Businesses used to reach customers exclusively through ads on billboards, newspapers, magazines, radio, or television. Today, businesses can connect with the 89% of Americans who use the internet through digital channels that include social media, news websites, and email.
What does that mean for your business? It means that along with the several thousand people who might see your billboard, you can reach millions of people around the world through digital marketing and lead them through a digital journey.
This guide explains the basics of digital marketing, including its definition, the benefits of doing it, and the main digital marketing channels to use. Each section breaks down what you need to know and includes tips you can use today. There are also links to additional resources that can help your business reach potential customers whether they’re down the street or across the globe.
What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is any marketing action that occurs on digital platforms, regardless of whether the device is connected to the internet. Under the umbrella of digital marketing is online marketing, which includes email marketing, paid ads on social media platforms, and search engine optimization (SEO).
The terms digital marketing and online marketing are often used interchangeably, but marketers should be aware of the difference. “Digital marketing” describes all marketing strategies that use digital services (like social media or television ads), while “online marketing” describes marketing strategies that are executed via the internet. While the line between them can become blurry, the current understanding of these terms defines online marketing as a type of digital marketing.
Why Is Digital Marketing Important for Businesses?
Digital marketing is crucial for business growth in today's technology-driven world. Consumers spend many hours every day online checking email, using social media, reading news, and shopping. In fact, research shows that in 2020, U.S. adults spent an average of seven hours and 50 minutes per day with their digital devices, a 15% increase over 2019. That growth continued into 2021 and is expected to continue in 2022, with no signs of slowing down.
Using digital marketing can expand revenue potential and growth. Unlike old-school tactics like billboards and radio ads, digital marketing helps organizations carefully target their ideal audiences, which results in a higher return on investment (ROI) than traditional, offline marketing methods.
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What Are the Benefits of Digital Marketing?
In addition to reaching a targeted audience, there are other benefits of digital marketing, including:
It’s cost-effective: Small and midsize businesses often struggle to compete with big brands. Digital marketing helps even the playing field. With a clear digital marketing strategy, even a small budget can help drive leads and customers to your website, app, or in-person store.
It’s easy to measure: Some marketing campaigns generate decent ROI, but it’s hard to attribute a sale to a specific ad or see clear success metrics. Using an integrated digital marketing strategy, you can track users across the entire buying cycle to better understand what works — and what could be improved. In fact, 72% of high-performing marketing teams analyze performance in real time.
It drives engagement: With digital marketing, brands can interact with customers wherever they are in the customer journey. For example, you can educate, answer questions, even provide customer service all from one platform.
It’s personalized to customers: Digital marketing allows for segmenting customers based on their interests and engagement history to create personalized experiences at scale. This gives businesses the opportunity to impress customers at every step of their journey.
It’s possible to update and optimize: Once a direct mailer is in transit or a billboard goes up, you can't make changes. With digital marketing, brands can test different headlines, fix typos, and tweak ads with the click of a few buttons, and changes appear immediately.
2. What Are the Different Types of Digital Marketing?
There are dozens of digital marketing channels you can use to carry out your strategy, including social media sites, SMS, and more. The sheer number of options can be overwhelming.
Below are explanations of four basic types of digital marketing: social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC), and email marketing. Remember, digital marketing is customizable and easy to change. If a strategy isn’t as successful as you’d like, rethink your plan, change platforms or tactics, and try something new.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing leverages platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram to build connections with potential customers and drive leads or sales.
Social media is the second most-popular digital channel for marketers, with 83% of marketers using it for customer and prospect communication.
There are two main types of social media marketing, which you’ll recognize from the section above:
Inbound social media: Posting educational information, sharing resources, using paid ads (such as those promoting a lead gen campaign), even sharing funny memes, all of which helps you build a relationship with your audience.
Outbound social media: Commenting on other social media profiles or participating in hashtag conversations are modern takes on the classic “interruption” style of outbound marketing that help with brand awareness and brand building.
Nearly every type of business, from a small ecommerce business to large enterprise organizations, can use social media to drive customer engagement, leads, and sales.
These are the main benefits of social media marketing:
Detailed targeting: Most platforms allow marketing teams to target ideal customer profiles based on demographics, interests, location, and language. This prevents wasting ad spend to reach audiences who aren't interested in your campaign.
Build brand awareness and trust: Consumers don't generally make a purchase the first time they hear about a brand. With social media, you can reach your audience multiple times as they move through the sales funnel.
It’s affordable: Social media marketing can be done with little to no budget. While you do have to pay for ads, brands can post and interact with consumers for free through brand accounts.
Easy-to-monitor results: Social media platforms and third-party tools offer analytics and tracking dashboards so you can monitor results, track interactions, and better understand your audience.
The first step to leveraging social media is determining which platforms your audience uses the most. Then, these social media best practices will help you get results.
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