In a nutshell, digital marketing triumphs convention marketing by leveraging electronic media, devices, and the internet. It is a method through which businesses utilize digital channels, i.e., social media, search engines,
emails, and websites, to connect with their customers/audience.
Over the years, digital marketing has been described by various terms such as internet marketing or online marketing, but perhaps the most popular one, however, is still“Digital marketing.”
That drastic increase in internet usage has affected the way people buy or sell products. According to research, there were 4.66 billion active internet users in October; hence, this information alone is enough to convince you to opt for digital marketing and advertising to massively increases the chance of sales and growth.
Our article today covers all the ins and outs of digital marketing. Today we’ll learn why is digital marketing a big deal and its types.
So, without any further ado, let’s dive right in!
What Benefits Does It Offer For Your Business?
There are countless benefits of digital marketing, and the most obvious one is the reach you get while leveraging this marketing type.
Traditional marketing is limited to telephonic marketing, billboards, or pamphlets, and the message of your brand can be conveyed only to limited people through physical marketing. Also
And here’s where digital marketing steps in and changes the game for your brand. While leveraging digital channels such as social media, emails, websites – you can send your brand’s message to millions of people globally.
Your customers also get to see and learn about your brand at their convenience, making your marketing efforts way more effective than conventional marketing.
Let it be brand awareness, lead generation, or any other marketing objective – digital marketing has got you covered with all your marketing goals, and the best part? It is super cost-effective as compared to traditional marketing.
Also, it is important to mention that digital marketing has today become vital for brands. Back in the days when the internet was new – there was little to no competition online; however, today, the competition is fierce. Every other brand today has a website and a social media presence.
We can also determine if they have ongoing social media or digital ad strategy, but the point is that it’s getting increasingly difficult for brands to thrive online.
Moreover,
Considering that almost everyone today knows or at least has heard about digital marketing, the audience is more inclined to choose a brand with an intriguing presence and more exposure online.
Long story short, to thrive in the digital world today, you need digital marketing, or in other words, you need to embrace the digital transformation. Furthermore, since digital marketing has numerous associations with a variety of different marketing tactics –
There are several digital marketing strategies and tactics that you can get creative with and experiment with various marketing tactics on a budget. You can also use analytics dashboards to monitor your campaigns’ success and ROI.
These features are something that you would never be able to accomplish or learn about while opting for promoting your brand through conventional marketing, I.e., billboards or print ads.
What Are Digital Marketing Strategies?
A digital marketing strategy is essential to curate when you’re opting for digital marketing. Generally, digital marketing strategies are a series of actions and implementations that you take to achieve marketing objectives. Since there are two ways in digital marketing, “paid” and “organic,” – both approaches have their marketing strategies.
Moreover, it is important to have a plan of action that strengthens your digital marketing game. Some of the most simple ways through which marketing specialists and advertisers curate digital marketing strategies are:
- Understanding the audience.
- Researching about the competitors.
- Analyzing the best digital channels for a specific brand.
- Creating appropriate content for the audience.
- Ensuring an impactful message deliverance across all channels.
Moreover, digital marketing strategies can be created for a long, mid, or short term.
For example, a strategy could be implemented for eight months or a year; on the other hand, a strategy could be designed to be used for 1 or 2 months it generally depends on the marketing goal.
Speaking of goals – for the different types of digital marketing goals, you would need different digital marketing types. So, here are the types of digital marketing, their function, and their implementation.
What Are The Types Of Digital Marketing?
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
- Social Media Marketing.
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
- Influencer Marketing.
- Email Marketing.
- PR Marketing,
- Native Advertising.
- Marketing Automation.
- Paid Content.
- Inbound Marketing.
These are the basic components of digital marketing. It is within these components that other digital marketing types are identified and leveraged.
Additionally, all of the digital marketing types mentioned above have their specialty, i.e., SEO is best for ranking on top in the Google SERPS. Meanwhile, SEM is best for brand awareness or quick sales and revenue generation.
With the specialties out of the way, let’s take a quick rundown on the types of digital marketing.
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the process of getting your website to rank higher in Google SERPs. This is the organic way of attracting traffic through higher rankings, translating into more leads and sales. There are numerous tools and techniques implemented and utilized while opting for SEO. Some of them are:
- On-Page SEO.
- Off-Page SEO.
- Technical SEO.
2. Content Marketing
Content marketing is the process of generating and distributing valuable content to attract traffic. This process is basically used for brand awareness, traffic increasing, lead generation, and increased engagement. Content marketing includes the following:
- Onsite Blogging
- Guest Posting
- PR Articles
- eBooks
- SEO optimized website content.
3. Social Media Marketing
This digital marketing type is the practice of promoting your brand on social media channels. Today, most social media domains offer a wide variety of tools and marketing objectives that you can leverage for your business.
For example, Facebook gives you several paid marketing options like brand awareness, lead generation, downloads, and traffic. Here’s a list of social media channels that you can leverage for your social media marketing:
- Snapchat
- YouTube
If you want to learn more about social media marketing, read our blog on “How To Leverage Social Media Marketing For Your Business.”
4. PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
As the name suggests, PPC is the method of paying for the times your audience clicks on your ad. This process is best for driving traffic to your site, and the most viable and famous medium for this type of digital advertising is Google Ads, formerly known as Google AdWords.
When you opt for PPC, you buy the top position in the SERPs from Google to rank above your competition. Besides Google Ads, other search engines and social media domains also offer PPC digital marketing:
- Bing Ads.
- Facebook Paid Ads.
- Sponsored Messages on LinkedIn.
5. Influencer Marketing
This digital marketing typically involves forming an alliance with a social media personality (an influencer) to promote your product or services. When a famous personality promotes your business, it builds credibility for your brand. The more credibility and trust you build online, the more beneficial it is for your business.
6. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is performance-based marketing in which you earn a commission by promoting other brands and their product or services. This process involves the marketer’s individual effort to promote a product or service.
7. Marketing Automation
Automation of digital marketing operations is called Marketing operations. Gone are the days when people manually type in emails or write social media posts again and again.
Today, there is software that helps you fulfill your marketing goals quickly and efficiently. You can efficiently complete the following tasks by leveraging marketing automation:
- Social media posts scheduling.
- Lead nurturing.
- Ads analysis and reporting.
- Campaign tracking.
- Auto optimization.
8. Email Marketing
Hubspot says that Emails can provide 3,800% ROI, so it is obvious why marketers today consider Email marketing extremely beneficial.
This way of promoting your brand includes delivering content, discounts, event invitation, brand awareness, new product information, and even directing people to a website. Your Emails can have the following incorporated when you’re opting for this astounding digital advertising option:
- Subscriptions or Newsletters.
- Follow-up Emails to a person who already bought from you.
- Invitations to attend webinars or seminars.
- Welcoming Email because everyone loves to be welcomed.
- Promotions and discounts for your audience.
9. PR Marketing
PR Marketing is the practice of building PR across all or specific digital channels. This approach involves a set of practices,including publications on credible websites, blogging, and forming and maintaining a credible connection with the audience.
Moreover, here are the channels that you can leverage to maximize your PR Marketing efforts:
- Reporter Outreach Through Social Media Channels.
- Getting positive online reviews.
- Engaging your audience on your website in real-time.
- Ensuring a positive and influential presence in the digital world.
10. Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is more inclined towards forming a buyer journey within the website. You can attract, engage, delight, and retain your audience within your website. The tactics and strategies used in Inbound marketing consist of all the digital marketing types mentioned above.
However, the goal is to create such a customer experience that helps you achieve the decided marketing goal. Some examples of inbound marketing are written below:
- The pop-up ads appear while users are reading blogs.
- Leveraging video marketing rather than commercial advertising.
- Creating forms that are required to be filled before the user continues surfing the website.
What Benefits Digital Marketing Has To Offer For Your Business?
Till now, you might’ve understood the importance of digital marketing for businesses. From multinational brands to home-based startups, digital marketing can help businesses of all kinds in terms of growth, revenue, and pretty much every marketing goal.
Also, several digital marketing tools like Facebook’s Audience insight and Think With Google can help companies with their marketing objectives by identifying and understanding the audience.
That said, let’s dive into the specifics and learn how digital marketing works for different types of companies, i.e., B2C and B2B. This is a quick overview that will tell you about the strategies that will work best for the companies mentioned above and how digital marketing can play a vital role in their success.
B2C Companies
Honestly, digital marketing is the perfect choice if your business belongs to the B2C world. When it comes to digital marketing or advertising for B2C, the investment is low, the sales are high (If conducted through proper planning), and you would gain more followers on social media.
The main difference is that selling a $5 pant is easier than selling an ERP solution of $80,000, which is difficult even while leveraging digital marketing.
So, because B2C companies aren’t selling expensive products or services to their customers, they generally don’t require expensive sales teams or marketing funnels.
All they have to do is place their product or service in front of their audience with an enticing message, and the audience will take care of the rest by themselves.
Keeping this in mind, the probability of getting more sales via digital media seems easier for B2C businesses. Also, digital marketing can help B2C companies to get their marketing message across the masses, which would attract more audience.
Pro-tip
Combine your social media marketing efforts with SEO. This combination would prove extremely viable for your B2C company because, when social media marketing would get you more leads and sales – SEO would be attracting more traffic organically. It’s like revenue generation and immense traffic at the same time, which is a good thing.
B2B Companies
In my perspective, Digital marketing for B2B companies is just like another amazing opportunity to close the super-expensive deal they’re offering.
Although the audience for B2B is limited and hard to identify, Digital marketing can identify the hyper-specific audience and at least get them to see or visit your brand.
Moreover, when it comes to selling an $80,000 ERP solution, you might want to pop up on the top in the SERPs whenever the user is inquiring about your business niche.
Yes! You may end up spending more than B2C companies but comparing the price difference between B2B, and B2C companies, the money spent is worth it.
Additionally, B2B companies have a more complex sales cycle and marketing funnel. The person interested in an $80,000 ERP solution won’t chat with you on your website and say,“I want one.”
Here, long term professional digital media strategies such as content or email marketing would prove to be more beneficial to close a deal.
Also, know that the marketing tactics discussed earlier are just an example. If you’re searching for how to do digital marketing for your B2B firm – the approach, planning, and strategies would differ from industry to industry.
How To Get Started In Digital Marketing
Since there are several platforms and ways to get started in digital marketing, the more convenient method would be to start with the most common ones. Having an overview of the basic components and learning the implementations would help you with your digital media objectives.
However, before directly implementing, we recommend you plan the approach and have a clear objective in mind. For the initial planning of getting started in digital marketing, consider the following aspects:
1. Know Your Goals
Do you want revenue generation? Is brand awareness your goal? Or you want to drive traffic to your website – clarify what your goals are and strategize accordingly.
However, one thing’s for sure that any marketing campaign’s ultimate goal eventually leads to revenue generation.
2. Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience before initiating your digital marketing or advertising campaign is extremely important. If you don’t know your audience, how is it that you’re going to engage them?
Creating an interesting design and incorporating a compelling copy is, of course, important, but learning about your audience will enable you to identify the people to who you’re marketing too.
You can analyze their requirements, create buyer personas, and customize your marketing message by hardwiring it with maximum effectiveness.
How To Do Digital Marketing?
Now that you know what fundamentals you need to streamline before opting for digital media – let’s start discussing your initial digital marketing learning approach.
1. Start With An Online Presence
Digital media requires a portfolio, so you need to have an online presence to showcase your skills and expertise.
Employers need to see your online presence, and you are of expertise to learn about your interest and skills. Having a stunning online presence will also enable them to see what you’re capable of.
2. Keep Up With The Latest Trends
The realm of digital marketing is continually evolving, and researches are popping up here and there. So, we recommend keeping up with the latest knowledge, adapting, and learning the latest skills to stay on par with the experts.
The digital industry demands someone who’s highly competitive in terms of skills and capabilities, so we recommend that you take online courses and read blogs often to strengthen your game.
3. Harness Your Creativity
Digital media marketing is all about innovation and creativity. It would be best to harness your creativity to innovate the current processes by either making them clearer and more effective or creating new possibilities by leveraging existing ones.
There are several ways through which you can add your flair to your digital media projects.
4. Create An Enticing Resume
Create a dynamic resume that shows your skills and expertise within the digital media realm.
You can find several resume examples on the internet, so don’t go for a generic template that has been used a thousand times. Instead, find a creative template and edit it to make your resume.
6. Boost Your Networking
By boosting your networking, you’ll expose yourself to the countless opportunities that the digital world has to offer. For example, an individual might know where you can get advanced training related to your expertise.
Another person might know any job opportunities according to your skills. So, having a connection gives you several advantages and opportunities to learn.
7. Have An Eye For Analytics
Honestly, speaking digital media is all numbers, and by numbers, we mean analytics. Let it be marketing campaigns, rankings, SEM, or anything – you need to understand the analytics to determine what needs to be done next.
8. Gain Hand-On Experience
The most important part of starting your career in digital marketing or advertising is that you need to get hands-on experience working in organizations.
Several companies are offering digital media marketing jobs or internships on which you can capitalize. Once you get experience, you’ll learn a lot, and all these learnings will help you further solidify and ensure your career and growth.
9. Get Certified
You don’t need a hi-fi degree to get started in digital media. However, certain certificates are still important.
These certificates add value to your experience and help you learn a lot about digital marketing. Websites like HubSpot and Udemy have several free and paid certifications that you can leverage today to skyrocket your career.
Over To You
And here is a complete guide on what digital marketing is and how you can jump-start your digital media career. If you’re looking for the best career option within digital marketing, read our blog on the 14 in-demand marketing skills that you need to know for career growth.
After reading this blog, you’ll have a crystal-clear idea of which field of the digital media marketing world suits you best.
Moreover, this comprehensive blog of ours entails all the essential details you need to start.
We propose that you go through all of the steps mentioned above, do your research, and create the perfect plan to learn digital marketing from the start. Once you get started in the digital world, there’s no telling how much you could achieve throughout your career in terms of growth and fame.
