What is Digital Marketing and How to Get Started in 2022?
Digital Marketing one of the most frequently mentioned buzzwords in marketing. We’ve been in the digital marketing business and in this introductory guide, you’ll learn what digital marketing is and how it works.
We will analyze the various digital marketing channels, examine the different digital marketing types, and show you examples of how they can work together in a digital marketing strategy.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital Marketing is a form of marketing for promoting and selling products or services on the Internet. It’s the process of leveraging different online marketing channels like search engines, social media networks, and email to reach your target audience. Through digital marketing, you can find people interested in your offering, interact with them, and build trust with your brand.
A marketing strategy allows you to leverage different digital channels–such as social media, pay-per-click, search engine optimization, and email marketing–to connect with existing customers and individuals interested in your products or services. As a result, you can build a brand, provide a great customer experience, bring in potential customers, and more.
There are a few major benefits of digital marketing:
You can focus your efforts on only the prospects most likely to purchase your product or service.
- It’s more cost-effective than outbound marketing methods.
- Digital Marketing evens the playing field within your industry and allows you to compete with bigger brands.
- Digital Marketing is measurable.
- It’s easier to adapt and change a marketing strategy.
- Digital Marketing can improve your conversion rate and the quality of your leads.
- You can engage audiences at every stage with digital marketing.
History of Digital Marketing
The term Digital Marketing was first used in the 1990s. The digital age took off with the coming of the internet and the development of the Web 1.0 platform. The Web 1.0 platform allowed users to find the information they wanted but did not allow them to share this information over the web.
Products marketed digitally are now available to customers at all times. Statistics collected by the Marketing tech blog for 2014 show that posting on social media is the top online activity in the US. The average American spends 37 minutes a day on social media. 99% of digital marketers use Facebook to market, 97% use Twitter, 69% use Pinterest and 59% use Instagram. 70% of B2C marketers have acquired customers through Facebook. 67% of Twitter users are far more likely to buy from brands that they follow on Twitter. 83.8% of luxury brands have a presence on Pinterest. The top three social networking sites used by marketers are LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
What are the Types of Digital Marketing Channels?
Digital Marketing following types:
- Online Digital Marketing.
Online marketing, also known as internet marketing, is the most common form of digital marketing where marketing of products or services/brands is done through the use of the internet.
Online marketing makes use of online digital channels to interact with people. The strategies and methods used for online marketing include email marketing, social media marketing, SEO (search engine optimization), display ads, search engine ads such as Google Ads, and much more. The goal of online marketing is to reach potential clients by means of the channels where they spend most of the time reading, searching, buying, and socializing online.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Instant Messaging Marketing
- Marketing Automation
- Content Marketing
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Native Advertising
- Email Marketing
- Online PR
- Inbound Marketing
- Sponsored Content
- Traditional Digital Marketing.
Traditional digital marketing is a type of marketing where the marketing of products/services/brands is done through the use of offline digital media such as television, radio, phone, etc.
Unlike online marketing, which leverages the power of the internet, offline media does not need the internet to successfully carry out a marketing campaign. This is why traditional digital marketing is sometimes called offline digital marketing. Both online marketing and offline marketing have different roles in digital marketing.
However, a few research on multichannel marketing shows that online and offline media can work collectively to drive higher ROI and sometimes generate more success when combined than when done separately. Although many advertisers are focusing on online digital marketing techniques for advertising but offline digital media channels are still important. The key to using offline media for marketing is knowing which offline techniques are still useful and allocating a percentage of the entire advertising fund accordingly.
3. Offline Marketing Channels
- TV Marketing
- SMS Marketing
- Radio Marketing
- Billboard Marketing
The channels described above are the most important components of digital marketing. These are the channels that can be executed through the Internet (thus the term online marketing channels) and in many cases, it’s the only ones you need to use to have a strong online presence.
The offline digital marketing channels described below are still used but they are not suitable for all companies. For example, a small business does not have the funds to advertise on TV or electronic billboards.
- TV Marketing
TV marketing is not dead, on the contrary, is a marketing channel that will experience a boost in the coming years.
Currently, TV advertising is not 100% targeted. Marketers can only make assumptions based on the statistics they have from a limited amount of people.
The adoption of Web TV will change this dramatically. Marketers will be able to target audiences based on a number of factors and make informed decisions as to what content to produce.
- SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is still an option to get in touch with potential customers, although not among the most powerful.
There are better alternatives these days like push messages on the web and mobile and also on Facebook messenger.
Nevertheless, SMS marketing can be used to get more visits to your local community store.
- Radio Marketing
Radio marketing is another tool you can utilize but not as effective as other methods. The main issue with radio marketing is that you don’t know exactly the return on your investment.
When you pay for a radio ad, you can only assume the number of people that heard the ad, based on the number of listeners the particular radio station has.
Radio marketing is still good for local businesses though and small communities that are not so affected by the social media mania.
- Billboard Marketing
Billboard marketing is considered to be part of digital marketing. Electronic billboards are available in a number of public places (think Times Square billboards or Super Bowl commercials) and it’s another more traditional channel in your digital marketing arsenal.
Why Is Digital Marketing Important?
The world today is full of people on the Internet. As more and more purchases, trades, and almost all business transactions are done online, good marketers know that they can leverage digital marketing to expand their business reach.
Digital marketing offers a lot of benefits as compared to the old marketing techniques. Some of these benefits of digital marketing are:
1. Constant Online Presence On The Internet.
In this digital age, an online presence is crucial for any business.
People today spend most of their time online on internet platforms such as social media, youtube, blogs, websites, forums, etc.
In order to stay connected with your customers, it’s important to have a strong online presence on the internet.
Digital marketing is one of the main ways to connect with an audience online on the internet.
That’s why most small and large businesses have an online presence these days and use digital marketing strategies to increase brand awareness, generate leads and sales.
Businesses and brands are leveraging the power of the internet, search engines, and social media to attract new and old customers.
Digital marketing allows companies to access customers online quickly and more easily if they employ the correct digital marketing strategies.
2. Digital Marketing Allows To Sell Products & Services Online.
Digital marketing allows you to promote and sell your products and services online. Increasing sales online is now one of the primary goals of many businesses, big and small alike.
Whether you have a small retail business or work for a huge e-commerce company, increasing sales through online platforms is actually a lot easier than traditional offline methods. There are many different ways to go about this, but the key is staying ahead of the trends.
3. Digital Marketing Is Cost-effective.
The cost of digital marketing is relatively affordable considering the potential return on investment. Digital marketing is at least 50% less expensive than old marketing strategies. It is easier and cheaper to set up a digital marketing campaign on internet platforms like Facebook, Google, etc. as compared to the old marketing strategies like advertisements in newspapers, magazines, etc.
Moreover, these digital marketing campaigns can be easily set up in minutes and run with even less oversight than a typical PR campaign would take up over the course of weeks or months. Digital marketing allows you to monitor campaigns every day and reduce the quantity of money you are spending on a certain channel if it is not demonstrating a high ROI.
The same cannot be said for conventional types of advertising techniques. It does not matter how your ad performs, it still costs the same, whether or not your ad converts for you.
4. Digital Marketing Has A Global Reach.
Every digital marketing campaign has a global reach which is a big advantage over old conventional marketing strategies. Digital marketing is not constrained by geographical boundaries and this allows companies can expand their reach internationally.
That means you can easily sell your products and services all around the world through digital marketing. This helps the brand to build popularity beyond its geographical reach in a much more efficient manner.
5. Digital Marketing Provides Instant and Highly Measurable Results.
Digital marketing can give instant results to your business in almost no time. It also allows you to measure the performance of your ad campaigns in real-time which is very important for making adjustments according to need and success.
You can view all of the metrics which may matter to your business like impressions, shares, views, clicks, and time spent on your web page, etc. So with digital marketing, you have complete power to measure your ad performance, from start to finish.
As an end result, you can adjust your strategy on the go, as against traditional marketing strategies that turn out to be too dependent on finances for even the slightest of changes in strategy.
6. Digital Marketing Delivers An Excellent Return On Investment (ROI).
When it comes to the highest return on investment (ROI) marketing channels, digital marketing dominates other marketing strategies. Return on investment (ROI) is the ratio of profit to cost. When ROI is positive, it means that you are making some profits on your investment. ROI helps you to know whether you are getting your money’s worth out of your marketing campaigns or not.
Therefore, return on investment (ROI) is a crucial part of digital marketing and in fact, it is important in almost every part of marketing. Digital marketing has proved again and again of having an excellent ROI because digital channels help you to reach more people in less time and at lower costs. If you want to see a results-driven marketing campaign, concentrate on strategies within these channels because they will deliver short and long-term revenue for your business.
7. Digital Marketing Offers Straight Communication
Digital marketing gives a straight communication route between you & client. It enables you to communicate with your clients in real-time. Most importantly, it enables them to communicate with you. Communication benefits your clients as well. Their level of engagement will also increase as they are able to communicate with you in real-time.This creates a strong sense of brand loyalty.
8. Digital Marketing Is Highly Targetable.
Digital marketing is highly targetable, which means that companies can identify their target audience and then narrow down the best strategies for reaching them. It allows you to target only those people who are most likely to buy your services or products.
It helps you to identify and target a particular audience based on their age, gender, demographics, etc, and send that audience a personalized high-converting message. If you use conventional marketing strategies like showing an advertisement in a newspaper, or in a magazine, you will have limited control over those who see your ad.
Of course, you’ll be able to measure certain demographics, like the magazine readership, etc, but it is still a shot in the dark.
9. Digital Marketing Offers Professionalization Capabilities.
Digital marketing offers personalized customer experiences that generate more conversions as well as higher sales and revenue levels. It lets you collect buyer data in a way that conventional marketing cannot. Data gathered digitally is way more accurate and specific. With digital marketing, all the data is at your fingertips.
It delivers personal experiences based on a client’s previous actions, purchase history, demographics, age, gender, browsing behavior, etc. Personalization is important because each individual has different needs so marketers can personalize content or messages based on customer preferences, demographics, etc.
10. Easy Conversions.
You can get easy and convenient conversions using digital marketing. Since people spend most of their time on Internet platforms such as social media, blogs, etc, promoting your products online to potential customers will increase their engagement levels and thus improve conversion rates.
It has been noted that conversion rates are usually higher in online platforms when compared to conventional channels like print media where only 0.04% of readers convert into customers while there is no cost involved for printing or distribution.
Digital marketing lets your customers take action immediately after viewing your advertisement.With conventional marketing, probably the most immediate result you can hope for is a telephone call shortly when somebody views your advertisement.
Popular Digital Marketing Strategies
There are various strategies that companies use in digital marketing.Some of the most popular forms can include the following:
Online Digital Marketing Strategies.
Here are some popular online digital marketing strategies:
1. Blogging.
Blogging is the process of making and maintaining a blog. A blog is a type of website that focuses on written content in the form of blog posts.
Blogs should be focused on relevant topics and their content should be high quality in order to attract an audience, promote products or services, and provide valuable insight. Blogging is best done by uploading photos and videos to your blog and using keywords and relevant tags to increase visibility. Understanding how to leverage keywords can help you get more search engine traffic that will hopefully convert into sales.
2. Affiliate Marketing.
Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s or company’s products and services. Affiliate marketers are paid a commission for making the sale for a company.
They can effectively market products for the company by sharing affiliate links on their websites and other digital platforms like social media, forums, etc. In return, any sales generated from their affiliate links earn them a commission.
Affiliate marketing is also called ‘performance-based marketing’ because it is not based on the number of impressions or views, but rather on the number of conversions (i.e. the number of sales generated).
3. Email Marketing.
Marketing that is done through the use of emails is called email marketing. It’s mainly used for brand awareness and to generate leads and sales. Emails can be utilized to promote products, services, content, blog posts, affiliate links, etc.
Email marketing is often considered a direct form of marketing. A lot of companies use it to communicate directly with their customers. It allows anyone to create and send personalized and targeted messages to their clients. Email marketing not only helps to make sales but also helps to build loyalty towards the brand.
The types of emails in an email marketing campaign are:
Blog subscription newsletters.
Follow-up emails.
Customer welcome emails.
Promotional emails.
Email automation: an automated series of emails for customer nurturing.
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Search engine optimization refers to the process that you need to follow in order to rank your website higher on the search engine results page for keywords and phrases that are related to your business.
The main goal of SEO is to drive free organic traffic to your website from search engines like Google, Bing, etc. People actively use search engines to find products and services.
If your website ranks high on those search results, you will receive organic traffic that could generate leads and sales. The more keywords you rank for and the higher you rank, the more people will visit your site from search engines and the more leads and sales you will generate.
There are a lot of SEO techniques you can do in order to get qualified traffic to your website. Some important SEO techniques are discussed below!
The Main SEO Techniques Are:
1. On-page SEO.
On-page SEO is a type of search engine optimization technique focuses on the entire content that exists on the web page of a website.
By researching and including the right keywords in your article or your webpage will boost the search engine ranking of your website and you will start receiving traffic to your site from search engines like Google, Bing, etc.
2. Off-page SEO.
This type of search engine optimization technique focuses on the entire activity that takes place off the page when you are looking to optimize your website. The off-page SEO activity is inbound links to your website, also called backlinks.
The number of publishers that link to your website, and the authority of those publishers who linked to your site, have an effect on how high your site will rank in the search engines for the keywords that you care about.
You can do partnerships with other publishers, write guest posts on their websites and link back to your website from other publisher’s sites, and this generates external attention and better ranking on search engines.
3. Technical SEO.
Technical SEO is a type of search engine optimization technique focuses on the backend of your website, and the way your web pages are coded.
Image compression, structured data, and CSS file optimization are all types of technical search engine optimization that can increase your website’s loading speed which is an essential ranking factor in the eyes of search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
5. Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
Search engine marketing is a digital marketing strategy that requires companies to pay some amount to search engine companies so that they can increase their visibility in search engine results.
The main difference between search engine optimization and search engine marketing is that search engine marketing requires payment to increase visibility in search engine results. Your website will be visible in search engine results only as long as you are paying money to search engine companies. Your website will stop showing in search engine results as soon as you stop paying money to search engine companies.
Popular SEM channels are:
- Bing ads.
- Yahoo ads
- Google ads. etc
6. Content Marketing.
Content marketing refers to marketing that is done via content creation. A strategic marketing approach focuses on creating and sharing valuable, relevant, and consistent content that will attract and retain customers.
In content marketing, you are providing useful and valuable content that is relevant to the audience to help them solve their problems and at last, you pitch your products or services to them. It is a really good marketing approach to promote a product or service.
Content creation can be done in the form of blog posts, publishing articles online, ebooks, infographics, etc. Some of the important content marketing techniques are discussed below!
The Best Content Marketing Techniques Are:
1. Blog Posts.
Writing and publishing articles on your own blog or other publishers or company’s websites can help you to show your industry expertise to their audience and generate organic traffic for your business.
In the end, this gives you additional opportunities to convert website traffic into leads for your sales team.
2. Ebooks.
Ebooks help you to educate your website visitors. Additionally, you can generate leads for your business by giving ebooks to your website visitors in exchange for their contact information such as name, email, phone number, etc. Once leads are generated, you can convert them into customers.
3. Infographics.
Infographics are a type of visual content such as an image, video, etc that helps your website visitors to visualize a concept that you want them to learn.
7. Social Media Marketing (SMM).
Marketing that is done through social media is called social media marketing. It is a very popular form of marketing. Brands use this form of marketing to promote their products and services on social media.
Also, this makes the consumer aware of the brand, while driving traffic to their website and generating leads and sales. There are many social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc to use for social media marketing and have proved to be successful in driving sales. Some popular social media platforms are listed below!
The common social media platforms for marketing are:
8. Influencer Marketing.
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that is done by influencers-individuals who have a dedicated audience and are considered experts within their niche. Influencers have a huge following on digital platforms such as social media, blogs, websites, youtube, etc. They have a dedicated audience, and companies use these influencers to access their audiences.
Any endorsement and product mention from the influencer can drive sales and traffic, as the influencers are usually seen to be knowledgeable about the products they are advertising.
9. Video Marketing.
Marketing that is done through the use of videos is called Video marketing. Videos are increasingly watched by consumers online on platforms like YouTube, so using videos to increase sales is a great digital marketing strategy.
Videos can motivate consumers to buy products or services and generate more traffic for the company’s website. Some popular video marketing platforms are listed below!
Common Video marketing channels:
- YouTube.
- TikTok.
- Vimeo. Etc.
10. Pay Per Click (PPC).
PPC stands for pay per click and is a technique of driving traffic to your blog or website by paying a fee every time when your advertisement is clicked. It involves advertisers paying a sum each time when an ad they have displayed online is clicked.
This is a perfect way to drive traffic to your site because you are only paying when someone clicks on your ad. Some popular PPC channels are listed below!
Some common PPC channels are:
Offline Digital Marketing Strategies. Here are some popular offline digital marketing strategies: In order to undertake digital marketing efficiently there are certain things you need to do:
1. Define Your Goal.
When you just starting out in digital marketing, it’s crucial that you first identify and define your goals, since you’ll make your strategies based on those goals.
For example, if your goal is to build brand awareness, you might want to focus more on reaching new audiences through social media.
If your goal is to increase your product sales, you might want to pay more attention to SEO and optimizing content to attract potential customers to your website in the first place.
No matter what your goal is, it’s easier to develop a digital marketing strategy after you’ve determined what your goals are and what you are aiming for.
2. Find Your Target Audience.
Once you have decided on your goals, it’s time to find the right audience for your business.You need to target only the audience that falls in your business category.
For example, if you are selling wheelchairs you would want to target people who use or need wheelchairs, you probably don’t want to target runners.
Digital marketing campaigns work extremely well if you can identify your target audience.
3. Decide On A Platform.
You should choose a platform to start digital marketing.
The easiest way to do digital marketing is by starting a blog.
You can make a blog like mine on Bluehost for just $3.95/month.
4. Manage Your Budget.
Some forms of digital marketing can cost less than others. For example, search engine optimization (SEO) might not cost as much as search engine marketing (SEM). Set your budget before you begin your digital marketing campaign.
5. Balance Between Free And Paid Digital Services.
Building a successful digital marketing campaign requires utilizing both free and paid strategies. Paid digital marketing strategies work best alongside free ones.
Paid digital marketing strategies are great as they can give quick results but it’s recommended that you focus on building your organic reach with content, search engine optimization, and social media for a more sustainable long-term success.
When in doubt, experiment with both paid and free digital marketing strategies to see which one works best for your business.
6. Optimization For Mobile.
One key component of digital marketing is mobile marketing. With smartphone usage at an all-time high, it is no surprise that more and more companies are determined to market their products and services through mobiles and tablets.
Smartphone use accounts for 69% of all digital media consumption in the US, while digital media consumption on desktops is less than half. So you need to optimize for mobiles in order to succeed.
Optimizing your ads, websites, etc for mobile means you could potentially create huge brand awareness and drive sales.
7. Keyword Research.
Effective keyword research is essential to digital marketing. Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing the keywords or search terms that people type into the search engine like Google, Bing, etc.
Conducting keyword research is vital for optimizing your website and content for search engine optimization. This ensures that consumers find you through search engines like Google.
dditionally, keyword research for digital marketing campaigns on social media can be useful for marketing your products or services on social media platforms, as well.
Any high-performing keywords related to your products should be noted and included in your digital marketing content.
8. Iterate Based On Measurable Analytics.
Any digital marketing team needs to be able to analyze the figures. Analytics can help you to identify:
Which digital marketing strategy is working and which is not working for you.
Which strategy is working the best.
Which platform is performing the best.
Which of your websites has enough traffic.
And many other things.
If your digital marketing strategy is not performing well then ask yourself why this might be and change your strategy. Some Tips To Help You To Become A Successful Digital Marketer.
If you want to run a successful digital marketing campaign then the following tips will help you:
1. Know Your Customer.
This is one of the most important aspects of digital marketing. You need to know your customer in order to serve them the best you can with digital marketing techniques. Find out who your customer is, what they want, and the best way to reach them.
There is no point in spending time and money on a digital marketing campaign that targets the wrong consumers.
2. Create Meaningful Content.
Content is king!
This may seem like a no-brainer too, but it’s important to remember that your digital marketing content needs to be meaningful and accurate when you are creating them.
The more relevant they are for what the customer wants or needs in their life, the better chance of converting them into a long-term client. Don’t only focus on content that sells your product.
You need to make sure that you do not alienate potential customers. The best way to approach your content is to keep it authentic. If you are selling bikes, then write blog posts about something which provides information and value to people like the benefits of cycling, and at the end, recommend a bike.
This will help the consumer to build a relationship based on knowledge. Develop your content so that there is some information before your product ads.
3. Tailor Your Content.
Tailor your content to a specific customer. This is the way you will make them happy and keep them coming back for more of what they want from you.
This tip sounds like it’s pretty straightforward, but many people forget about this one when creating digital marketing strategies. Your content needs to be tailored specifically for each customer in order to make them happy.
4. Long-Term Focus.
It’s easy to get caught up in the short-term benefits of digital marketing. It’s exciting and can give you an instant boost, but if you focus on long-term rewards instead it will bring much more value to your business over time.
So, make sure you are not only aiming for short-term rewards. The best digital campaigns are those that reap long-term rewards. You want to ensure that you generate enough demand for the product in an ongoing way and not just for this week.
5. Search Engine Optimization(SEO).
SEO is a huge part of digital marketing and essential for any business that wants an online presence. As already discussed, SEO can help you to rank your website higher in search engine results and enable you to reach your audience quickly.
It increases organic traffic to your website that can generate leads and sales for your business. Your content plays an important part in the SEO of your site. However, it’s about more than just writing content that is long and keyword-heavy.
There are a number of other factors involved in SEO, such as the number of backlinks pointing to your site, which keywords you use in your content, how well written your content is for readers, etc.
6. Analytics Review.
It’s important to review your analytics periodically so you can see which digital marketing tactics are working and which are not working. You need to review the performance of your digital marketing strategy. The analytics review will identify any mistakes that you are making and also any successes.
If something is not working then you should be able to see it in the analytics review, and you should then change your strategy. Analytics will help you make better decisions in the future, by allowing you to focus on those strategies that work best for your business.
7. Flexibility.
Flexibility is key when it comes to digital marketing. It’s important to be flexible when carrying out your digital marketing efforts because the business world is dynamic and ever-changing.
You should constantly be monitoring what is happening and implementing new strategies in response as needed. You should be able to adapt quickly in order to stay on top of trends and changes within this space.
8. Consistency.
As with anything, consistency is key to success. It’s important to be consistent with your digital marketing strategy, as it will help you achieve better results.
If you change tactics too often or don’t have a proper digital marketing plan, then you’ll find that the quality of your work and its effectiveness will diminish over time.
That’s why make a proper digital marketing plan and be consistent in your digital marketing strategy. If you are using different online platforms, make sure that your message is not diluted.
9. Personalize.
Personalization is a great way to make your business stand out. It is one of the most effective ways to increase conversion rates and drive leads is by personalizing your digital marketing strategy.
Evidence shows that over 40% of consumers will switch brands if they feel there has been poor online service and personalization.
Personalization can be in the form of targeting customers with customized promotions or offers, providing customer service that meets their needs, tailoring content for them so they find it more useful and relevant, etc.
Make sure that your content can be customized for each and every customer – this means having the ability to easily change information like text, images, etc., based on what would work best for them. Also, make sure your customers feel valued.
Conclusion.
There is no doubt that digital marketing is crucial if you want to generate online income and sales. It is an excellent way for reaching global audiences online.
Start with a good digital marketing plan using the tips above, and make sure you are strategic in your digital marketing approach. If you do not take a strategic approach, you will not reap the full rewards of digital marketing.
So don’t waste any time and get started with Agency DM & Let us responsible for the success of your business.