What is Digital Marketing?

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What does Digital Marketing Mean?

Digital Marketing refers to all marketing activities carried out using digital methods to promote your products and services or to generate leads through digital channels.

Digital marketing is a relatively new form of marketing and it is taking the market by storm. Unlike the traditional way of marketing which is a one-way communication, digital marketing enables marketers to communicate directly with their target audience.

Today, everyone is in possession of at least one digital device. Digital marketing is essentially trying to reach people through digital devices. People no look to their devices for everything, they go online for everything. And because they always find what they are looking for online, they always go back.

The market itself has been moved online, so now digital marketing is the best way to reach your target audience, and it is fast overtaking traditional marketing to become one of the most used and most important forms of marketing.

Businesses are now allocating a higher percentage of their marketing funds to digital marketing instead of traditional marketing. One of the reasons is the sheer number of people who access the internet, while another, is the advent of digital marketing, which is making some traditional marketing methods obsolete.

Why drive or walk to the store, when you can have everything delivered to you from the comfort of your home? Why waste money on billboards and newspapers when most digital marketing channels are free? The internet is easy to navigate and is accessible to all who have the digital devices needed.

How Digital Marketing Works

Digital marketing is the most effective form of marketing we have ever discovered and implemented. It gives you the chance to create the best and most interactive personalized advertisements to generate leads for your business.

In digital marketing, the channel you use for your marketing activities depends on what type of digital marketing you are going to use to generate leads and promote awareness for your brand.

Digital marketing works by connecting marketers with potential buyers through digital marketing channels like social media, e-mails, etc.

Types of Digital Marketing Methods

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): When you search for anything using a search engine, your results will be a few websites listed containing the answer you seek. Search engine optimization is a set of activities done so that your website will rank higher on the search engine result page. When your site is ranked high on the result page, everyone who searches for something that is relevant to the content of your page will see your site as the first or second one on the search engine result page. This increases brand awareness, generates leads, increases organic search traffic, etc.

• Content Marketing: content marketing refers to the creation and posting or publishing of unique, informative, and engaging content to teach and inform your audience about things relating to your business or its products and services. Content can also be created to entertain your audience, which is a great way to attract attention and generate leads. The content that is posted can be a blog, video, podcast, article, e-book, etc.
• Social Media Marketing (SMM): Social media marketing involves all marketing activities carried out on social media platforms to increase brand awareness and generate quality leads. There are a lot of social media platforms, and different platforms work better with different types of content.
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC): this is a type of marketing whereby businesses advertise on search engines, websites, etc. and they are only paid when a visitor clicks on that ad. In search engine PPC, a business pays that search engine to have their ad placed on the result page. The business pays a fixed amount of money only when a visitor clicks on their ad and visits their site.
• E-mail Marketing: In e-mail marketing, businesses use e-mail to communicate with their audience about their products and services, promotions, and events, and to attract them to become buyers. E-mail marketing is one of the most profitable forms of digital marketing due to the fact that you can get 36$ for every 1$ spent.
• Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is when businesses hire affiliate marketers to promote and advertise the business’s products on their websites or blogs. The affiliate is paid a commission for every promotion.
• Mobile Marketing: This refers to all marketing activities carried out on mobile phones through e-mails, instant messaging, push notifications, etc. to increase brand awareness, generate leads, promote products and services, etc.

How to Create A Digital Marketing Strategy

1. Identify and Set Your Goals: You need to determine where you want your digital marketing to take you in the future. What you are aiming to do with a digital marketing campaign, and why you are using digital marketing in the first place?
2. Identify Target Audience: You should create what your prime audience should be and identify them.
3. Understand Them: Know the needs and wants of your target audience so that you can create personalized content to attract them.
4. Identify Marketing Channels: After you have identified your target audience, you need to identify the best marketing channel to use to post content.
5. Create personalized content: After you have identified what they need and want, you should be able to use that information to create personalized advertisements and promotions which would be used to turn them into prospects and then buyers.

Advantages of Digital Marketing

1. Low Cost: Compared to the cost of traditional marketing, the cost of digital marketing is negligible. Most digital marketing channels are free and don’t require any payment to be done.
2. Trackable and Measurable Results: By using digital marketing, there are tools that can allow your digital marketing process to be tracked and measured. This can help you to make informed decisions in the future.
3. Increase Brand Awareness: The huge audience that digital marketing has offered you the chance to increase awareness for your brand.
4. Personalization: Digital marketing allows you to be able to personalize your ads to the needs and wants of your target audience.
5. Global Reach: Your audience is not fixed in a single geographical area. The internet is a place for anyone and everyone to come together regardless of their distance.

Disadvantages of Digital Marketing

1. Time-Consuming: Digital marketing takes a lot of time because you have to create the content you are going to post and search engine optimization also takes time.
2. Competition: Since you are able to reach the whole world using digital marketing, it also means you will have to compete against every business.
3. Negative Feedback Spreads Fast: Any negative feedback against you will spread fast due to the public nature of social media platforms.

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