Today in this technologically driven world, we are surrounded by all things digital, be it laptops, smartphones, tablets, game consoles, or televisions and we use the internet practically for everything. Digital marketing has become a go-to tool for all marketers and if you want to get started with digital marketing, read on.
What Is Digital Marketing?
Any marketing efforts online on the internet or a digital device are known as digital marketing. Some common examples of digital marketing include email marketing, social media marketing, blogging, pay-per-click advertising, etc., which introduces your company and products to potential customers and converts them to buy your products or services.
Digital marketing is becoming a very important method by which marketers can reach their target audience effectively. It is estimated that e-commerce sales will reach around $4.5 trillion by 2021, which indicates significant potential for online marketing, and with over 4.5 billion internet users across the world, digital marketing provides an excellent opportunity to target people who spend a lot of time and money online. It also provides smaller businesses the opportunity to compete with their competitors.
Digital marketing puts your business on the same platforms where your target audience can see and learn about you and the products and services you offer. However, if you’re new to digital marketing and just getting started, then you may be overwhelmed by the various digital marketing tactics you will need to understand and learn that will help to attract customers, nurture your relationships with them and ensure that they keep returning.
How Does Digital Marketing Work?
Very similar to traditional marketing, digital marketing also aims to develop relationships with customers, leads, and prospects by reaching and communicating with them online via the internet.
The idea is to develop a digital marketing strategy that allows you to connect with your followers in a variety of ways such as social media, SEO (search engine optimization), blogs, email marketing, and advertising.
Advantages of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing can help your business in a variety of ways including:
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Helping to create awareness and also ensures continuing engagement with your customers, before, as well as after the sale.
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Attracting and converting new buyers into loyal customers who will keep returning.
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Kickstarting social sharing and word of mouth about your products/services.
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Reducing the buyer’s journey by giving them the right offers at the proper time.
Types of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing uses a mix of multiple methods to reach your target audience and achieve your marketing objectives. The different types of digital marketing include:
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SEO (Search Engine Optimization): This involves optimizing your website and its content to increase the web traffic quality. The objective of SEO is to ensure that your website to page appears high on the search engine results page without paying for it.
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SEM (Search Engine Marketing): Also known as PPC (pay-per-click) advertising or paid search, SEM makes use of paid methods to boost the visibility of your website. In SEM, keywords are very crucial and when people search for the particular keyword, SEM ensures that your website or the page will appear at the top of the results.
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SMM (Social Media Marketing): The aim of SMM is to drive engagement and clicks and get customers to respond, at the same time building brand loyalty. SMM includes:
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Email Marketing: This is a popular marketing method and helps to drive customer engagement by sending emails to both existing, as well as potential customers. The focus of email marketing is to build mailing lists, segmenting and targeting customers via emails, and improving click-through rates.
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Online Ads: You can see online ads everywhere on the internet including Google display ads, banner ads, retargeting ads, etc.
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Affiliate Marketing: Extremely popular, affiliate marketing encourages the promotion of other people’s products and when this results in a sale, the affiliate earns some commission. This works well for both the seller, as well as people promoting this without a product, earning passive income.
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Content Marketing: This focuses on creating and using good quality content to attract the right target audience.
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Mobile Marketing: Today, almost everyone has a smartphone and mobile marketing has become a popular way to advertise products and services and promote them. Mobile marketing is often used with other forms of marketing such as social, email and website advertising and uses text messaging, mobile app, and MMS marketing.
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Viral Marketing: This method depends on the target audience to create a buzz in the market and make it go viral i.e., spread widely. Viral marketing depends on the organic spread of the content on social media and other online platforms.
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As a modern marketer, digital marketing is an effective way to communicate with your target audience and has far-reaching results. We hope that after reading our article, you have an understanding of what digital marketing is and how you can get started with it.