First propagated as a term commonly used in the early 2000s, digital marketing has been around much longer. May be, around 100 years ago, to be precise. Digital marketing or Internet advertising or Online marketing, is the act of advertising and selling products and services by using online marketing tactics like search engine marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing. In this Beginners Guide to Digital Marketing, we will discuss everything about digital marketing including what it is, how it works, and what are the different strategies one should use.
In simple language, digital marketing is just marketing, but with different online strategies. This is how today, most of the businesses are giving their message to their customers.
The first important rule is to make the right offer at the right point of time and yes, in the right place, Today, most of your customers are online: they are present in social media, they keep themselves updated by reading latest news and blogs and nowadays, most of them buy whatever they need online.
Online marketing puts you in those similar channels, so that your prospects can find you, know more about you, and can even clear their queries about your products and services.
If you are a newbie to digital marketing, you may feel overwhelmed by thinking about how to master different online marketing tactics used in online marketing.
It is natural…..
There are various tactics that you must learn. But, all of them work together to build a foundation for your business: attracting customers, nurturing relationships, and making interesting offers that your audience will like and respond to.
Before we get into the different digital marketing strategies and how it works, let us first understand how digital marketing is different from traditional marketing.
Digital marketing and traditional marketing share the similar fundamental objective: identifying a target audience and their requirements, connecting the audience to various products that fill those requirements, and encouraging those audiences to follow through with buying products, However, connecting with customers in a virtual space involves various methods of connection compared to traditional marketing. Here are some of the vital differences:
Traditional Marketing consists of:
Reaching locally targeted audiences- like buying print or broadcast marketing that runs in certain geographic areas. Manufacturing physical marketing materials like catalogs, flyers, and brochures. Depending on various traditional delivery channels- feel familiar delivery techniques like newspaper, television, radio ads, and magazine, voice sales calls, and mailed ads.
In-person advertising events- creating a brand presence at conventions, seminars, conferences, etc.
Digital Marketing consists of:
Modifying an audience from a worldwide population- Digital customers can be reached anywhere with internet access, signifying online marketers can fine-tune their audiences utilizing demographics that fit their campaign in the best manner.
Customer communication- Unlike passive traditional marketing, online marketers can communicate directly with their customers through forums like social media accounts, interactive quizzes, and website comment sections.
Utilizing different delivery channels depending on the audience preferences and needs- Dynamic web content permits online marketers to provide their customers a wide range of delivery channels, including Instagram posts, YouTube videos, marketing emails, and blog articles, then allowing the customer engage with those channels that they find to be interesting.
Online marketing events- Like conventions and conferences involved in traditional marketing, online marketers host different types of online events like product demonstrations, courses, and webinars, which prospects can attend live classes or watch afterward on demand.
How Digital Marketing Works?
In numerous ways, digital marketing is not much different from traditional marketing. In both forms of marketing, smart companies seek to develop mutually beneficial relationships with leads, customers, and prospects. However, digital marketing has replaced most of the traditional marketing tactics as it is created to reach today’s customers.
Like for example,
Think about the last significant purchase which you had made. Maybe you bought a home, hired someone to fix your roof or bought groceries. Whatever it was, you possibly started by searching the internet to know more about the different available solutions, who provided them, and what were the best choices. Your ultimate purchasing decision was based on the reviews that you had read, the opinion of your friends and family, and you had researched pricing, solutions, and features.
Most of the buying decisions start online.
An online presence is necessary- regardless of what you sell.
The most important thing is to develop an online marketing strategy that puts you in all those places where your followers hang out, then utilizing different digital channels to connect with them in various ways.
Content to keep the customers updated with industry news, the issues they are facing, and how to solve those issues.
Social media to share the content and to engage with friends and followers.
Search engine optimization (SEO) to optimize your content. This will show up when a customer searches for the information about which you have written.
Running ads to gain paid traffic to your site, where consumers can see your offers
Email marketing to follow up with your customers to be sure they continue to attain the solutions they are searching for.
When all these pieces are put together, the outcome you will attain is an easy-to-operate and efficient online marketing plan. And while it may look like a daunting task to build that plan from the scratch, it is as easy and simple as learning and incorporating an online marketing tactic at a time.
Skills needed for Digital Marketing
While traditional marketing campaigns and strategies still matter for a vital part of the general marketing industry, the continuous growth and evolution of online media have forced online specific solutions for advertising online. With these solutions come certain online marketing strategies and skills.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a popular marketing jargon used for ensuring that your online content comes up when people search for that product or info online. You must have searched for something online. Let us say, for example, you want to know, “What is Digital Marketing.” When you type this in Google, you will come across many blogs and articles, but most of the time you click on the first few articles. This is what you want to happen when somebody searches for topics that are relevant to your products and services. SEO is the best way to reach there.
SEO practices are applicable to any online content, including the sales page, product descriptions, blog posts, etc, and to a website’s architecture. Some of the important SEO skills include:
- Keyword research- Using applications like Moz and Ahref to identify certain search engine terms that attract traffic to your website.
- Web traffic analysis- Utilizing tools like Google Analytics to analyze your site’s traffic and trends and understanding how to use that data to inform and evaluate your SEO practices.
- Understanding the strategy of ranking- Utilizing resources like Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines of Google to develop effective ways of enhancing your website’s rankings. Again, this includes both developing SEO optimized content and improving the architecture of your site. Architecture enhancements can include working with various web developers on problems like outdated, broken links, loading speeds, and optimizing the HTML tags.
According to the Online content marketing resource, “The Content Marketing Institute” defines content marketing as a marketing method of developing and distributing relevant, valuable, and consistent content to grab the attention of audience-with the aim of driving profitable customer action.
Online platforms provide online marketers with a unique chance to develop and deliver this type o content to their target audience daily. Rather than paying a premium of traditional advertising and airtime, an SEO optimized article or blog can be posted on the website of a company and attract several users through Google search. In addition, a content marketing strategy goes beyond the conventional ads in the sense that- in association with the definition mentioned above- it offers active value to its target audience.
The best online marketing content focuses on reading like a magazine article or play like an enlightening PSA, all with the objective of informing the customers about an issue they are facing, and how specific products and services will assist them to tackle the problem. Unlike a traditional ad with a fixed call-to-action, online marketing content can grow to match the specific point in a customer’s “buyer journey”, continuing to offer value-based on their certain needs.
The best thing about this is it keeps a digital customer engaged before, after, and during the purchase, increasing the chances that today’s customers will become buyers in the future who will not only buy products but will also refer new members after their first purchase. Online marketing content includes:
Blogs- Writings that allow you to find your customer’s issues and methods to solve them.
eBooks and guides- A longer form of resources that allow you to explore different blog topics at a great length.
Video content- Videos that cover topics that are relevant to your audiences.
Marketing emails- Product announcements and newsletters that are sent directly to potential consumers.
Podcasts- Audio content that can be hosted on your site and downloaded by your customer
As discussed above, providing a huge variety of content channels makes sure that you are offering potential clients with a channel that works for them in the best manner, rather than claiming that “one size fits all” and losing customers along the way.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media is not just meant for posting what you are going through or for participating in random online flights! While these types of social media posts might not disappear soon, the important point is that social media is also an important pillar for any online marketing strategy.
Going along the online marketing ethos of channel diversity, a powerful social media presence provides audience members a method of engaging with your brand outside your company’s website. Social media works in reverse as a method for bringing customers directly to you by following linked content on different social media platforms back to your own website or blog.
Making use of social media to advertise blog articles and product pages on your site merge with SEO efforts, as an influx of new ideas combined with SEO optimized content will cause an increase in search engine result rankings- all significant tricks of the online marketing trade.
Interested in Learning More About Digital Marketing?
Online marketing is not magic, and you do not have to be a computer genius to become an expert in it. If you provide a product or service that is in demand, you can market them successfully in different digital channels by using the online marketing strategies we discussed in this guide. If you find this digital marketing guide interesting and want to learn more about digital marketing, then join the best institute that offers digital marketing training.