With the Indian internet population at over 650 million users (as of May 2022), the digital marketing industry is growing. With the industry showing an enormous projected growth potential and an expected paucity of trained professionals, many students, graduates and young professionals are looking to get on the digital marketing bandwagon. Owing to Covid 19 there are even more Indians spending time online. This has led to rise in digital marketing jobs and also choice in terms of digital marketing courses and training institutes in India.
To cater to the growing need for these courses, a number of training companies, institutes and universities have started various Digital marketing courses and social media marketing courses. There are tons of books written on Digital Marketing and YouTube Channels covering digital marketing. Based on our experience in digital over the last 15 years here is a guide on some of the best institutes that you could choose from. Since this is an extensive article we’ve split it into sections to make it easier for you to navigate and read through.
Our top three picks would be Upgrad Campus, Growth School & UpGrad:
- Criteria for evaluating digital marketing courses
- Online Digital Marketing Courses in India
- Online Vs Classroom courses
- Classroom and Offline Courses
- Executive Programs on Digital Marketing
- Global Online Digital Marketing Courses
Short Video Guide on how to select the right digital marketing course in India:
Criteria you should use for evaluating digital marketing courses and institutes
Before opting for a digital marketing course online or offline, here are some pointers to evaluate the desired institute or course structure.
- Certification: Certification is no substitute for skills learned and hands-on industry experience but, nevertheless, can add to the CV of a fresher making an entry into the field or for a professional looking to make a career switch. Opt for certification courses recognized by various educational bodies and corporates.
- Course Curriculum & Faculty Expertise: Gauge the Institute or the course offered based on the curriculum, faculty expertise, training modules and relevance to the current industry trends & practices. A program being run by a digital marketing agency themselves is very impactful.
- Reviews and recommendations: Check for reviews and recommendations from industry experts & former students through Google, online education portals or discussion forums. Reach out to alumni on LinkedIn for their direct feedback, where feasible.
- Placements: Explore the institute’s placement opportunities or institutional tie-ups for live projects & hands-on experience on acquired digital marketing skills.
Here are some of the popular websites/companies/institutes offering Digital Marketing courses which will save you a considerable amount of time in research if you’re looking for one for yourself.
Online & Hybrid Digital Marketing Courses in India
Upgrad Campus*
Upgrad Campus from the house of Upgrad has a series of programs designed for students and recent graduates. Their Certification Program in Digital Marketing is priced at just INR 22,500 with an option to pay via EMI. They have an extensive module and the program has a combination of Live Sessions, recorded sesionss and mentor support. The unique aspect of Upgrad Campus is that it has 300+ hiring partners and offers placement assistance which gets learners, 3 assured interviews by top companies.
*Social Beat is a hiring partner at Upgrad Campus
Kraftshala*
The Marketing Launchpad by Kraftshala is an intensive program designed for begineers and the best part is that you only pay when you land a job with a minimum CTC of ₹4.5 lakhs. Its an indepth 20 week, online, full-time digital marketing course with specialisations in Digital Media and Content & Social Media that includes an 8-week internship. So its an all rounded program where they select, train, and invest in high potential graduates to help them kickstart their digital marketing careers. The program is designed by industry practioners and they also have smaller group sessions to give feedback so that learners can build on their individual strengths.
*Social Beat is a hiring partner at Kraftshala
Growth School
One of the few cohort based programs for top talent in India, Growth School has best in class educators and trainers from the industry to help learngers start, transition, or level-up their career. They have a 8 week program and a 10 week program from experts in the Industry. They offer live sessions combined with recorded sessions. They call these as “Mentorship programs” and they offer deep dives into the most in-demand skills over a longer period. They go beyond the classroom with peer engagement and projects to boost outcomes. They also have a lot of Live Q&A sessions combined with a strong community to allow for ongoing learning.
Digital Vidya
Digital Vidya is a leading Digital Marketing training company and one of the first to launch Social Media Marketing course series in India. Since 2009, they claim to have had participation from over 20,000 professionals and students, from over 10,000 organizations and institutions. Digital Vidya also offers Digital Marketing (CDMM), Mobile Marketing (CMMM) and Social Media Certification programs (CSMMP) in association with V-Skills, a Govt. of India initiative. Their programs are priced at INR 50,000.
Simplilearn
Simplilearn is one of the leading platforms for online training and professional certification programs. They have around 30 courses in digital marketing that provide hands-on experience in various Digital marketing domains. Priced at INR 60,000 they are accredited by OMCP, these courses are aimed at helping working professionals & aspirants stay ahead of the digital curve with relevant skills.
NIIT
NIIT offers a post graduate degree in digital marketing and branding, seems to be designed for freshers. It guarantees 3 interviews and is priced at INR 70,000. The duration of these courses is 6 months. They used to offer this program offline but now moved it to digital – possibly owing to Covid 19.
Affordable Courses
There are many affordable recorded courses from platforms like Udemy, which covers the basics of digital marketing. Even Coursera has some excellent programs. If you are a student then MyCaptain has some useful programs starting at INR 5,999.
How to choose between Online and Classroom courses for digital marketing
Online Courses are generally more convenient for most people, especially working professionals as they can be attended from the comfort of one’s home/office Also, with technology having improved, online instructor-led virtual classrooms are as good as actual classrooms, with webinar software allowing for both peers to peer interaction as well as student-teacher interaction. Webinar recordings are also available for those who miss out on sessions. Classroom programs would only work best for you if you are the personality type that prefers learning in a classroom environment or if you’re not too comfortable with learning in a live webinar format.
Classroom & Offline Courses for digital marketing
Here is a list of institutes which conduct classroom courses but owing to Covid 19, many of them may not be fully operational yet.
ADMC – Academy for Digital Marketing Courses
They have multiple programs. Their most intensive one is ADMC Expert which is a 1 year full time program to understand the insights from traditional marketing and transform them to adapt to the digital marketing arenas. They also have ADMC Advanced which is a weekend program over 7 months. The program also includes the globally-recognised DMI certification which makes the learners industry ready. They have centres across Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat and Ahmednagar.
EduPristine
EduPristine is one of India’s leading training providers for international certifications in Finance, Accounting and Analytics. They also conduct digital marketing classroom courses in 11 Indian cities. The course covers 60 hours of digital marketing classroom training over 12 Sundays. They also have a 48-hour online course spread over 6 weekends. On completion of the course, the participants are awarded a Certificate of Excellence in collaboration with the “Microsoft IT Academy Program”.
DSIM
The Delhi School of Internet Marketing (now acquired by DigitalVidya) conducts an all in one advanced digital marketing live classroom course for working professionals, business owners and job-seekers, at their training centres in Delhi and Bangalore. They conduct an online instructor-led course as well on weekends. However, they do not seem to offer any digital marketing certification for participants who complete the course.
Digital Nest
Digital Nest conducts an Advanced Digital Marketing Training Course in Hyderabad. The course includes 48 hours of classroom training with weekday/weekend classes. They also conduct workshops/seminars and webinars for corporate bodies and educational institutions.
IIDE
Located in Mumbai, the Indian Institute of Digital Education offers two courses on digital marketing and full stack programming. The digital marketing programme is designed to give freshers a robust introduction to the world of digital marketing and help professionals intensify their existing knowledge of all things digital. The programme is divided into a 6-month with classes conducted thrice a week, and independent certification courses conducted for three hours over one week.
Executive Programs & Management Development Programmes on Digital Marketing in India
Most of the courses listed above are best suited for students and working professionals. If you are someone in a fairly senior role who has more than 5 to 10 years of work experience under his/her belt, then it might be worthwhile considering doing an executive digital marketing course.
Upgrad
Upgrad offers course across many streams. One of the streams is marketing where MICA has partnered with Upgrad for the PG certification in Digital Marketing and Communication and covers social media marketing, content marketing, branding and marketing analytics. Its a pretty long program at 6.5 months. Starting from INR 1,05 lakhs and going up to 1.52 lakhs it is one of the most expensive online course available. Some of the interesting aspects of this course are certifications from MICA case studies, projects and one on one mentoring with industry experts.
TalentEdge
TalentEdge provides a Specialised Executive Programme in Digital Marketing from MICA, Ahmedabad, ideal for early beginners and working professionals. Priced at INR 80,000 for a 4.5 month program, they claim to have reached over 8,00,000 registered learners who have benefitted from the live lectures, case studies and content structure designed by MICA faculty & industry experts. Apart from this, TalentEdge also offers an Executive Development Program in digital marketing from XLRI at INR 90,000 for a 6 month program. The executive development program is a course for marketing managers who wish to understand the nuances of digital marketing techniques and tools to execute a campaign. Talentedge offers over 250 courses across different areas and while they dont specialize only in marketing programs, they do have good university tie ups.
Great Learning
Great Learning, from the house of Great Lakes Institute of Management has a PG Program in Strategic Digital Marketing. It is a 6 month module with a 4 week capstone project, with mentoring from faculty of Great Lakes. The course is a blended model with recorded content as well as live mentoring. The pricing is 1.25 lakhs + GST with an option to pay in installments or via EMI.
Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
In partnership with Emeritus, ISB Hyderabad has a 12 week online program on Digital Marketing & Analytics priced at INR 1 lakh+GST with 4-6 hours per week required. Any graduate can apply for this program. ISB also have a 3-day executive program on campus in Hyderabad titled “Marketing in the Digital Age” priced at Rs.1,30,000 + GST. It is specifically targeted for professionals and leaders in the marketing and strategy domain. The program aims to give an overview of digital and social media marketing and how to get ROI from the medium. They also have programs around nicher areas like Marketing Analytics.
Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
IIM Bangalore has a programme called “Digital Marketing for Business Growth” which they conduct mutiple times in their academic year. The programme aims to give an overview of digital marketing with a focus on the different social media marketing channels, search engine marketing (both search advertising & search engine optimization) and digital analytics. So it aims to give an overview of each of the key elements that can enable brands to get better engagement, leads and conversions. It also touches upon analytics and what metrics can be used to measure the performance of the digital campaigns.
Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow
IIM Lucknow has a 10 month online program priced at INR 1.77 lakhs and does require 1 year experience to apply for the program. They do have experiential learning experience through Live online and On Campus Immersions. You get to learn with renowned IIM Lucknow Faculty, and Emeritus industry practitioners
Global Online Digital Marketing Courses
Jellyfish Training
Jellyfish is a global leader in training around programmatic advertising platform – Google Marketing Platform (GMP) and its components, Campaign Manager, Display and Video 360 (DV360), Search Ads 360, Google Analytics 360 and Optimize 360. Its a pretty advanced program and the subscription is INR 42,000 per month and its meant for users who already have access to the GMP platform. Here is an article on the basics of programmatic advertising and DV360 case studies to help you get started.
HootSuite Social Media Certification
Hootsuite, one of the most popular tools for social media scheduling and monitoring has Hootsuite Academy, which offers a social media program at USD 199, which is worth exploring.
Hubspot Academy
Hubspot Academy offers a free Inbound Marketing Course & Certification marketers, entrepreneurs and students. They also conduct classroom training but only in the United States.
Conclusion
If you are a self-learner keen on understanding the digital marketing space, there are various youtube channels, digital marketing blogs, articles, books and real-time case studies available online. All said Digital marketing is a field where just taking courses or following the industry trends alone will not make one an expert. Maximum learning can only be gleaned from actual hands-on, on-the-job experience. Hence, the success of these courses will eventually depend on the quality of digital professionals they send into the industry and how well they execute the acquired knowledge & digital skill sets. If you are looking out for digital marketing careers in India, check Social Beat out.
Have you taken up any of these courses? Please share your experiences with us in the comments!
