What is Digital Marketing?

Marketing consists of engaging your target audience, building relationships, and creating value for you to capture back. In traditional marketing, companies utilize channels such as print, broadcast, telemarketing, or direct mail to engage their audience and grow their reach. Although one can trace marketing's roots back to long ago, digital marketing only started recently. Digital marketing is the marketing component that makes use of the internet and other online technologies to promote products and services, including desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms. During the 1990s and 2000s, it altered the way brands and businesses used technology for marketing. In the last few years, as digital platforms have become more integrated into daily life and marketing plans, and as people use digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, digital marketing campaigns have become more prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), influencer marketing, social media marketing, e-mail marketing, e–books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace. Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callback, and on-hold mobile ring tones. The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online marketing. Essentially, online marketing refers to content delivered via the Internet and digital marketing to marketing delivered via electronic devices. Thus online marketing is simply a subset of digital marketing. As digital technology expanded, businesses began experimenting with new marketing tactics, including using computers and smart phones widely. This led to the birth of digital marketing. As we move forward into the modern age, digital marketing has equal, if not even greater importance than traditional marketing. Over time, as more businesses turn to digital marketing methods for marketing, this divide is certain to grow wider. Businesses must develop an effective digital marketing strategy in order to succeed.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic (known as "natural" or "organic" results) rather than direct traffic or paid traffic. Unpaid traffic may originate from different kinds of searches, including image search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. An Internet marketing strategy such as SEO considers how search engines work, the computer programs (algorithms) that control search engine behavior, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords used in search engines, and which search engines their targeted audience prefers. When a website ranks higher on a search engine results page (SERP), it receives more visitors. SEO is an important part of building a website. Eventually, these visitors may become customers.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC (pay-per-click) is a form of internet advertising in which advertisers pay publishers (typically search engines, website owners, or networks of websites) when ads are clicked. In general, pay-per-click advertisements are associated with top-tier search engines (such as Google Ads, Amazon Advertising, and Microsoft Advertising, formerly Bing Ads).Advertising on search engines usually consists of bidding on keyword phrases relevant to the target market and paying when ads (text-based search ads or shopping ads that combine image and text) are clicked. Instead of using a bidding system, most content sites charge a fixed price per click. PPC display ads are usually not pay-per-click ads since they are shown on sites with related content and approved to show them. Pay-per-click advertising has also been adopted by social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter. In general, the amount advertisers pay varies widely between publishers, and is normally determined by two factors: the quality of the advertisement, and the maximum bidding amount the advertiser is willing to pay per click. In general, the higher the quality of the advertisement, the lower its cost per click. Websites can offer PPC ads, however. Websites that utilize PPC ads will display an advertisement when a keyword query matches an advertiser's keyword list that has been added in different ad groups, or when a content site displays relevant content. These advertisements are called sponsored links or sponsored ads, and appear adjacent to, above, or beneath organic results on search engine results pages, or wherever a web developer chooses on a content site. PPC advertising can be abused through click fraud, although Google and others have implemented automated systems to stop malicious clicks by competitors or corrupt web developers.

Content Marketing

Online content marketing involves creating, publishing, and distributing content to a targeted audience. Businesses often use it to accomplish the following goals: attract attention and generate leads, expand their customer base, generate or increase online sales, enhance brand awareness and credibility, and engage an online community of users. By creating and sharing valuable free content, content marketing attracts new customers. This type of marketing helps companies create a sustainable brand loyalty, offers consumers useful information, and encourages them to purchase products from the company in the future. Identifying customer needs is the first step in content marketing. This information can then be presented in different forms, such as news, video, white papers, e-books, infographics, email newsletters, case studies, podcasts, how-to guides, photos, blogs, etc. In order to be effective, content marketing must deliver large quantities of content continuously

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing refers to social media marketing that leverages endorsements and product placement from people and organizations with purported expert-level knowledge and social significance in their field. Essentially, an influencer is someone (or something) with the power to influence the purchasing habits and quantifiable actions of others by uploading original often sponsored content to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat or other online channels. When a brand engages influencers to post on social media, it is enlisting people who have a large following and credible reputation on the platform to promote the brand. Testimonial advertising may be framed as influencer content.

Social Media Marketing

In social media marketing, websites and media platforms are used to advertise products and services. Social media marketing is becoming increasingly popular with both practitioners and researchers, despite the e-marketing and digital marketing terms still dominating academia. Companies can track the success, engagement, and progress of advertising campaigns using the data analytics tools built into social media platforms. By using social media marketing, companies can reach a range of stakeholders, including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public. The strategy behind social media marketing encompasses marketing campaign management, governance, scope setting (e.g. active or passive use) and the establishment of a company's desired "social media culture" and "tone." Businesses can use social media marketing to get user-generated content (e.g., online comments, product reviews, etc.) from customers and Internet users rather than using marketer-prepared advertising copy.

Email Marketing

In email marketing, a commercial message is sent using an email to often a large group of people. Email marketing is in its broadest sense all communications sent to potential or existing customers. By using email, you can send advertisements, request business, or solicit donations. Most email marketing strategies are designed to achieve one or more of three primary objectives, such as building loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. Email marketing is commonly used to enhance relationships with existing or previous customers, encourage customer loyalty and repeat business, acquire new customers or convince existing customers to make a purchase immediately, and share third-party ads.

Why an online business presence matters

Online presence means the ability to be found by others through an online search. An online presence can be established by creating a social media page, a website, a blog, an e-commerce platform and listing profiles online. In this digital age, a company's or brand's online presence is critical for success. To remain competitive, all companies must have an online presence as the world moves faster and faster towards digital technology. It must be easy for consumers to find your website and all of your product and service information with just one click. In any industry, having an online presence is essential. This way, you can track your audience and competitors and stay up to date with industry trends. When you track your audience on your online presence, you are able to see their engagements and improve your business objectives. You can also take advantage of this to come up with a better business plan and increase sales. As of January 2021 there were 4.66 billion active internet users worldwide - 59.5 percent of the global population. Of this total, 92.6 percent (4.32 billion) accessed the internet via mobile devices, and nearly all use social media to some extent. Thus, social media is the norm for almost everyone. It is, however, just one part of a social media presence for your brand to have a website and a social media account. Interested in learning more about digital marketing or how it can be implemented within your organization or company? If yes, please Click here to get in touch.