The term "digital marketing" refers to the practise of promoting products or services to customers via digital mediums such as the internet, mobile devices, and social networking sites.

Aug 11, 2023 - 23:55 Updated: Aug 11, 2023 - 23:56

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Digital Marketing

Any form of marketing that makes use of electronic devices and that can be used by marketing specialists to communicate promotional messaging and assess the impact of doing so throughout the customer's journey is considered electronic marketing. Digital marketing, as it is used in practise, most commonly refers to marketing initiatives that are conducted on digital platforms such as computers, phones, tablets, and other electronic devices. It is possible for it to appear in a variety of formats, such as paid social ads, social media postings, online videos, display ads, and search engine marketing. It is common practise to contrast "digital marketing" with "traditional marketing" methods such as magazine advertisements, billboards, and direct mail. Surprisingly, most people consider television to be a form of traditional marketing.

Did you know that more than 75 percent of adults in the United States go online on a daily basis? In addition to this, 43 percent of users log on more than once every day, and 26 percent say they are online "almost constantly."

The percentage of people who use the internet via mobile devices is considerably higher. 89% of Americans go online at least once a day, and 31% are connected to the internet nearly all the time. As a marketer, it is essential to make the most of the digital world by establishing an online advertising presence, by developing a brand, by offering a fantastic customer experience that also attracts additional potential customers, and by utilising a digital strategy for other purposes.

A digital marketing plan enables you to engage with existing consumers as well as individuals who are interested in your products or services by leveraging a variety of digital channels. These digital channels include social media, pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimisation, and email marketing. As a consequence of this, you will have the ability to establish a brand, give an excellent experience for customers, attract future customers, and more.

What is digital marketing?

The promotion of brands in order to interact with potential customers through the use of the internet and other types of digital communication is referred to as digital marketing, which is also known as online marketing. This encompasses not just electronic mail, social media, and advertisements based on the internet, but also text messaging and multimedia messages as a form of marketing channel.

Simply said, a marketing effort is considered to be digital marketing if it involves some form of digital communication.

Inbound marketing versus digital marketing

The terms "digital marketing" and "inbound marketing" are frequently interchanged, and there's a good reason for this. Email and other forms of web content are only two examples of the digital marketing techniques that are also utilised in inbound marketing. Both serve the purpose of attracting the focus of prospects along the buyer's journey and ultimately converting those prospects into customers. The two methods, however, look at the link between the instrument and the aim from two quite different perspectives.

When conducting digital marketing, one must evaluate how various digital tools and channels might convert potential customers. The digital marketing strategy of a brand may employ several different platforms or may concentrate all of its efforts on a single platform. For instance, a corporation might concentrate their content creation efforts primarily on social networking platforms and email marketing campaigns, while completely disregarding the other channels of digital marketing.

On the other side, inbound marketing is a comprehensive way of thinking about the industry. It begins with the objective, then examines the tools that are at its disposal to establish which of those tools will most successfully reach the target clients, and last, it determines at which step of the sales funnel that should occur. Consider the following scenario: you want to increase the amount of traffic to your website in order to produce more prospects and leads. When designing your content marketing plan, you may choose to place an emphasis on search engine optimisation. This will result in more content that is optimised, including blogs, landing pages, and other types of content.

The fact that, as a marketing professional, you are not required to pick one over the other when it comes to digital marketing and inbound marketing is the single most crucial point to keep in mind regarding these two types of marketing. In point of fact, they complement one another really well. Inbound marketing gives digital marketing efforts the structure and purpose they need to be effective. It does this by ensuring that each digital marketing channel contributes to the achievement of a specific objective.

Why is digital marketing important?

Any form of marketing can be beneficial to the growth of your company. On the other hand, due to the ease with which digital channels may be accessed, digital marketing has taken on an increasingly significant role. In point of fact, there were 5 billion people using the internet all over the world in April of 2022.

There are a variety of channels, ranging from social media to text messages, via which digital marketing strategies can be used to communicate with the audience you are trying to reach. In addition, digital marketing offers low start-up costs, which makes it a cost-effective marketing strategy for smaller enterprises.

B2B versus B2C digital marketing

Both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) organisations can benefit from implementing digital marketing strategies; however, the best practises for each type of organisation are very different. A look at the role that digital marketing plays in business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing strategies is presented here.

Customers in the B2B space typically have extended decision-making processes, which results in lengthier sales funnels. These clients respond more favourably to strategies that focus on relationship development, whereas B2C customers are more likely to respond well to short-term offers and communications.
In general, business-to-business (B2B) transactions are founded on logic and evidence, both of which are presented by professional B2B digital marketers. It is more common for content aimed at B2C customers to have an emotional focus, with the primary goal being to make the consumer feel good about making a purchase.
The input of often more than one person is required for B2B decisions. The marketing materials that are most likely to influence these decisions are the ones that can be easily shared and downloaded. On the other hand, customers of business-to-consumer companies prefer one-on-one contact with brands.

There are, without a doubt, cases that prove the rule wrong. It's possible that a business-to-consumer brand selling an expensive item, like a car or computer, will provide material that's more informational and weighty. Because of this, your digital marketing strategy should always be focused towards your own customer base, regardless of whether you sell to consumers or other businesses.

When you want to establish internet marketing efforts that are properly informed and targeted, you should look at your current audience. Taking these steps will ensure that your marketing efforts are successful and that you are able to attract the attention of potential clients.

Types of digital marketing

There are as many sub-specializations available within the realm of digital marketing as there are different methods in which people can communicate via the use of digital media. A few major examples of different types of digital marketing approaches are shown below.

Search engine optimization

Technically speaking, search engine optimisation, also known as SEO, is more of a marketing technique than it is a kind of marketing in and of itself. According to The Balance's definition, search engine optimisation is "the art and science of making web pages attractive to search engines."

The "art and science" component of search engine optimisation is what should be prioritised the most. In order to attain the best potential rating on a search engine results page (also known as a SERP), SEO must be approached as a science because it calls for in-depth investigation and analysis of a variety of elements.

When optimising a web page for search engines, the following are currently the most significant things to take into consideration:

The level of user engagement in relation to the quality of the material
Adaptability to mobile devices
The quantity and quality of links coming in from the outside

In addition to the components listed above, you need to optimise technical SEO, which refers to all of the aspects of your website that are located behind the scenes. This includes the structure of URLs, loading times, and links that are broken. If you improve your technical SEO, search engines will be able to navigate and crawl your site more effectively.

Search engine optimisation can be considered a science because of how strategically these aspects are used, but it can also be considered an art because of the unpredictability involved.

The ultimate objective is to achieve a ranking on the top page of the results page of a search engine. This ensures that anyone looking for a specific question connected to your brand can quickly locate your items or services when they search the internet. Although there are a great number of search engines available, digital marketers frequently concentrate their efforts on Google due to the company's dominant position in the market for search engines worldwide.

When it comes to search engine optimisation (SEO), there is no quantifiable criteria or standard method for ranking highly on search engines. It is impossible to make accurate predictions because Google and the other major search engines update their algorithms on a nearly continuous basis. What you can do is carefully monitor how well your page is doing and make changes to your strategy based on the data it provides.

Content marketing

As was discussed earlier, the importance of having high-quality content on your page cannot be overstated. As a consequence of this, search engine optimisation is a significant component of content marketing, which refers to an approach that centres on the dissemination of content that is pertinent to and beneficial for a certain audience.

Content marketing's primary objective, like that of any other marketing tactic, is to generate leads that can later be converted into paying consumers. But it operates in a manner that is distinct from conventional forms of advertising. As an alternative to luring potential customers with the promise of value from a product or service, it provides value for free in the form of textual material, such as:

Blog posts
E-books
Newsletters
Video or audio transcripts
Whitepapers
Infographics

There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that content marketing is important, including the following statistics:

84% of customers anticipate that organisations will develop content experiences that are both enjoyable and helpful.
Daily content creation is carried out by 62% of businesses with at least 5,000 staff members.
92% of marketers are under the impression that their organisation regards content as an essential asset.

Although content marketing is quite powerful, it is not without its challenges. Writers for content marketing need to be able to achieve a high ranking in the results of search engines while also engaging readers to the point where they read the material, share it with others, and engage further with the company. If the information is pertinent, it has the potential to develop powerful partnerships at every stage of the pipeline.

It is essential to determine your audience in order to provide content that is not only effective but also extremely relevant and interesting. Who is it that you want to ultimately connect with through the content marketing that you are doing? When you have a better understanding of your target demographic, you will be able to decide what kind of content you want to provide for them. Your content marketing strategy can make use of a wide variety of content types, some examples of which include videos, blog posts, printable worksheets, and far more.

It is recommended that you adhere to the best practises in content marketing regardless of the type of content that you produce. This entails producing information that is error-free, grammatically sound, straightforward, pertinent, and engaging. It should also be easy to comprehend. Your material should also direct visitors to the next stage in the sales pipeline, whether that be a signup page or a free consultation with a sales professional.

In the context of marketing using social media, boosting traffic and raising brand awareness entails engaging people in online conversation. You may promote your brand, products, services, culture, and other aspects of your business with the help of social media marketing. It may be worthwhile to concentrate on social media marketing given the fact that billions of people spend their time participating in activities on social media platforms.

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are currently the most widely used digital platforms for social media marketing, with LinkedIn and YouTube not far behind in second and third place, respectively. Your business's objectives and target demographic should ultimately guide your choice of social media channels to use for marketing and communication purposes. If you want to find new leads for your FinTech business, for instance, targeting your audience on LinkedIn, where industry professionals are active, is a fantastic idea because of the presence of industry professionals on the network. If, on the other hand, you own a business that caters to younger customers, you might find more success for your brand by advertising on Instagram's social media platform.

Because it requires interaction on the part of the target audience, social media marketing has emerged as a popular method for gaining people's attention. With a usage rate of 96%, it is by far the most popular content medium among B2C digital marketers, and it is also making headway in the B2B sector. The Content Marketing Institute found that over sixty-one percent of business-to-business content marketers increased their use of social media this past year.

In-built engagement metrics are available through social media marketing, which may be an extremely helpful tool in assisting you to understand how effectively you are communicating with your target audience. You have the ability to determine which kinds of interactions hold the most significance for you, whether this refers to the overall number of clicks on your website, the number of shares, or the number of comments.

It's possible that making a direct sale isn't even part of your social media marketing strategy at all. Many companies use social media marketing to engage their target audiences in conversation rather than to directly push consumers to make an immediate purchase. This is especially typical among brands that cater to an older demographic or provide goods and services that are not suitable for making hasty purchases. Everything hinges on the social media marketing goals your firm has set for itself.

It is absolutely necessary to adhere to best practises in order to develop a social media marketing plan that is successful. The following is a list of some of the most essential best practises in social media marketing:

Develop content that is both high in quality and interesting.
Maintain a level of professionalism when responding to feedback and inquiries.
Establish a posting schedule for the various social media.
When it's appropriate to post:
Employ social media managers to bolster the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives.

Learn your audience and the social media channels on which they spend the most time. To find out more about how Mailchimp can assist you with your social media strategy, check out the comparison of our free social media management tools vs those of other companies.

Pay-per-click marketing

Pay-per-click, also known as PPC, is a kind of digital marketing in which you are charged a fee each time one of your digital advertisements is clicked on by a potential customer. Therefore, rather than paying a predetermined sum to continually broadcast targeted advertisements on internet channels, you will only be charged for the advertisements that individuals interact with. It is somewhat more difficult to control how and when people view your advertisement.

Search engine advertising is one of the most common forms of pay-per-click advertising (PPC), and given that Google is the most widely used search engine, a great number of companies employ Google Ads for this purpose. When there is empty real estate on a search engine results page, sometimes referred to as a SERP, the search engine conducts what is basically an instant auction in order to fill the space. An algorithm assigns a priority ranking to each accessible advertisement by taking into account a number of parameters, including the following:

Ad quality
Keyword relevance
Landing page quality
Bid amount

Whenever someone searches for a particular query, pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements are then positioned at the very top of the pages of search engine results based on the parameters outlined above.

After clicking on an ad, the target audience for each pay-per-click (PPC) campaign is expected to carry out one or more of the predetermined actions. Conversions are what occur throughout these events, and they can either be transactional or non-transactional in nature. A conversion can take several forms, including the making of a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or calling your home office.

In order to evaluate the success of your marketing campaign and choose which target conversions you should pursue, you may track those conversions using the digital marketing channels of your choice.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a strategy used in digital marketing that entails promoting the business of a third party in exchange for monetary compensation. You have the option of acting as the promoter or as the company that collaborates with the promoter, but in either scenario, the process will be the same.

A model of revenue sharing is used to make it function. If you are an affiliate, you are entitled to a commission on every sale of the product that you recommend to potential customers. If you are the merchant, you are obligated to compensate the affiliate for each sale that they bring you.

Some affiliate marketers choose to focus their attention solely on the wares of a single firm, publishing their opinions on blogs or other websites that are not directly affiliated with the business. Others have established working partnerships with a number of different retailers.

The first thing you need to do if you want to either become an affiliate or locate one is to establish a relationship with the other party. You can participate in or develop your own single-retailer programme, or you can use digital channels that were specifically designed to connect affiliates with merchants.

There are numerous things that you can do as a store to make your affiliate programme more appealing to those who might be interested in promoting your business if you choose to deal directly with affiliates. You will be responsible for supplying those affiliates with the tools that are essential to their success. This consists of monetary and non-monetary rewards for excellent performance, as well as marketing tools and materials that have already been prepared.

Native advertising

Native advertising is a form of digital marketing that masquerades as something else. It is intended to appear less obviously commercial if it can be made to blend in with the content that it is surrounded by.

The cynicism that consumers have towards advertisements in today's society inspired the creation of native advertising. The fact that the person who created an advertisement also pays to have it displayed leads many customers to the conclusion that the advertisement is biassed, and as a result, they ignore it.

Native advertising sidesteps this prejudice by first providing useful information or entertaining content, then transitioning into promotional content while playing down the "ad" component of the content.

It is critical that your native advertisements be constantly labelled in a transparent manner. Make use of phrases such as "promoted" and "sponsored." If these signs are not made clear, readers may get engaged with the content for a significant amount of time before they realise that it is advertising.

If your customers are aware of what they can expect from your brand and its content, they will have a more positive attitude towards both. Native advertisements are intended to be less intrusive than standard advertisements; nonetheless, they are not intended to be misleading in any way.

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing, which is similar to affiliate marketing, involves collaborating with an influencer–a person who has a significant following and may be a celebrity, an expert in their field, or a content creator–in exchange for exposure. Affiliate marketing also uses this strategy. There is a good chance that these influencers may recommend your goods or services to the people who follow them across a variety of social media networks.

When it comes to expanding one's customer base, both B2B and B2C businesses can benefit from using influencer marketing. However, because they are effectively representing your business, it is necessary to collaborate with influential people who have a good reputation in the industry. The trust that customers have in your company might be damaged if you choose the wrong influencer to represent it.

Marketing automation

The use of software to run digital marketing initiatives is what is known as marketing automation. This helps to improve the effectiveness and relevance of advertising. As a consequence of this, you will be free to devote your attention, rather than to laborious and time-consuming procedures, to the formulation of the plan that will guide your digital marketing efforts.

Although marketing automation may appear to be an unnecessary luxury item for your company, it actually has the potential to greatly boost the level of engagement that exists between you and your target audience.

The following, according to the statistics:

Ninety percent of consumers in the United States believe that personalised products are either "very" or "somewhat" enticing.

81% of consumers want the brands they interact with to better understand them and their needs and wants.

77% of businesses acknowledge the value of real-time customisation, but 60% of them have difficulty implementing it.

Using marketing automation, businesses are able to keep up with the rising demand for increased customization. It gives companies the ability to:

Information on the customers should be gathered and analysed.

Develop marketing strategies that are more specific.

Messages for digital marketing should be sent and posted at the appropriate times to the appropriate audiences.

When determining when and how to follow up with a prospect, many marketing automation solutions look at the level of engagement (or lack thereof) the prospect has had with a particular message. Because this level of personalization is performed in real time, it enables you to produce an effective individualised marketing approach for each unique customer without requiring any additional time investment.

The marketing automation capabilities provided by Mailchimp ensure that you are able to communicate with your audience in a variety of ways, including date-based automations, transactional emails, automations based on behaviour, and more.

Email marketing

Email marketing is based on a straightforward principle: you send a promotional message to a prospect and wait in the hopes that they click on it. However, the actual carrying out of the plan is a great deal more difficult. To begin, you have to check to see if the recipients of your emails actually wish to receive them. This entails possessing an opt-in list that is capable of the following functions:

Personalises the material, both in the main body as well as in the heading

Specifies in a straightforward manner the kind of emails that the subscriber will receive.
A clear unsubscribe option included in your email signature, if possible.
Supports the integration of promotional as well as transactional emails
It is important that your potential customers view your marketing campaign as more of a valuable service than merely a promotional tool.

Email marketing is a tried-and-true method that has been shown to be effective on its own: A poll of experts found that 89 percent of them consider it to be their most effective lead generator.

You can make it even better by including other digital marketing strategies, like as marketing automation, which enables you to organise your emails in a way that better satisfies the requirements of your customers through the use of segmentation and scheduling.

If you are thinking about engaging in email marketing, here are some pointers that will assist you in developing successful email marketing campaigns:

Your audience needs to be segmented so that you can send relevant campaigns to the correct people.
Make sure that e-mails appear correctly on mobile devices.
Establish a timetable for the campaign.
Carry out A/B tests.

Mobile marketing

Mobile marketing is a digital marketing approach that enables you to engage with your target audience on their mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Mobile marketing gives you the ability to reach your audience wherever they are. This can be done by text messages (including SMS and MMS) as well as notifications from social networking platforms, mobile app alerts, and other methods.

It is of the utmost importance to guarantee that every piece of information is optimised for mobile devices. According to the Pew Research Centre, 85 percent of American adults now own a smartphone; consequently, your marketing efforts will be more effective if you generate content that is optimised for both PC and mobile screen sizes.

The benefits of digital marketing

The fact that digital marketing can reach such a vast number of individuals is largely responsible for its rise to prominence. However, in addition to these benefits, it also provides a number of other benefits that can help your marketing efforts. These are just some of the many advantages that come with using digital marketing.

A broad geographic reach

People can view an advertisement that you put online regardless of where they are, provided that you have not restricted its visibility based on the location of the viewer. This makes it simple to broaden the market reach of your company and establish connections with a greater number of customers through a variety of digital platforms.

Cost efficiency

Traditional marketing can only reach a fraction of the people that digital marketing can, and it also comes at a far more affordable price. The overhead expenditures of traditional marketing possibilities like newspaper ads, television spots, and other opportunities can be rather significant. In addition to this, you have less control over whether or not the audiences you want to reach will really notice the communications in the first place.

Using digital marketing, you just need to produce a single piece of content in order to attract readers to your blog for as long as it is up. You are able to construct an email marketing campaign that sends messages to specific client lists on a predetermined timetable, and it is not difficult to modify either the timetable or the substance of the messages should the need arise.

When you add it all together, digital marketing offers you a great deal more flexibility and direct interaction with customers for the same amount of money you spend on advertisements.

Quantifiable results

To determine whether or not your marketing plan is successful, you must first determine the number of clients it brings in and the total amount of income it finally generates. But how can you accomplish this with a marketing approach that does not involve digital platforms?

There is also the time-honored practise of inquiring of each customer, "How did you find us?"

Unfortunately, not all fields can benefit from anything like that. The majority of businesses do not have the opportunity to engage in one-on-one talks with their clients, and the results of surveys are not always accurate.

Monitoring performance is made much easier by using digital marketing. The number of desired conversions that you obtain is automatically tracked by the digital marketing software and platforms that you use. This could refer to the number of people that open your emails, directly visit your website, or make direct purchases.

Easier personalization

In contrast to traditional marketing methods, digital marketing makes it possible to compile data on individual customers. Data that is obtained digitally has a higher propensity to be significantly more accurate and particular.

Imagine that you are a provider of financial services and that you want to send out special offers to those who have looked at your products online and are internet users. You are aware that you will obtain greater results if you tailor the offer to the individual's interests, therefore you make the decision to design two separate campaigns. The first is for millennial business owners who have considered your pension options and the second is for young families who have researched your life insurance products. Both groups have done research on your retirement options.

Without using any kind of automated tracking, how are all of this data going to be gathered? How many different phone records would have to be searched through? How many different customer profiles are there? And how exactly do you determine who has and who has not read the booklet that you distributed?

Because you are engaging in digital marketing, all of this information is already within easy reach.

More connection with customers

Through digital marketing, you are able to communicate in real time with your target audience. The most crucial benefit is that it facilitates communication between you and them.

Consider your approach to the social media platforms you use. It is wonderful when people in your target audience view your most recent post, but it is even more wonderful when they share it with others or comment on it. It means that more people will be talking about your product or service, and that your visibility will improve each time someone else joins the conversation.

Your clients will also profit from your interactive website. As customers progress from being passive observers to active participants in the narrative of your company, their level of engagement will improve. A powerful feeling of devotion to a brand can be developed through the development of a sense of ownership.

Easy and convenient conversions

Customers are able to take instant action after viewing one of your ads or pieces of content if you use digital marketing. When you use conventional advertising, the most immediate result for which you can hope is to receive a phone call from a potential customer quickly after they saw your ad. But how frequently does a person have the opportunity to contact a business while they are cleaning the dishes, while they are driving down the highway, or while they are updating data at work?

They can immediately advance in the sales funnel by just clicking on a link or saving a blog post if you are using digital marketing. They may not make a purchase right away, but they will keep in touch with you and provide you with the opportunity to communicate with them further.

How to create a digital marketing strategy

Beginning a campaign of digital marketing from scratch can be a challenging endeavour for many beginning digital marketers and small organisations. Nevertheless, by using the methods that are outlined below as a starting point, you will be able to develop an efficient digital marketing strategy that will boost brand exposure as well as engagement and sales.

Set SMART goals

It is essential for every marketing strategy to set goals that are SMART, which stands for specified, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Although you probably have a long list of objectives that you want to accomplish, you should aim to zero down on the ones that will drive your strategy forward rather than those that would cause it to remain unchanged.

Identify your audience

It is important to determine who your target audience is before beginning any kind of marketing campaign. Your target audience is the group of people who share similar characteristics, such as age, gender, demographics, or purchasing behaviour, and who you wish to communicate with through your marketing campaign. If you have a solid grasp of the people you want to reach with your digital marketing efforts and the information you want to include in your campaigns, this can help you decide which digital marketing channels to use.

Create a budget

Having a budget helps to guarantee that your money is being spent productively towards the achievement of your goals, rather than being wasted on digital marketing channels that might not produce the outcomes that are wanted. When developing a budget, it is important to take into account both your SMART goals and the digital channel that you intend to employ.

Select your digital marketing channels

There are a wide variety of digital marketing platforms at your disposal, some of which include content marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, and more. Which digital marketing platforms you choose to use frequently relies on the goals you have, who your audience is, and how much money you have available.

Refine your marketing efforts

After the campaign is over, you should be sure to conduct a data analysis to determine what aspects of the campaign went well and which ones could use some tweaking. This enables you to build campaigns that are even more effective in the future. You may access all of this information in a dashboard format that is simple to read by making use of digital technology and applications. The digital marketing analytics reports offered by MailChimp will make it easier for you to monitor all of your marketing campaigns from a single, centralised location.