Digital marketing refers to the online marketing efforts executed on platforms like Google, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. We see promotional messages on desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. These campaigns are run by businesses to promote their products and services. According to a Wordstream report, the CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of digital marketing is projected to be 9% ($786.2 billion by 2026), in which $460 billion is of US market share only.
Digital Marketing vs Traditional Marketing
Digital marketing has outperformed traditional marketing in ways no one imagined two decades ago. As more people join social media platforms, businesses of all sizes have enhanced their opportunities to benefit from this massive shift.
Social media marketing is no longer a trend but an essential part of every sensible marketer’s marketing strategy.
If you are new to digital marketing and want to make a career out of it or a business owner looking to understand digital marketing tactics that can help you scale your business, I recommend you read on.
In this article, we’ll have a look at what is digital marketing in its true essence.
Why is Digital Marketing Important?
Digital marketing has become a crucial part of the marketing mix. There are a couple of compelling reasons behind it.
The first reason is the accessibility. With 5.3 billion internet users worldwide and 331.1 million in the US alone, the internet offers a massive opportunity for companies and individuals to promote their business.
Secondly, getting in front of a massive audience after a few taps is the ultimate dream for marketers. This is a compelling factor behind traditional marketers leaving billboard advertising to join the online marketing world.
Thirdly, more exposure to online media provides a level playing field for turning visitors into customers using specific marketing tactics and strategies.
Let’s have a look at the excellent benefits of digital marketing:
Sure, here are some benefits of digital marketing:
Benefits of digital marketing at a glance
Global Reach
Digital marketing allows you to reach a vast audience worldwide, breaking geographical barriers.
Cost Effectiveness
Compared to traditional marketing methods, digital marketing is often more affordable, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes.
Targeted Advertising
Digital marketing platforms enable precise targeting, allowing you to reach specific demographics, interests, and behaviors.
Measurable Results
Digital marketing tools allow you to track and measure the performance of your campaigns in real-time, enabling you to adjust strategies for better results.
Personalization
Digital marketing allows personalized customer communication, increasing engagement and building stronger relationships.
Higher Conversion Rates
Digital marketing often leads to higher conversion rates than traditional methods through techniques like retargeting and personalized messaging.
Brand Development
A consistent online presence through digital marketing helps build brand awareness and establish your brand as an authority in your industry.
Improved Customer Insights
Digital marketing tools provide valuable data and insights into customer behavior, preferences, and trends, which can inform future marketing strategies.
Accessibility
Digital marketing allows businesses to be accessible to their audience 24/7, accommodating the needs of modern consumers who expect instant access to information and services.
Flexibility and Agility: Digital marketing campaigns can be quickly adjusted based on performance data, market changes, or emerging trends, allowing for greater flexibility and agility in marketing strategies.
B2B and B2C digital marketing
You may have been familiar with the terms B2B and B2C. For a refresher, B2B stands for business to business, while B2C means business to consumer. These two concepts have been a part of the business lingua for ages. But how do they connect in the marketing world? Let’s discuss what are the key differences between B2B and B2C marketing:
One key difference between them is that B2B marketing is based on logical decision-making, while B2C marketing is more emotionally driven.
Other differences between both approaches are as follows:
- B2B marketing is a lengthy process compared with B2C marketing.
- B2C businesses sell products/services directly to the customers, contrary to B2B businesses.
- B2B involves multiple decision-makers, while B2C purchases are instantly based on individual whims.
- B2B marketing utilizes industry language to communicate with the target audience. At the same time, B2C marketers use simple and engaging language that resonates with the audience.
Digital marketing strategies and types
Various types of digital marketing and strategies fall under the umbrella of digital marketing. These are also known as digital marketing sub-domains. They have been named in correspondence with the media on which they are used. Let’s have a look at them one by one:
- Search Engine Optimization
- Paid Advertisement
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Marketing Analytics
- Conversion Rate Optimization
- Mobile Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing
- Influencer Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO in short, is the process of making web pages appealing to search engines and visitors. It is science as well as art in itself. The steps involved in doing SEO of your website include the following in the exact sequence:
- Researching keywords
- Uploading Content
- Doing On-Page SEO
- Receiving links from other websites
Optimizing your website concerning speed and user experience
- Paid Advertisement
SEO is an organic method that attracts visitors with manual efforts. Paid ads demand some financial investment to start with. However, they yield immediate results, helping marketers tweak their campaigns as per requirements. On the other hand, seeing substantial results from an SEO campaign requires a high level of patience and time.
A popular form of advertising is Pay-Per-Click advertising, also known as PPC. In a PPC campaign, the advertiser only pays when someone clicks on the ad. The ad is displayed in the top results based on various factors, including the bid amount, selected keyword, relevancy, and ad quality.
Paid advertising is a costly method but yields significant results, which is not possible with SEO. PPC performs well with direct-response marketing campaigns where marketers try to elicit instant responses from prospects.
- Social Media Marketing
More than 60% of the world’s population uses social media now. This presents a massive opportunity for businesses to spread the word about their products. Posting content on social media has the chance of going viral, and many content creators have become influencers in this way.
- Email Marketing
According to a study by Backlinko, one dollar spent on an email marketing campaign returns $40 for the US audience and $43 for the EU audience. Emails crush social media in terms of return on investment. If you want to avoid Google and Facebook’s algorithmic shifts, I highly recommend that you start learning email marketing.
- Content Marketing
Content is the king. You may have heard that saying multiple times, and it is true. Especially when we are talking about content marketing, which revolves around crafting and distributing high-value content to your target audience in hopes of turning them into paying customers.
More than 80% of consumers expect businesses to produce entertaining and helpful and entertaining content.
Content marketing includes various formats of content that are distributed to attract prospects. Some of the commonly used content types are:
- Ebooks
- Whitepapers
- Blog posts
- Case studies
- Buyer guides
- Research articles
- Marketing Analytics
While paid ads and SEO drive traffic to your website, it is crucial to understand how the audience interacts with your content. Marketing analytics help us understand the audience’s behavior. There are various analytics tools for analyzing marketing campaigns, but the most common ones are Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
- Conversion Rate Optimization
Jeff Eisenberg stated that it’s easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate instead of your traffic. Nothing can be more true than this profound statement. A large majority of marketers are so focused on increasing traffic that they forget to work on converting already-visited traffic.
Conversion Rate Optimization includes optimizing your content assets, ad targeting, and tweaking the visual graphics and functionality of your website or landing page to enhance the conversion rate.
- Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing involves reaching out to customers on their mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, to market your services and products. According to a Pew Research report, around 97% of Americans own a cellphone. This shows the potential of smartphones for marketing purposes, which can yield massive results for your business. Mobile marketing includes communicating with your audience via SMS or MMS and in-app advertisements.
- Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the traditional forms of marketing revived by digital technology. In this methodology, businesses pay individuals and companies commissions upon the sale of their products. Affiliate networks like Clickbank, CJ, and Digistore24 work as a bridge between businesses and affiliate marketers. On the other hand, businesses also have separate affiliate programs without the intervention of 3rd party platforms.
- Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing works like affiliate marketing, with the core difference that in the former method, a person with a reasonable following endorses your brand and products. The influencer can be a celebrity, such as a showbiz star, football player, content creator, or industry expert.
Remember to choose only reputable influencers for your products, as this can make or break your brand’s image in the eyes of your customers.
How to Create a Digital marketing Strategy
Startups and small businesses are reluctant to spend huge amounts of money on marketing efforts, expecting negative ROI. This common fear has its place in the mind, and the only reason is a lack of strategy. This is where a digital marketing strategist comes into the scene to save you countless hours and bucks.
Digital marketing strategists craft an effective digital marketing strategy that keeps the team centralized and focused on a single goal. Interested in understanding how a marketing strategy is created?
Read on to get a brief overview:
Create SMART Goals
The first step in creating a compelling digital marketing strategy is setting SMART goals. You may have encountered the term multiple times. SMART stands for five words, which make a goal highly achievable if crafted according to this concept.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. It means that you should set marketing goals that are specific in nature, can be measured based on realistic grounds, are relevant to your needs, and are time-bound.
For example, instead of “increase marketing revenue in coming months,” an effective goal would be to “gain 20% increase in revenue by the end of the third quarter of 2024.” The latter seems more achievable and has a higher likelihood of success.
Understand the Audience
The second step is to understand your audience more than they understand themselves. You should know the psychographics of your target persona, not only demographics. What does that mean? It involves knowing their pain points, desires, dreams, and challenges. You should understand what makes them awake all night and hit upon that in your marketing campaigns.
Set Your Budget
Shooting an arrow in the dark will not make you succeed. It’s imperative to set a budget according to your objective and resources. Your budget should lie at the intersection of available resources, manpower, and revenue.
Choose Your Digital Marketing Channels
Choosing the wrong marketing channel will drain your money. It’s absolutely essential for you to know where your target audience hangs out online. That said, you should be aware if Facebook will be a suitable channel for your marketing efforts or if LinkedIn has a higher chance of a positive outcome.
Analyse and Integrate
After you craft your marketing strategy with the help of a digital marketing strategist and execute marketing efforts for a decent amount of time, it’s time to analyze your campaigns. You should have a clear idea of what’s working and what’s not. It’s advisable to invest more energy and money in the channels yielding better results.
Best practices of digital marketing
Listed below are some of the most crucial marketing practices that can make or break your bank:
- Always craft a suitable marketing strategy
- Decide your target audience
- Make clear SMART goals for marketing efforts
- Run targeted paid advertisement
- Start with one channel if the budget is limited
- Expand to omnichannel marketing after positive ROI
- Use data-driven approach
- Try the latest marketing methods, such as chatbots, short-form videos, voice searches, etc.
- Personalize your marketing campaigns for better results.
The Future of Digital Marketing
In a short sentence, “Artificial Intelligence and Marketing Automation” is the future of digital marketing. If you want to stand out among the crowd and secure better-paying gigs and high-paying jobs in the future, you should understand the science behind prompt engineering and learn marketing automation tools. It is crucial to stay above the curve by upskilling yourself in the latest digital skills to survive the upcoming challenging time.
