A Simple Guide to Digital Marketing

As Brian Solis puts it, “Each business is a victim of Digital Darwinism, the evolution of consumer behaviour when society and technology evolve faster than the ability to exploit it. Digital Darwinism does not discriminate. Every business is threatened.”

 

Digital marketing has evolved as a vital element for any business or organization and also for brand recognition. At the present time, digital marketing has become so prevalent that it is expected by customers and depends on it greatly to know about any brand. Therefore, almost every brand has its own website, and it hasn’t then it has a social media appearance or digital advertising scheme. 

 

Digital marketing is simply the implementation of the Internet, mobile devices, social media, search engines, etc to reach customers. It can be considered as a new method of approaching customers and novel ways of knowing customer behaviour as compared to conventional marketing.

 

In this blog, we will be mainly discussing the concept of digital marketing, the key digital marketing channels, how digital marketing can benefit any brand, and many more. We will also look at some core fields where digital marketing is being used. Without further delaying, let’s discuss a fancy buzzword, Digital Marketing!!!!!

 

What is Digital Marketing?

 

In simple terms, digital marketing is the extensive advertising of products, or brands and services through the internet or electronic devices. It particularly involves text messaging, instant messaging, apps, products, videos, audios, electronic billboards, radio channels, digital television, etc.

 

Heretofore, conventional marketing has tools like print ads, phone communication, or physical marketing, where digital marketing may take place electronically and online with the help of the internet. Therefore, many brands use online mode to engage with their customers through email, video, social media, and search engines, etc.

 

Also Read | 6 Ways in which AI is revolutionizing Digital Marketing

 

“To continue winning the internet marketing game, your content has to be more than just brilliant, it has to give the people consuming that content the ability to become a better version of themselves.” – Michelle Stinson Ross

 

Digital marketing focuses a specified domain of the customers, basically, it includes search result ads, email ads, and promoted reviews that incorporate marketing efforts with customer feedback or a two-side interaction amid the company and customer. 

 

Broadly speaking, digital marketing deploys several channels and technologies letting a company examine marketing campaigns, content and strategies in order to understand what is working and what is not in real-time. 

 

For fortunate digital marketing, it demands to be a marketing tool being used online for promotion/advertisement. Though many people haven’t recognized the various sort of assets used for digital marketing, for example, a website, branded assets such as logos, icons, video content, images like infographics, company photos, written content including blog posts, product descriptions, testimonials, reviews, social media pages, and some online tools.

 

In the digitalized era, digital marketing also holds some challenges for their stewards, for example, digital channels are engendering very quickly, where digital marketers need to pay attention to keep these channels working up, how to implement these channels effectively for their products and services, how such channels are being deployed by audiences, etc. But with the time, it is increasingly becoming difficult to seize the customer’s attention as they are massively engulfed with competing ads. 

 

In addition to that, marketers recognize it more challenging to evaluate the extensive data captured and then exploit it in the context of marketing campaigns. However, the difficulty in capturing and analyzing data for extracting interference depicts that digital marketing demands a way for marketing depending upon the broad understanding of consumer behaviour.

 

Also Read | Data Handling and Digital Marketing to maximise customer experience

 

Who Uses Digital Marketing?

 

Several organizations in each industry are deploying digital marketing, from optimizing content and customizing proposals to regulating associations across channels, in order to upgrade the customer experience. Below are some particular fields where digital marketing is being implemented broadly;

 

1. Retail

In the retail industry, retailers implement digital marketing to identify who their potential customers are and understand their purchasing behaviour in real-time that leads to enabling retailers expanding personalized purchasing experience presenting to each customer.

 

 

2. Telecom, Media & Technology

In the Telecom, Media & Technology (TMT) industry, from excelling segment to automate marketing text to deciphering social media discussion and call centre transcripts, digital marketing supports organizations for designing customized, connected offers that could help in reducing expensive churn.

 

 

3. Small & Medium scale businesses

Although small and medium scale businesses don’t have extended marketing departments or resources, yet using digital marketing for operating and automating campaigns, evaluating what’s working smoothly, and making improvements precisely.

 

 

4. Banking

As the banks increase their branches swiftly and expanding investments across mobile platforms, digital marketing has turned out to be a significant relief in terms of in-person communications. With extensively led segments and personalized proposals, banks are observing imperative increment in response rates and lead generation.

 

 

5. Sports

In order to improve revenue through analyzing granting, commodities and ticket sales for each and every sporting event, the sports industry uses the approach of digital marketing to identify insights and update marketing and promotional strategies consequently.

 

Also Read | Role of Business Intelligence in the Sports Industry

 

 

6. Public Sector Organizations

Undoubtedly, public sector organizations are deploying digital marketing broadly in order to understand the requirements of people, promote conversations and recognize most favourable segments of interest in public programs and services. (From)

 

What are the Benefits of Digital Marketing?

 

Each company has its own objectives, and some of them are attempting to attain progress in the context of connecting consumers and persuading them to purchase. Today, digital marketing is the need of every business, so it is crucial to understand the benefits of digital marketing, that covers; 

 

1. It reduces costs and has immense flexibility for any marketing efforts.

2. It makes awareness and engagement easier for both before and after-sale.

3. It can make access to customers simple who depend on their mobile phones or conduct their purchasing online as it has the capability to track the purchasing drive off customers. 

4. Digital marketing has the potential to remark your product or services with authority in front of customers that provides an opportunity to connect with them, earn their trust and get them to support a company.

5. It incorporates numerous types of media into marketing that supports converting new purchasers into keen followers who could buy more.

6. It can make a consumer's journey short by delivering appropriate offers at the right time.

7. Using digital marketing, one can reach a gigantic audience by the approach which is economical and determinable.

 

Also Read | How Digital Technology Helps in the Education Industry

 

What are the Types (Channels) of Digital Marketing?

 

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

 

Broadly, SEO is the method of optimizing the content, technical configuration, and the organic reach of a website, to such an extent that the website can appear at the top search engine results for a particular set of keywords. SEO implementation can bring visitors to websites while they search for relevant products, also organic online traffic can be earned through search engine optimization. Via employing appropriate keywords and phrases, SEO can extend the visibility of a product and initiate a long-lasting connection with customers. 

 

SEO contains on-page and off-page activities to enhance the visibility of a website in search engine result pages for preferred keywords. As SEO increases the rank of a website across online search engines, and so its organic site traffic by using famous keywords or phrases. It comprises blogs, infographics, and websites.

 

 

2. Content Marketing

 

Externally, content marketing is not just promoting in nature but can teach and motivate consumers who are looking for information or demands brand awareness. While delivering content associated with the audience, the company or brand is accounted as a trustworthy source of information, and making marketing efforts worthwhile. At the time of self-directed marketing, content marketing can achieve more lead than any paid search advertising. 

 

The fundamental aim of content marketing is to communicate with potential customers via the implementation of content that generally gets published on a website and then promoted by social media, email marketing, SEO, or even PPC campaigns. It comprises the tools as blogs, ebooks, online courses, infographics, podcasts, and webinars.

 

 

3. Social Media Marketing

 

Adopting social media marketing can propagate brands or relevant content on social media channels in order to build brand awareness, direct traffic, and generate leads for the business. It plays a significant role in promoting video marketing and transits the content wave. 

 

It is simply a two-way communication amid the company/brand and fans & followers on the content through likes, comments, direct messages and by posting on official web pages. Social media marketing incorporates Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest and Instagram where a company can share content through organic or paid channels.

 

Also Read | What is LinkedIn Analytics?

 

 

4. Pay Per Click (PPC)

 

PPC is the procedure of converting traffic towards a website when a website’s ad is clicked and by each click publisher gets payment. PPC advertising makes marketers reach users over various digital platforms via paid ads. Marketers can arrange PPC campaigns on Google, Bing, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook and advertise their ads to users searching for related terms in the particulars of products or services. 

 

It can segment users on the basis of their demographic features such as age or gender, interests or locations. For example, Google Ads that lets us pay for top slots on search engine results of Google at a price of per click for the links used to place. Other platforms where PPC is being used are paid ads on Facebook, Twitter ads campaign, sponsored text on LinkedIn, etc.

 

 

 

5. Affiliate Marketing

 

Affiliate marketing refers to the performance-based advertising the payment is being received for promoting a product or service at another platform or a website, simply the commission-based sales. Many companies provide personalized links to their affiliates and affiliates earn a commission when someone purchases their personalized link. It involves entertaining video ads like via YouTube program and posting sponsored links from any social media account. 

 

 

6. Marketing Automation 

 

Marketing automation signifies the sort of software automating elementary marketing operations. It has evolved as an integral part of binding all the digital marketing together. Marketing automation software centralizes and automates the marketing tasks and workflows, determines outcomes and measures the return on investment (ROI) of digital marketing campaigns and assists in boosting revenue. 

 

Marketing automation could aid in analyzing and obtaining meaningful insights to identify whether marketing plans are working or not, and deliver structured methodologies enabling brands to articulate efforts of digital marketing at the baseline of a company. With it, various marketing departments can now automate repetitive tasks that they used to do manually, for example, email newsletters, social media post scheduling, lead-feeding system, and campaign tracking and reporting. 

 

 

7. Email Marketing

 

Email marketing signifies the methodology of managing the database of contacts and emailing them message alerts in the context of brands, products and services. It is a fruitful approach to communicating with large audiences and is beneficial for making a subscriber base, attending novel users, retaining existing customers, promoting discounts, offers, and events and sharing content. 

 

The types of emails include blog subscription newsletters, follow-up emails to website visitors, welcome emails to customers, holiday advertisements to loyalty program members, identical series of emails for customer pieces of training. Successful email campaigns should be amazingly engaging, associated, informative, and entertaining. And for it, email content must be accurate, consistent, conversational, connected across channels, and imperative.

 

 

8. Mobile Marketing 

 

Mobile devices have become a critical part of our lives, and constantly monitoring throughout the day makes mobile devices a marketing asset or you could say marketing at mobile has become incredibly significant. Presently, brands are connecting their users through their smartphones via mobile apps, emails, mobile-friendly apps/websites, and social media, now brands can optimize their marketing efforts and send information on time.

 

Many consumers can recall any specific brand which has been advertised at mobile recently, but at the same time, mobile marketing is considered as slightly different due to its devoted nature. It comprises tools like SMS, MMS and in-app marketing to engage consumers on their devices.

 

 

9. Native Advertising 

 

Generally, native advertising uses enticing content to attract clicks, i.e., refers to the content-led advertisement and could be featured up with some non-paid content recommendations. An example of native advertising is the list of suggested articles at the bottom of every search page/ or at the end of an article. Other examples include BuzzFeed sponsored posts, Facebook advertising and Instagram advertising. 

 

 

10. Inbound Marketing

 

Referring to such a marketing procedure where a brand can bring, communicate with customers at each step of their purchasing visit, inbound marketing deploys specific marketing tactics for an enhanced customers’ experience that work with them, not against. Some examples of inbound marketing are blogging, video marketing, and email contact lists. 

 

Conclusion

 

Being a vital regimen, Digital marketing demands to be integrated with extraordinary strategies piece by piece in order to achieve tremendous growth for a business or brand. From small firms to medium and large scale multi-location organizations are vastly deploying the cookies-butter of digital marketing, budget-friendly, to offer their product and services through its several modes or channels. 

 

Digital marketing is the one-size-fits approach for obtaining quick results reckoning on requirements, response and budget.
 

“When people ask me what’s the ROI of Social, I ask them… what’s the ROI of Trust, and what’s the ROI of Loyalty. The answer, when used to build relationships the results will be… longer lifetime value of a customer, larger average order value, and increased frequency of purchase. All measurable and all lead to increased sales and profits.” – Ted Rubin

 

Also Read | Driving Digital Transformation with Data Science

 

With digital marketing, a business can augment into new areas, and achieve tremendous accomplishments in your industry. It provides various business services and products with the favourable circumstances to market brands 24/7 at lowest cost along with expanding niche market meet to target audiences for offering goods and services, regardless of time differences and location.