A BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF DIGITAL MARKETING WORLD:

Digital marketing can be defined as the type of marketing that uses electronic devices to convey its promotional messaging and keep track of the impact of that marketing on its consumers. Digital marketing is typically the marketing campaigns that appear in the form of online videos, displaying ads, and social media posts. Consumers these days rely too much on digital means to research products. Let’s take an example, According to Google marketing insights, 48% of consumers start their inquiries on search engines, 33% look to brand websites, and 26% search within mobile applications.

You will be surprised but more than 3 quarters of Americans go online daily and 43% go on more than once a day and 26% are almost constantly online. And if you talk about mobile users the figure is relatively higher. 89% of Americans go online at least daily, and 31% are online almost constantly. With the help of a good digital strategy, you can take advantage of the digital world with an online advertising presence and by building an online brand and providing great customer services

For selecting the best digital strategy the marketers need to know more about today’s vast and intricate cross-channel world and discover such strategies that will make an impact through engagement marketing.

The process of forming meaningful interactions with potential and returning consumers based on the data you collect over time is engagement marketing. The customers will get engage in a digital landscape and this will build your brand awareness, set yourself as an industry thought leader and your business will be placed at the forefront when the customer is ready to buy.

Digital marketing can be online as well as offline, and both of them are important for a well-rounded digital marketing strategy.

 

THE ACTUAL DEFINITION OF DIGITAL MARKETING IS:

Digital marketing is also known as online marketing, it is known as the promotion of brands to connect with potential consumers with the help of the internet and other digital communication platforms. The platforms include emails, social media websites, web-based advertising, and text as well multimedia messages as a marketing channel.

In short, if any marketing campaign involves digital communication, it will be known as digital marketing.

 

LETS DIVE INTO THE HISTORY OF DIGITAL MARKETING:

The term digital marketing first came into being in the early 2000s, but the method of digital marketing has been around much longer than that. Approximately, around 100 years longer, to be exact.

The first live broadcast ever was from an opera performance at the Met and several people bought show tickets through it. In this way, digital marketing perception was born.

 

THE PURPOSE OF DIGITAL MARKETING IN THE MODERN WORLD:

Digital advertising is a cost-effective way to advertise your brand directly to your consumers.

Before that, there was a kind of billboard advertising war between big companies like BMW, Audi, and other competitor’s brands. But in the modern world, nobody has time to pay attention to these big and fancy billboards.

You can think of it in a way like Google generates more revenue than any traditional media company because they are more popular among people, in this way digital marketing wins today.

The reason why billboards, like the ones above, will die, is because the future of driving will look like this:

Now, drivers or even passengers have no time for looking on the road they will prefer to look at their routes or their phones rather than these billboards.

And the use of electronic media is becoming popular day by day. So now it is the world of digital marketing that is easy, less costly, and catches more attention.

 

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INBOUND MARKETING VERSUS DIGITAL MARKETING:

People often get confused between digital marketing and inbound marketing. Digital and Inbound marketing uses a few same tools, such as email and online content but both of them are different.

Digital marketing is known to be any kind of marketing on a digital platform.

Inbound marketing uses digital marketing methodology and creating content that informs, empowers, and attracts current and potential consumers.

The combination of these two works best, inbound marketing will help you in providing structure and purpose for effective digital marketing by making sure that each digital marketing channel works best towards its goal.

 

THE CATEGORICAL DIFFERENCE IN DIGITAL MARKETING – B2B VS B2C:

Let’s discuss how digital marketing works for B2B and B2C companies.

B2B –

• Longer decision-making processes for clients, and therefore longer sales funnels.
• For these clients, the relationship-building strategies work better.
• The decisions need two or more person’s input.
• B2B social media channels mainly focus on brand development and lead generation.

 

B2C –

• Opposite to B2B, these customers tend to respond better to short-term offers and messages.
• The transactions are usually logical
• The content is more emotionally based, so the consumer will feel good about the purchase.
• B2C brands usually use social media to drive traffic, sales, and awareness.

 

THE DIGITAL MARKETING ELEMENTS:

After coming this far we are sure that your concept about digital marketing will be cleared. Now let’s talk about the categories of digital marketing.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

We all have come across the word SEO but do you know what it means?

SEO is the science of getting your content or website to rank higher in search engines. Searching is the best way to discover content therefore SEO is very popular in today’s world as it brings more traffic to your webpage.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

SEM is a kind of Internet marketing that promotes websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages, it gets traffic and visibility that is both organic and paid.

Content Marketing:

As clear from its name, content marketing is used for creating, sharing, and publishing content such as blogs, videos, and posts to attract a targeted audience.

Search Media Marketing (SMM):

This type of digital marketing is also popular nowadays. It is the type of digital marketing that uses social media platforms like Facebook to promote products, brands, or services.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC):

Very clear from its name, this type of digital marketing uses an advertising model to bring traffic to websites and the advertiser pays the publisher whenever a user clicks the ad.

Affiliate Marketing:

It is a type of advertising model by which a company pays third-party publishers for bringing traffic to the company’s products and services.

Email Marketing:

This is also very popular in today’s world. The company will let you know about the sales, discounts, and new products through email.

 

WHAT BENEFITS WE CAN ATTAIN FROM DIGITAL MARKETING?

Now we have a clear idea why digital marketing is very popular nowadays now have a look at its benefits.

No Geographic Boundaries:

It gives you better reach. When you post to add on any social media platform anyone from any region of the world can see it or you can also specify your targeted audience for better reach.

Cost-effectiveness:

The digital market is the favorite of many entrepreneurs and the reason is that it is very cost-friendly. You don’t need to spend millions of dollars for setting up your business. You can start your business on any social media platform. You can also schedule email marketing to promote your new items and products, in short, there is no need of setting up a new shop with tons of stuff.

Monitoring Results:

With digital marketing, you don’t need to worry about results monitoring. Digital marketing software and platforms are designed in a way that they automatically track the number of desired conversions you get, either it is email open rates, visits to your home page, or direct purchases.

Personalization:

The promotion of a product or service can be customized according to your preference, you can easily see what your audience is paying attention to, and you can also promote specific products and can also promote your stuff to the targeted audience.

The Customer Connection:

Digital marketing makes it easy for you to communicate with your customers.

You can target the audience that makes more engagements on your social media page or website as well as the customer’s level of engagement increases as they become active participants on your website or page. That sense of ownership creates a strong sense of brand loyalty like you are awarded a “Top Fan” badge from a Facebook page when you actively participate in that page’s posts.

Easy and Convenient Conversions:

The best thing about digital marketing is that your customer can immediately react to your post or can contact you by just clicking on your company’s promotional ad. These are the immediate conversations that most customers prefer rather than phone calls and physical meetings.

 

A SUCCESSFUL DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM:

Here’s how you can set up the best digital marketing strategy for your company:

Identification of Business Goals:

The first and the most important part is understanding your business objectives. For example, what is more, important for your business?

Increase leads or e-commerce sales, increase the traffic to your website or increase your brand awareness through social media.

Targeting the Audience:

A buyer’s profile should be created to monitor his/her interest, likes, and dislikes.

The Customer’s Journey:

You must keep track of different stages, the users take from awareness to retention. You should work on such product information and questions that are expected to get noticed.

To create an intention to buy.

Identify channels:

Specific channels can help you on different stages of a customer’s journey. For example, if you have a startup brand you can play ads by paying fees to attract customers or to get noticed (SEM or Pay-Per-Click Marketing).

The Content Planning:

Based on the customer’s journey you can start planning content and its allocation during the journey.

Analyzing and Optimizing:

This is the most crucial step, to analyze and optimize your strategy to minimize the cost or to achieve specific goals.

For example, you want to get 10% more followers than the last month, you can optimize and analyze your strategy accordingly.

 

FUTURE OF DIGITAL MARKETING:

Now discuss what the future of digital marketing is, it is expected to see

• A rapid increase in the number of wearable devices that will be available to consumers will be made in the future.
• Social media will become more conversational in the B2B space.
• Video content will be filtered for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.
• Email marketing will become more personalized and secure.