What is digital marketing?
Marketing that is digital can include any marketing that involves electronic devices. This includes marketing specialists who can use it to communicate promotional messages and track their impact on your customer journey. Digital marketing is a term that describes marketing campaigns that are displayed on a phone, tablet or computer. Digital marketing can come in many forms: online video, show ads search engine marketing and paid social ads. Digital marketing is often compared with traditional marketing such as billboards and magazine ads. Television is often lumped with traditional marketing, which is odd.
Digital Marketing is also known as online marketing. It involves promoting brands to connect with customers via the internet and other forms of digital communication. This includes email and social media as well as web-based advertising. However, it also includes text and multimedia messages that can be used as a marketing channel.
Digital marketing is, in essence, any marketing campaign that involves digital communication.
Common Digital Marketing Resources
Virtually anything can be used as a digital marketing asset. This includes any online marketing tool. You may not be aware of how many options you have. Here are some examples:
- Your website
- Branded assets (logos and icons, acronyms)
- Video content (video ads, product demos)
- Images (infographics and product photos, as well as company photos)
- Written content (blog posts and eBooks, product descriptions and Help Sections, blog posts, eBooks, product description, Help Sections, content from “learning center-type” or online courses).
- Online products and tools (SaaS calculators, interactive content, etc.)
- Review
- Social media pages
This list is only a small part of the story, as you can see. These are the most common categories for digital marketing assets. But, smart marketers continue to find new ways of reaching customers online.
Digital marketing can help with common problems
Digital marketing is essential to optimize your marketing strategies. Digital marketing is essential to understand your audience and learn key data. It can also help you provide metrics that will give credibility to your marketing team.
- Problem – I don’t know enough about my audience to start . While your marketing team might have created audience personas that may be useful, people who spend time online might not behave the way you expect. It will be necessary to test different language and target different audiences. Keep in mind that different descriptors may appeal to different people, depending on their position in the buying cycle. You’ll be able to connect with your audience and build credibility that will make you stand out from the rest.
- Problem: My channels are not optimized for SEO . It doesn’t matter where you are in the marketing process. However, it is important to be familiar with SEO best practices. SEO can help improve your search engine rankings and strengthen your campaign testing to optimize your content to deliver the quality and value that your customers desire.
- Problem. I don’t have social media strategies. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking to create an organic or paid social media campaign, or a combination of both, social marketing is essential. Social media can be used for advertising and branding, as well as for engagement and branding. Your ads will have a greater impact if you find a niche with a consistent voice.
- My problem is that my marketing teams are too siloed. To create fluid, agile structures, it’s essential to break down silos. Customers aren’t stuck in one channel, waiting for ads. Therefore, cross-channel functionality is essential to ensure that your marketing efforts reach customers wherever they are. Marketing efforts can look different for different social networks and channels. Different audiences have different expectations so your marketing strategies may be different for each. This applies to tone, imagery, offers and even the time you post.
- Problem – I am under pressure from my CMO, to report on metrics that help the bottom line. But these metrics need to be carefully chosen. Your audience composition and the focus of each channel will determine which case you choose. Keep this in mind. Determine your goals for each channel, and then set the metrics that your CMO will be interested in.
Inbound marketing versus digital marketing
Inbound marketing and digital marketing can be easily confused . Many of the tools used in digital marketing are similar to inbound marketing, such as email and online content. Both aim to attract prospects’ attention and convert them into customers. The relationship between the tool, the goal is different in both of these approaches.
Digital marketing is about how each tool can convert customers. The digital strategy of a brand may utilize multiple platforms, or rely solely on one platform.
Inbound marketing is holistic. Inbound marketing is a holistic approach that starts with the goal and looks at all available tools to determine which ones will reach the target customers. Then it examines each stage of the sales funnel to see which should be followed.
It is important to remember that digital marketing and inbound are both options. As a marketer, you don’t have to choose between them. They work well together. Inbound marketing gives structure and purpose to digital marketing efforts. It ensures that each channel of digital marketing works towards a common goal.
B2B versus B2C digital marketing
While digital marketing is effective for both B2B and B2C companies alike, best practices are significantly different between the two.
- B2B clients have longer decision-making cycles, which leads to longer sales funnels. Relationship-building strategies work better for these clients, whereas B2C customers tend to respond better to short-term offers and messages.
- B2B transactions are often based on logic. This is what skilled B2B marketers present. B2C content tends to be more emotionally-based and focuses on making customers feel happy about a purchase.
- B2B decisions often require more than one person’s input. These marketing materials are shareable and easily downloadable. B2C customers prefer one-on-one relationships with brands.
There are exceptions to every rule. B2C companies that sell high-ticket products, such as computers or cars, may offer more information and serious content. Your strategy should always be directed at your customers, regardless of whether it’s B2B or C2C.
Different types of digital marketing
There are many specializations in digital marketing, just as many ways to interact with digital media. Here are some key examples.
Search engine optimization
SEO (search engine optimization) is technically a marketing tool, not a form marketing itself. The Balance describes it as “the science and art of making web pages appealing to search engines.”
SEO’s “art and science” is the most important part. SEO is a science. You must research and weigh various contributing factors in order to rank high. The most crucial elements to consider when optimizing web pages are:
- Content quality
- User engagement
- Mobile-friendliness
- Quality and quantity of Inbound Links
SEO is a science when you use these factors strategically, but it’s an art when you consider the unpredictable nature of SEO.
There is no consistent ranking rule or quantifiable rubric in SEO. Google’s algorithm is constantly changing so it’s difficult to predict the future. You can monitor the performance of your page and adjust accordingly.
Content Marketing
SEO is an important factor in Content Marketing. This strategy is based on the distribution and value of relevant content to a target market.
Content marketing, like all marketing strategies, aims to draw leads and ultimately convert them into customers. It does this differently to traditional advertising. Instead of appealing prospects with the potential value of a product or service to them, it provides value in the form written material.
Content marketing is important and there are many stats to support it.
- 84% of consumers expect companies produce useful and entertaining content.
- 62% of companies with at least 5,000 employees produce content every day
- 92% of marketers believe their company values content.
Content marketing can be as effective as it is. However, it can also be difficult. It is essential for content marketing writers to be able rank high in search engine results and engage people who will share the material, like it, and then interact with the brand. If the content is useful, it can build strong relationships with other people in the pipeline.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is driving traffic, and increasing brand awareness through engaging people in online discussion. Social media marketing is most popular on Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn and YouTube are close behind.
Social media marketing is a very popular method of getting attention. It involves active audience participation. Social media marketing is the most used content medium by B2C marketers, with 96% of them using it. However, it’s also gaining popularity in the B2B world. The Content Marketing Institute reported that 61% of B2B content marketers increased their social media use in the past year.
Social media marketing has built-in engagement metrics that can help you understand how well your reach your audience. You can choose which interactions are most important to you. This could be the number of comments, shares, or total visits to your website.
Your social media marketing strategy may not include direct purchases. Social media marketing is often used by brands to build relationships with their customers rather than to encourage them to spend immediately. This is particularly common for brands that target older customers and offer services or products not suitable for impulse purchases. It all depends on the goals of your company.
Pay-per-click marketing
Pay-per-click (or PPC) is when you post an ad and get paid every time someone clicks it.
It is more difficult to determine how and when people will see your ad. The engine fills a spot on a search engines results page with an auction-style bid. The algorithm determines which ad is prioritized by using a variety of factors, such as:
- Ad quality
- Relevance of keywords
- Landing page quality
- Bid amount
Every PPC campaign includes one or more target actions that viewers must complete after clicking on an ad. These are called conversions and can be transactional, or non-transactional. Conversions include making a purchase, signing up for the newsletter, and calling your home office.
You can track your conversions via any platform you choose, so you can see how your campaign is performing.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing allows someone to make money by promoting another’s business. The promoter could be you or the business that works with you, but the process is identical in both cases.
The revenue sharing model is used. You earn a commission each time someone buys the product you recommend. You pay the affiliate for each sale you help them make if you are the merchant.
Affiliate marketers may choose to only review products from one company. This could be on a blog or another third-party site. Some affiliate marketers have relationships with multiple merchants.
Make a connection with other affiliates, whether you are looking to become one or to find one. Either you use a platform that connects affiliates with retailers or you can join or start a single-retailer program.
You can do many things to appeal to potential affiliates if you are a retailer. These affiliates will need the tools they need to succeed. This includes marketing support and pre-made material, as well as incentives that will result in great results.
Native advertising
Native advertising is marketing in disguise. It aims to blend into the content around it so that it is less obvious as advertising.
Native advertising was developed in response to today’s cynicism about ads. Many consumers will assume that an advertisement is biased because it has been paid to be run.
Native ads overcome this bias by providing information and entertainment before any promotion, downplaying its “ad” component.
It is important to clearly label native ads. Avoid using words such as “promoted” and “sponsored” in native ads. Readers might spend a lot of time reading the content before realizing it’s advertising.
Your content and brand will be more appealing to consumers who know what they are getting. Although native ads may be less intrusive than traditional ads they are not deceptive.
Marketing automation
Digital marketing automation uses software for boosting the effectiveness and relevance of advertising campaigns.
According to statistics:
- 90% US consumers consider personalization “very” or “somewhat” appealing.
- 81% consumers would like brands to get to know them better
- 77% of companies believe in the importance of real-time personalization. However, 60% of them struggle with it
Market automation allows companies to keep up with personalization expectations. It allows brands:
- Analyze and collect consumer information
- Targeted marketing campaigns
- Post marketing messages to the right people at the right time
Many marketing automation tools allow you to use prospect engagement (or lack thereof), with a specific message to decide when and how to reach the next. You can create a customized marketing strategy for each customer with this level of customization.
Email marketing
Email marketing has a simple concept. You send a message to your prospect and hope they click on it. Execution is more difficult. You must first make sure your email addresses are being used. You should have an opt-in list that does the following
- Separates the content in the body and the subject line
- Indicate clearly which type of email the subscriber will receive
- Clear unsubscribe option
- Integrates transactional and promotional emails
Your prospects should see your campaign not as a promotion tool but as something they will actually use.
Email marketing is an effective and proven technique. 89% of surveyed professionals cited it as the most effective lead generator.
You can make it even more effective by incorporating other techniques, such as marketing automation. This allows you segment to schedule your emails in a way that meets your customers’ needs.
Digital marketing has many benefits
The popularity of digital marketing is due to its ability to reach a large audience. However, it also offers many other benefits. These are just a few benefits.
Geographic reach
Posting an advertisement online allows people to see it regardless of where they live (provided that you don’t limit your ads geographically). This makes it simple to expand your business’ market reach.
Cost efficiency
Digital marketing is more accessible than traditional marketing and also has a lower price. Newspaper ads, TV spots, and other traditional marketing options can have high overhead costs. You also have less control over the likelihood that your target audience will view those messages.
Digital marketing allows you to create one content piece that attracts visitors to your blog, as long as it is active. It’s possible to create an email marketing campaign to send messages to specific customer lists. You can also easily change the schedule or content of your campaign if necessary.
Digital marketing offers you more flexibility and customer contact when you combine it all.
Results that can be quantified
You need to know how many customers your marketing strategy attracts and how much revenue you generate. How can you determine if your non-digital marketing strategy is working?
You can always ask each customer “How did you find us?”
This doesn’t work for all industries. Many companies are unable to have one-on-1 conversations with customers. Surveys don’t always yield complete results.
Digital marketing makes it easy to monitor your results. Digital marketing platforms and the software automatically track the number of desired conversions you get. This could email open rates, visits on your homepage, or direct sales.
Easier personalization
You can collect customer data digitally, which is something that offline marketing cannot do. Digital data tends to be more precise and specific.
Imagine that you offer financial services. You want to send special offers to people who have viewed your products. Because you know that you will get better results when you target the offer to their interest, you decide to create two campaigns. The first is for young families that have already looked into your life insurance products. The second is for millennial entrepreneurs, who have also considered your retirement plans.
What is the best way to gather all that data without any automated tracking? How many phone records do you need to look through? How many customer profiles would you need? How do you find out who has read your brochure?
Digital marketing makes it easy to access all this information.
Increase your connection with customers
You can communicate with customers via digital marketing in real-time. It also allows them to communicate with you.
Your social media strategy is what you should be thinking about. It’s wonderful when your target audience views your latest post. But it’s even more amazing when they comment on it and share it. This creates more buzz around your product or service and increases visibility each time someone joins in the conversation.
Customers also benefit from interactivity. As they participate in the brand’s story, their engagement levels will increase. This sense of ownership can lead to strong brand loyalty.
Conversions are simple and easy
Your customers can take immediate action after seeing your advertisement or content through digital marketing. Traditional advertisements can only provide a call within a few minutes of someone viewing your ad. How often do people have the time to call a company when they are busy doing dishes or updating work records?
They can save blog posts or click a link to digital marketing and get on the sales funnel immediately. Although they might not purchase right away, they will keep in touch with your company and allow you to continue to interact with them.
Digital marketing is a way to grow
Every business should make digital marketing a key focus of their overall marketing strategy. There has never been a better way to keep in touch with customers than digital marketing. And no other method can offer the same level of personalization as digital data. Digital marketing is a powerful tool that can help you realize your company’s potential growth.
What are the benefits of digital marketing?
A strong digital presence can help you in many ways
- It will be easier to increase awareness and engage before and after the sale
- It will allow you to convert new customers into rabid supporters who buy more (and often).
- It will encourage word-of mouth and social networking — along with all the other benefits that go with it
- It will reduce the buyer journey by presenting relevant offers at the right times.
Digital Marketing: How to Do It?
1. Your goals should be defined.
It is important to identify and define your goals when you first get started in digital marketing. You’ll be able to craft different strategies depending on your goals. If your goal is to increase brand awareness you might be more focused on reaching new audiences via Social Media.
You might also want to increase sales of a product. If that is the case, you should focus on SEO and optimizing your content to attract potential buyers to your site. You might also consider PPC campaigns to drive traffic via paid ads if you are aiming for sales.
It doesn’t matter what case it may be, it’s easier to create a digital marketing strategy once you’ve identified your company’s top goals.
2. Identify your target audience.
This is something we’ve already mentioned, but digital marketing offers the greatest opportunity to target specific audiences. However, you cannot take advantage of this benefit if you haven’t identified your target audience.
It is important to remember that your target audience may differ depending on the channel you use or the goals you have for a particular product or campaign.
Perhaps you have noticed that your Instagram audience is mostly younger and enjoys quick videos and funny memes. However, your LinkedIn audience is a mix of older professionals looking for tactical advice and more strategic ideas. To appeal to these diverse audiences, you’ll need to diversify your content.
If you are just starting out, How To Find Your Target Audience is a great resource.
3. Set aside a budget to cover each channel.
The budget you decide to spend on digital marketing will depend on the elements you want to include in your strategy.
You don’t need a lot of budgets if you are focusing on inbound strategies like SEO, social networking, and content creation for an existing website. Inbound marketing is all about creating quality content that your audience will enjoy. Unless you plan to outsource, your only investment is your time.
Hosting a website is the best way to get started. You can also create content with HubSpot’s CMS. You can start WordPress on WP engine, by using a simple theme from StudioPress, or building your website without any code with the Elements Website Builder for WordPress.
There is no denying that outbound marketing techniques such as online advertisement or purchasing email lists can be costly. It all comes down to the level of visibility that you desire from your advertising.
To implement PPC with Google AdWords, for example, you will bid against companies in your industry to be at the top of Google’s search results when searching keywords that are related to your business. This can vary depending on the competition of the keyword. It’s also possible to be very expensive. Therefore, it’s important to work on increasing your organic reach.
4. Find a balance between paid and unpaid digital strategies.
To be truly effective, a digital marketing strategy must include both paid and unpaid elements.
You can expect strong results in the first six months of your campaign if you invest time creating buyer personas that help you identify the needs and then focus on creating high-quality online content to convert and attract them.
The results may be even faster if the paid advertisement is part of your digital strategy.
It’s best to concentrate on increasing your organic reach (or ‘free”) through content, SEO and social media. This will ensure more long-term success.
If in doubt, you can try both and iterate as you discover which channels — paid and free — work best for your brand.
5. Create engaging content.
Once you have an idea of your audience and a budget, you can start creating content for all the channels. These content could be blog posts, social media posts and PPC ads. Sponsored content, email marketing newsletters and other formats are all possible.
You must make sure that your content is engaging and interesting for your audience. The purpose of marketing content should be to increase brand awareness and lead generation.
6. Mobile optimization: Optimize your digital assets
Mobile marketing is another key component of digital marketing. Mobile marketing is another key component of digital marketing. In the U.S., smartphone use accounts for 69%, while desktop-based media consumption makes up less than half. The U.S. is still not mobile’s most popular country.
It is essential to optimize digital ads, web pages and social media images for mobile devices. Your app can be used by customers to interact with your brand and shop for your products.
Your company must provide the same user experience on mobile devices as those who visit your site from a desktop computer. To make it easy for mobile users to browse your website, you should implement a mobile-friendly or responsive web design. This could also include reducing the lengths of your lead generation forms in order to make it easier for people who are downloading your content from their mobile devices. It’s crucial to consider a mobile user when creating social media images. Mobile devices have smaller image dimensions and text can be cut off.
There are many ways to optimize your digital marketing resources for mobile users. It is crucial that you consider how mobile devices will experience the experience when developing any digital marketing strategy. This will ensure that you create digital experiences that are relevant to your audience and help you achieve the desired results.
7. Do keyword research.
Digital marketing is about reaching targeted audiences with personalized content. This can’t be done without keyword research.
Keyword research is essential for optimizing your website for SEO. It also helps ensure that people can find your business via search engines. Social media keyword research is also useful for marketing products and services through various social channels.
You should still conduct keyword research, even if you don’t have an SEO strategist. You can create a list with high-performing keywords related to your products and services. Long-tail variations are also an option.
8. Based on the analytics you measure, iterate.
Your team must learn how to pivot using analytics to create a long-term digital marketing strategy.
Perhaps your audience doesn’t seem to be as interested in your Instagram content after a few months, but they still love your tweets. This could be a chance to reevaluate your entire Instagram strategy, but it may also indicate that your audience prefers another channel for consuming branded content.
Alternatively, you might find that a website isn’t receiving the traffic it used to. To ensure that visitors find the most current and relevant content, you might want to update the page or get rid of it completely.
Businesses have incredible opportunities to grow through digital marketing. But it is up to them to make the most of these flexible opportunities.
