What Digital Marketing Is and Why Your Business Needs It Today
- Knowing how accessible the Internet is now, would you believe me if I said that the number of people joining the World Wide Web is growing daily?
- In fact, in the last three years alone, the number of “regular” users among the adult audience has increased by 5%.
- The Internet has significantly changed and continues to change the way people live and the way they make decisions. Shopping methods are no exception.
- Life smoothly flows online. This means that offline marketing is already less effective. Marketing today is taking on a different form with the use of digital technology.
- The goal of marketing has always been to meet with the target audience at the right time and in the right place. Therefore, today you need to meet her where she lives – on the Internet.
- Therefore, if you are not yet using digital marketing tools in your business, now are the time to rethink your approach to promoting your business and adopt tools that help you do business online.
What is digital marketing?
- Digital marketing is a set of marketing activities using various digital tactics tools and communication channels to communicate with the target audience, where potential customers spend most of their time – online.
- Some several tactics and tools fall under the heading of digital marketing. This is the company’s website itself and digital marketing channels – online promotion and customer acquisition channels: SEO, online advertising, and email marketing, sales funnel, content marketing, and teaser advertising, SMM, etc.
- A business that uses different digital marketing channels can interact with the target audience much more efficiently and promptly, thereby continually increasing the number of new customers and audience loyalty to the brand.
Digital marketing tactics and examples
- The best digital marketers have a clear understanding of how each digital marketing campaign supports the overall goals of the company as part of brand promotion. And depending on the goals of their marketing strategy, marketers can scale up their campaigns with both paid and free channels.
- For example, a content marketer might write a series of blog posts to help generate leads based on a new eBook recently released by a company.
- A social media marketer (SMM manager) will “promote” these blog posts through paid and organic posts on company profiles.
- The email marketer will compose emails detailing the company and send them to those who downloaded the e-book.
- I’ll talk about all the specializations of digital marketers a little later.
- Here’s a quick rundown of the most common digital marketing tactics and the channels that each uses.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization of your site (aka SEO optimization) will help it occupy higher positions in search results. This increases the volume of organic (free) traffic.
SEO tools:
- Web sites;
- blogs;
- infographics.
Content marketing
- This term implies the creation and promotion of content to increase brand awareness, traffic growth, and communication with the target audience, generating leads and attracting new customers.
- Content marketing is considered one of the most effective and yet underrated tools for promoting an online business.
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Channels for implementing your content marketing strategy:
- blog posts;
- e-books and articles;
- podcasts;
- vlogs;
- lead magnets ;
- infographics;
- Online brochures and catalogues.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
This type of marketing aims to promote your brand and your content on social media. It can be used to increase your brand awareness, increase traffic, and generate leads.
Channels used by social media marketing (SMM):
- Facebook;
- Twitter;
- LinkedIn;
- Instagram;
- Snapchat;
- Pinterest.
Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
- PPC is an excellent method of driving traffic to your website. Its essence is that for each click on your ad, you pay a commission to the site owner or service provider.
- One of the most common types of PPC is Google AdWords. It allows you to place banner and search ads (contextual advertising). Payment is made using the same system – per click.
Paid advertising channels:
- contextual and search advertising in Google AdWords
- paid ads on Facebook;
- Twitter advertising tweets;
- LinkedIn advertising messages.
Native advertising
- The essence of native advertising is reflected in its name – it fits perfectly into the context of the platform it is hosted on. Native ads do not contrast with the site content and look like “native” content.
- An excellent example of native advertising is BuzzFeed. There is also a widespread belief that advertising on social networks (Facebook or Instagram) is also native.
Marketing automation
Marketing automation involves the use of special software that automates your basic marketing operations. You can save time and labour by automating recurring tasks:
- mailing lists;
- posting schedule on social networks;
- updating the contact list;
- professional development of leads;
- lead scoring ;
- Control over the results of the advertising campaign and reporting.
Email marketing
Companies are using email marketing as a way to communicate with their audience. Email is often used to promote content, talk about discounts and events, and direct people to a company website.
What types of messages can you send?
- subscription to news portals;
- regular mailing of letters to site visitors who have already downloaded something;
- welcome messages to new customers;
- holiday promotions for members of the loyalty program;
- Tips or a similar series of letters to strengthen customer contact.
Despite the rather long age of this tool, email marketing remains one of the most effective channels for promoting a business and increasing sales.
Online-PR
Online PR provides a broad audience reach through digital publications, blogs, and other content sites. It is very similar to traditional PR but in the online space.
To make your PR strategy more effective, digital marketers use:
- PR outreach;
- online reviews of goods and services;
- Comments and reviews on websites or blogs.
Inbound marketing
- Inbound marketing brings together all of the above marketing tactics. It aims to attract, engage and satisfy customers through content.
- Unlike the old method of attracting customers, when companies tried to reach out to potential customers and tell about their products, inbound marketing involves an integrated approach to grab the attention of the target audience by creating and distributing useful content online.
- Thus, marketing turns out to be inbound, because thanks to content in different formats and on various platforms, people find your company themselves and want to become your customers themselves.
The process goes something like this:
- The person has a problem that he wants to solve.
- He begins his search for a solution by searching for relevant information on Google.
- He uses Google to find useful articles, research, tips on your blog.
- In the process of interacting with your content, a person realizes that your company is an expert in their field and provides a product that could help him solve the problem and help him achieve his goal.
- The person decides to become your client and places an order.
In this way, you can attract hundreds and thousands of customers every day, because, unlike offline marketing, digital inbound marketing is not limited by location or time of day. Inbound marketing is based on a high – quality content strategy, which directly creates the basis for attracting the attention of the target audience in this way. This is all made possible by the correct use of digital technology.
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