A Complete Guide to Digital Marketing
How can the internet help you reach your business goals?
The answer is Digital Marketing!
The way customers interact with businesses nowadays has changed. Instead of offline communication, they have moved to online communication.
When it comes to marketing, it is all about reaching out to your prospective buyers and connecting with them. In the past, newspapers and TC commercials were used for communication purposes. But the problem with that was and still is that it is only one-way communication. In contrast to that, digital marketing offers two-way conversations to businesses.
The concept of digital marketing is quite simple. But only the idea is simple; the execution part is where most business owners mess up and end up contacting a professional marking agency to cater to their needs.
The thing about digital marking is that it can either make your business or break it. So you must get it right the first time.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital Marketing is a self-explanatory term. In simple words, it means marketing your business online. It is how companies tend to promote their products and services and reach out to their prospective customers online through the means of the internet.
Most people tend to mix digital marketing with social media marketing. Digital marketing is a broader term, whereas social media marketing is a branch of digital marketing. Thus digital marketing covers several online channels and platforms that one can use for marketing their business to the world.
How Digital Marketing Works – Different Channels and Platforms
To understand digital marketing, you need to understand the different modes through which you market your business online.
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization is a set of guidelines set by Google to rank websites on the internet. There are millions of different webpages on the internet. Every time a user types in a keyword in the search box, Google crawlers to go through all of the available data and rank the results in best to the worst order.
SEO techniques are used by marketing agents to rank info-graphics, blogs, and, most importantly, websites in the search engine results. The results that appear on the top are the most visited by the users. This means more traffic, more leads, and a higher conversation rate for your e-commerce site.
The primary purpose of SEO is to drive higher traffic to your webpage. Three common techniques are used to approach SEO and aim to rank higher or even at the top of the search engine results. Here are the three ways;
- On-Page SEO – This type of technique focuses on the content that is available on your webpages, such as specific keywords, ranking, and volume.
- Off-Page SEO – As the name suggests, this type of SEO techniques focuses on the action that takes place in the background. This majorly includes guest posts and backlinks. It is essential to get in touch with high authority publishers when it comes to these two because you want to be associated with trusted sites.
- Technical SEO – This type of SEO focuses on the technical elements of your website, such as navigation system, CSS file optimization, data format, loading speed, etc.
2. Content Marketing
The content on your website, social media platforms, blogs, and forums is also a very crucial channel of digital marketing. The purpose of content marketing is to help you reach out to your customers, educate them on the on-going news of the industry, answer their queries, enhance their knowledge, and so much more. The standard channels used for content marketing are;
- Blog posts
- E-books
- Social Media Posts
- Info-graphics
These are the only significant channels. There are many others that you can go with. It is best to go with the ones that are best suited for your business needs.
3. Social Media Marketing
Initially, social media platforms were used by individuals to communicate with one another. But social media can also be used by businesses to communicate with their customers. Create a business account on social media platforms. Mingle with your customers to learn about their interests, to answer their queries, and to convey your latest updates. Most popular social media platforms at present are;
- Snapchat
The good thing is that you can integrate all of your business social media accounts under one platform such as HubSpot and work on them through there. You can reach out to all your customers within seconds via social media platforms.
4. Pay Per Click (PPC)
Have you ever visited a site and witnessed ads on the sides or on the top of the webpages that are in no way linked to the website? Well, those are like digital billboards that appear on third-party websites. You can pay publishers to advertise your ad on different sites, and every time someone clicks on that ad, you have to pay the publisher. This is known as PPC marketing. The most common channels for PPC are;
- Google Ads
- Paid ads on Facebook
- Twitter Ads campaigns
- Sponsored Messages on LinkedIn
5. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is where one receives a commission based on performance. For instance, Amazon runs a very successful affiliate marketing program. If you promote Amazon products on your website, you will receive a percentage of commission every time one of the products get sold. You can do the same for your business and devise your very own affiliate program.
Why is Digital Marketing Important for Your Business?
There is no escape from the digital world, no matter how much one wants to resist. Our smartphones are the first thing that we check today. Whether it is Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media site, one always scrolls down his newsfeed, hoping to find something interesting.
The old marketing techniques are still essential and hold their place in the business world but nothing can be compared to the digital marketing impact on your business. The digital marketing needs to be right because it can either break your business or make your business.
Here are a few reasons why you should invest in digital marketing;
1) Global Reach
Digital marketing helps you reach out to customers outside of your region—no more geographical barriers. Reach out to overseas buyers with just a social media ad, your e-commerce website, and so much more.
2) Cost-effective
Digital marketing is the most cost-effective way of marking your products and services. On average, you can reach out to 1000 prospective customers for just $3, whereas the same would cost you between $30-$60 if you choose the television or direct mail as a medium.
3) Measurable
A good marketing strategy is easily measurable. You can never know the effect that your TV commercials or newspaper ads are having on your viewers. But in the case of digital marketing, you can quickly evaluate, analyze, and measure your success in real-time. This helps you identify the tactics that are working and adjust those that aren’t. Thus saves cost and time as well – making your campaign successful in the long run.
4) Target Prospective Buyers
The thing about the digital world is that it keeps the record of everything. Internet browsers, email sites, social media sites, and all other communicating platforms tend to have a complete record of their users’ demographics. You can easily use that data for marketing your products and services to prospective buyers instead of hitting in the wind.
5) Level the field
It is often hard for small businesses to compete with large business giants in terms of offline resources. But when it comes to the digital world, the company that has an active website, an engaging social media account, and tons of great reviews is the one that leads the market. So for small businesses, the digital world helps level the field.
Final Words
The influence of the online community has increased over the buyers. More than 92% of the consumers today tend to check out the company’s website online before engaging with it. The same is the case with reviews. Around 88% of the readers tend to trust the online reviews and feedbacks and consider them as great recommendations. So whether you are running a small or large scale business, the importance of digital marketing remains the same.
Statics show that 97% of the consumers today search for products and services online. So imagine, you being on one of the top results. How do you think the consumer is going to react? Exactly the way you do when you search for something online. So what are you waiting for –Invest in digital marketing today and start witnessing some positive results within a couple of months.
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