Is MBA in Digital Marketing Worth It?

Digital marketing is a marketing component that advertises via digital channels, including websites, search engines, and social media channels. It has gone through a drastic change from marketing strategies to being the only viable marketing strategy in today’s tech-savvy world. This is mainly because the marketers can now analyze customer behavior at the click of a button and go through the insights, thus increasing clients’ retention. This has made offline marketing ineffective as companies need to connect with the consumers at the right place. Currently, this place is the internet as these days people spend most of their time in the online world.

It is crucial to undergo rigorous training to understand the targeted customer behavior to become a digital marketing expert and keep up with the times.

Due to the rise in demand for digital marketers, employers are willing to pay a high salary to the employees who have mastered this skill. This includes a sudden surge in demand for social media experts, content strategists who can develop efficient marketing techniques, and employees with prolific digital analytics skills. To meet this ever-increasing requirement, universities began to roll out several digital marketing programs and incorporated them into their curriculum.

Considering this great demand, now the query is whether it is worth doing an MBA in Digital Marketing. Well, the answer depends upon a variety of reasons, including individual goals and skills. First of all, we should familiarize ourselves with the different types of digital marketing programs available at the moment. To name a few, we have:

• MS in Digital Innovation in Marketing
• MS in Social Media Marketing
• MBA in Digital Marketing
• Master of Arts (MA) in Marketing and Digital Media
• MS in Digital Marketing Communications
• MS in Digital Marketing and Design

All these courses have different things to offer, and a full-fledged MBA in Digital Marketing will focus more on the business aspect. The above courses will cover social media marketing, email marketing, brand strategy, content marketing, and tools like google analytics, social media optimization, link building, etc.

The most obvious upside to pursuing this course is that not many people are experts in this field. Therefore, employers are always on the lookout for digital marketing experts who can use modern tools to expand their customer base, brand presence and awareness.

However, many people still look down upon pursuing a digital marketing degree as they believe that it is a waste of time and money. As technology is continually evolving, it won’t surprise if the techniques and skills might get outdated once you graduate. Many employers still have a traditional perspective that they would prefer a candidate with an MBA in Marketing or Management over someone with a degree in only digital marketing.

Considering all the pros and cons, we can conclude that digital marketing is here to stay for a while. It is a much more efficient and cost-effective way of marketing and considerably increases the ROI. Therefore, if you plan for an MBA in Digital Marketing, it will surely give you an edge over other candidates.

However, it is equally essential for digital marketers to stay on their toes as there is a new development every day due to which the business models keep on changing. What is highly relevant today might be utterly outdated tomorrow. We need to continually evolve our ways of approaching things to help us keep up. Hence, you should carefully assess your ability to adapt and learn new things before jumping to a conclusion and going for an MBA in Digital Marketing without weighing the degree’s long-term pros and cons.

You should thoroughly skim through the curriculum first and figure out if you are drawn to specific elements of the course. This will help you compare digital marketing to the traditional marketing courses, and then you can decide which one would be a suitable fit for you. According to this, here is the list of top universities that offer digital marketing programs:

1. De Vinci Higher Education Group (Paris, France)
2. Robert Kennedy College (City of Carlisle, United Kingdom)
3. Instituto Europeo de Posgrado – Colombia (Madrid, Spain)
4. IMF Business School (Madrid, Spain)
5. ILCI Business School (Paris, France)
6. North Dakota State University (Fargo, USA)
7. ESLSCA Business School (Paris, France)
8. Instituto Europeo de Posgrado – España (Madrid, Spain)
9. Arkansas Tech University (Russellville, USA)
10. The University of Europe for Applied Sciences (Berlin, Germany)
11. UNIR – Mexico (Mexico City, Mexico)
12. IONISx (France Online, France)
13. Broward International University (Davie, USA)
14. OUS Royal Academy of Economics and Technology (Zürich, Switzerland)
15. Asian Center of Education and Training

Thus, these are the pros and cons related to the digital marketing sector that must be considered while planning to opt for MBA in digital marketing. You can consider these aspects while finding out the best college for MBA in digital marketing in your chosen country or city.

Author Bio: Abhyank Srinet is a passionate digital entrepreneur who holds a Masters in Management degree from ESCP Europe. He started his first company while he was still studying at ESCP and managed to scale it up by 400% in just 2 years. Being a B-School Alumni, he recognized the need for a one-stop solution for B-School to get in touch with schools and get their application queries resolved. This prompted him to create MiM-Essay, a one-of-a-kind portal with cutting edge profile evaluation and school selection algorithms, along with several avenues to stay informed about the latest B-School Updates.