Digital marketing in simple terms. Over the years, especially during globalization, Internet has become an essential part of our life. It plays a vital role in our personal as well as professional life. Internet assumes a fundamental part in all spheres of life and commercial ventures. Today, Internet marketing is one of the most fastest developing, growing and most energizing branch of marketing. Internet-based communication tools have also led to major changes in the functioning of various economic sectors such as marketing.
WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?
Whenever you use the internet to inform people about your brand, you’re doing digital marketing. You can use any type of digital marketing channel including social media, email, and content marketing to engage potential consumers.
Digital marketing is the marketing and advertising of a business, person, product, or service using online channels, electronic devices, and digital technologies. A few examples of digital marketing include social media, email, pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), and more.
HOW IS DIGITAL MARKETING DIFFERENT FROM TRADITIONAL MARKETING?
The difference between traditional marketing and digital marketing is simple.
Traditional marketing uses offline channels, while digital marketing uses digital channels. A traditional marketing campaign, for example, may use billboards, print ads, and mailers, while a digital marketing campaign may use social media, blog posts, and email to promote a business and its offerings. In recent years, the line between “traditional marketing” and “digital marketing” has begun to blur as even traditional channels like billboards, TV ads, and direct mail have developed a digital component to them.
WHY IS DIGITAL MARKETING IMPORTANT?
1. Cost-Effective
A decade ago, due to traditional mediums, marketing was a luxury. The cost for one billboard or distributing samples was high, something, not every business could afford. Nonetheless, digital mediums have enabled all types of businesses with varied budgets or even not budgets, to market their brand on one uniform platform.
Digital marketing efforts require barely any initial investment. This is great for small businesses. Most digital marketing tools offer basic features free of cost. It is up to the businesses to make the best use of them. Check out the types of digital marketing tools.
2. High Reach
A simple rule of branding- go wherever your audience is. While understanding the importance of digital marketing, know that majority of your audience is online. Hence, marketing on digital platforms will increase your reach.
With digital marketing, the reach is global. Hence, you can take orders for your product or service from all over the world and it need not be limited to one area. And when you go global, you can still niche your audience to selected individuals. Thus, it’s a win-win.
3. Brand Awareness
Putting your brand out there on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc and social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Quora, Facebook, etc will earn you an online reputation that the entire world can see.
Digital marketing helps you create awareness of your brand and its USP (Unique Selling Proposition). If a customer has no awareness of your brand then he cannot make a conversion. To tackle this, brand visibility is extremely important. With pay-per-click and other kinds of paid promotions, you can really attract customers to your small business. We recommend this Facebook and Instagram Ads online course to understand some more.
4. Building a Customer Base
Another reason why digital marketing is important for small and large businesses is the customer base. You cannot keep a record for every person that walks in your shop or every customer who might not like your product. CRM and remarketing techniques help build customer bases.
The challenge with small businesses is that one needs to build a customer base. This is based on building a rapport with a strong customer relationship. With CRM tools such as HubSpot and Oracle, you can manage this easily.
The challenges for big businesses are slightly different. They need to retain existing businesses and focus on brand reputation, client retention, and the growth of the business.
5. Brand Image
An established company’s image is everything. The right campaign strategies can make or break a company’s brand image. Through digital marketing, effective campaigns can be designed and the scope of fixing any glitches immediately is there.
Brand image is essential for every business and with digital marketing, you will know about both positive and negative reviews.
6. Measurable Results
With digital marketing, big companies can have real-time measurable results. With this, they can analyze the effectiveness of the campaign and accordingly formulate strategies. Today, the significance of analyzing data is very important to evaluate the effectiveness and success of your campaigns.
The importance of digital marketing is majorly related to the fact that results and metrics are measurable.
7. Increase in ROI
With digital marketing, returns can be unexpectedly high if your campaigns are on the right track. Companies can increase their revenue with digital media by investing in ads and thus, increasing conversions.
The investment in digital media is much lesser than in traditional media and the returns are also higher. Did you know? You can run ads on certain digital platforms for as low as 1$.
8. Retaining Loyal Customers
The main goal of digital marketing for big businesses apart from increasing their business is ensuring that their customer base is loyal and satisfied.
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SOME EXAMPLES OF DIGITAL MARKETING
If you’re still wondering how digital marketing works in real life, here are a few practical examples.
1. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, also called search advertising, is a type of digital marketing that empowers you to pay only for the clicks you get on your ad. PPC campaigns involve a thorough search and analysis of keywords relevant to your product or service. You can use applications such as Google AdWords or Google Keyword Planner for your keyword research.
Among the most common types of PPC providers is Google Ads. The quality score of your website will determine whether you get a spot on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).
Other channels that use PPC include Sponsored Messages on LinkedIn and paid Facebook ads.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO utilizes tactics that help you rank higher on SERPs so you can reach more potential customers. On-page SEO is everything you do on your website to win clients including engaging content and great website design.
Off-page SEO is everything you do outside the website including the use of backlinks. SEO can help you optimize your digital presence and increase conversion rates when you act as a blogger for your website’s content.
3. Email Marketing
Email marketing is a fantastic way to boost interest and awareness from potential clients that already like your business enough to join your mailing list.
A smart digital marketer uses a variety of marketing channels to add leads to their email list. To build an email list, you need to create engaging content for your target customers so they can see the value of hearing what you have to say.
When you send out emails to the people on your email list, you need to write enticing subject lines and define the best time to send emails.
The contents of your emails can be:
- General newsletter information from your business
- New product and or service announcements
- Special event invitations.
- Coupons and special offers
The idea is to use your emails to nurture your client relationships and improve customer retention.
4. Video Marketing
Video is a wonderful medium for conducting a marketing campaign that showcases your products or services. High-quality video content helps increase customer engagement and boosts website traffic.
YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google with more than two billion users. Lots of potential customers search for information on YouTube before making a purchasing decision.
You can use video marketing on YouTube or Facebook to demonstrate products or services and educate your viewers.
5. Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social media has dominated digital media lately. According to Statista, as of 2021 there are 3.78 billion social media users worldwide.
Popular social media channels include:
- YouTube
The greatest benefits of social media are its accessibility and affordability. When you market on these platforms, your aim should be to create brand awareness and build social trust among your followers and the wider digital population.
If you have a WordPress website, you can streamline your digital marketing and increase engagement by adding social media plugins to your web pages.
6. Affiliate Marketing
When you do affiliate marketing, you don’t directly promote your products or services. Instead, you incentivize other content creators (affiliates) to advertise your product. You give affiliates a unique link and whenever a reader clicks on it and makes a purchase, the content creator earns a commission.
7. Content Marketing
Content marketing involves creating assets that answer specific questions in a user’s mind.
Your content might include:
- Webinars
- Blogs
- Online tutorials
- E-books
- Infographics
- Podcasts
Your content marketing efforts should be geared towards providing high-quality content and relevant resources to your audience. You don’t want your content to feel like an advertisement. Instead, help people solve their problems and make decisions as they experience your brand.
How to create a digital marketing strategy
For many small businesses and beginner digital marketers, getting started with digital marketing can be difficult. However, you can create an effective digital marketing strategy to increase brand awareness, engagement, and sales by using the following steps as your starting point.
Set SMART goals
Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely (SMART) goals is crucial for any marketing strategy. While there are many goals you may want to achieve, try to focus on the ones that will propel your strategy forward instead of causing it to remain stagnant.
Identify your audience
Before starting any marketing campaign, it’s best to identify your target audience. Your target audience is the group of people you want your campaign to reach based on similar attributes, such as age, gender, demographic, or purchasing behavior. Having a good understanding of your target audience can help you determine which digital marketing channels to use and the information to include in your campaigns.
Create a budget
A budget ensures you’re spending your money effectively towards your goals instead of overspending on digital marketing channels that may not provide the desired results. Consider your SMART goals and the digital channel you’re planning to use to create a budget.
Select your digital marketing channels
From content marketing to PPC campaigns and more, there are many digital marketing channels you can use to your advantage. Which digital marketing channels you use often depends on your goals, audience, and budget.
Refine your marketing efforts
Make sure to analyze your campaign’s data to identify what was done well and areas for improvement once the campaign is over. This allows you to create even better campaigns in the future. With the help of digital technologies and software, you can obtain this data in an easy-to-view dashboard. Mailchimp’s digital marketing analytics reports will help you keep track of all your marketing campaigns in one centralized location.
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