your entrepreneurial ambitions. Based on one's interest and strength, one can offer a number of services across digital marketing avenues such as SEO, SEM, and Social Media Marketing.

While getting the 1st assignment is the toughest part but once you've acquired and successfully served a client, the journey ahead is going to be exciting and rewarding. In addition to leveraging personal network, one can look for popular freelance marketplaces such as Upwork, Guru and Freelancer. Interestingly, job sites such as Naukri also has list of freelancing opportunities in digital marketing.

Building your personal brand through Social Media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Quora will also be valuable when it comes to leveraging freelancing opportunities in digital marketing.

2) Start Digital Marketing Agency

A digital marketing agency is a company offering digital marketing services to its clients. Starting a digital marketing agency is a natural extension of initial success as a freelancer in digital marketing.

While it will require acquiring new skills especially around people management and operations, the growth can be extremely rewarding. As a digital marketing services company, you are no more limited by your own skills and bandwidth. In fact, you should look at getting at least one more business partner for creating sustainable growth.

One can choose to offer specialized services or be a generic digital marketing services provider. Depending upon your ability to acquire new customers, you can aim for expansion in newer geographies.

3) Be an Affiliate Marketer

Another entrepreneurial avenue in the Digital Marketing space is to be an Affiliate Marketer. Building a popular blog or a website and promoting others products or services is one of the common routes to become an affiliate marketer. If you choose this path then be prepared to sustain your efforts for a long period and also choose topic(s) of the blog which are closer to your heart.

However, there are other avenues as well. For e.g., creating a store on platforms such as Shopify and using online advertisements such as Facebook Ads to sell others products is a trend, which has gained significant traction.

Sourcing and selling differentiable products through ecommerce stores such as Amazon and Flipkart is another route to become an affiliate marketer.

We have looked at entrepreneurial opportunities in which one could use his digital marketing skills to promote others' products/services or offer digital marketing services as an agency. You may be interested in becoming an entrepreneur by promoting your own product or a service. While digital marketing alone doesn't guarantee success, it can surely play an important role in helping you realize your entrepreneurial dream.

Time for Action

Enough of theory and concepts. It's time for you to take action. I am sure you are feeling pumped up and energetic enough to jump onto the Digital bandwagon. Please understand that Entrepreneurship is a journey and like any journey it begins with the 1st step. Wishing you all the best!