What is Digital Marketing
Digital marketing has been a term on the tongues of many for a while.
If you have been wondering what it's about, then you are in the right place. Is this the real deal, or is it just one of those words you say in a meeting to sound sharp ad smart?
In this article, we are looking at everything you should know about digital marketing. In layman's terms, digital marketing is simply marketing done through electronics.
It involves selling products and services through electronic devices. It can be done both online and offline. You can also define it as advertising and marketing through digital channels such as search engines, mobile applications, email, social media, and websites; you name it!
Electronic devices have been around for decades, and so has digital marketing.
History of digital marketing
Although digital marketing first came to the spotlight in the 2000s, it has existed for more than 100 years.
We can confidently say that Guglielmo Marconi was the father of digital marketing. He was the first human ever in the history of electronics to demonstrate the transmission of wireless signals publicly.
He basically invented the radio! His invention did not go unnoticed. Shortly after his demo in England, there were more signals transmitted over open water.
His invention sparked the transmission of radio waves in different parts of the continent. The first radio took a decade to reach the public.
No sooner did the first radio land in public than the inventors realized they could use the transmission to sell different things.
The first service that was sold via radio-electronic was tickets to an opera performance at the met. As they say, the rest is history. Digital marketing was born!
From that short history class, you must have noticed there was no mention of smartphones or anything to do with ads and blogs.
There is more to digital marketing than the internet. It can take place electronically and online. That is the beauty of digital marketing, as it presents countless opportunities!
How does digital marketing work?
Digital marketing is not vastly different from traditional strategies like billboards. However, think about this situation.
Billboards for most of us formed a significant part of our road trips. Most car rides were spent gazing at big billboards by the roadside.
It was even more interesting when there was a competition between brands. You had to look out for offers or discounts on billboards, and only the big brands could afford huge billboards.
Think of today, however. Have you ever given a friend a lift, and they did not raise their eyes from their mobile devices even for a minute during the whole trip?
Even kids nowadays spend the whole car ride playing games and scrolling the internet, unlike us, who thought trees were racing in the opposite direction of the car.
So, where is the place of traditional marketing like billboards in a successful online business? Although we cannot completely throw traditional marketing out the window, it's not an efficient strategy for business today.
Digital marketing has been tailored for profitable online businesses.
The basic rule in business is giving the right offer that will excite your customers. However, that's not enough.
You also need to ensure that the offer must be in the right place. That's what this is all about. It offers the opportunity to create content and puts you online where most of your customers are hanging out.
You can also think about the last thing you bought. You possibly searched online, even if it was hiring someone's services.
Most people look everything up before purchasing and even read reviews on the quality, features, and price of the product or service. It's, therefore, crucial for every business to have an online presence.
Digital marketing allows potential customers to learn about you, interact, and even ask questions about your business where they would like clarification.
A customer does not have to take chances on you because everything they need is available at their luxury. What would a customer love more than that?
Digital marketing, therefore, puts you on the right path to interact with potential customers.
Digital Marketing Strategies And Tools
Content creation
Keeps your customers abreast of industry news, problems they may face, and how you can provide the solutions.
If you want a great example of content marketing, please sign up to receive this free resource guide on the 5 must-have tools everyone needs for their business.
Search engine optimization
This strategy optimizes your content to show up on the first page of search engines. It's vital to your business since your info and content will show up when someone searches for similar services.
Online Courses
You can create your own online courses and sell them. You could also upload them to course websites such as Udemy, Skillshare, Thinkific, or Teachable. Please feel free to register for our Marketing Automation course on Thinkific below.
Google ads
You can advertise your content through paid google ads to drive traffic to your website. More traffic equals more money.
Social media
Sharing content about your business to social media platforms is also a means of digital marketing. It can be very efficient, too, as most people spent averagely 11hours scrolling through social media every day.
Email marketing
This is a tool that is skyrocketing currently. You can use email marketing to source for leads, send offers and discounts, and follow up on clients.
Checking for emails is one thing most people do when they wake up. There are several great email autoresponders such as:
Online Digital Marketing Strategies
When you are new to digital marketing, all this may seem very intimidating. It's like a big puzzle that may be challenging to put together.
However, with patience and a bit of practice, everything will begin to make perfect sense. All you need is to build your strategy carefully.
Affiliate marketing
This is one of the most popular components of digital marketing. The seller pays a commission to affiliates to direct traffic to their brand or products. For more information on affiliate marketing, check out our video below.
Pay per click
Your business can also pay the advertisement publisher or search engine such as Google to direct traffic towards their website by the number of clicks it can get.
Offline Digital Marketing Strategies
Phone marketing
Includes text message marketing, cold calling, and QR codes.
Radio marketing
Includes show sponsoring and radio commercials.
Television marketing
Houses tv commercials, teleshopping, and super bowl commercials.
Why digital marketing?
Wide reach-Digital marketing can reach more people than traditional strategies. For instance, for a billboard to bring you, customers, the person must have seen it and liked what you are offering.
It also means that the billboard must be within their reach, like by the road they take to get home. Such a marketing strategy rules out those who cannot access the billboard and thus limiting your reach.
Digital marketing strategies like social media or email marketing can reach everyone, irrespective of where they are. It can reach new and old customers altogether.
You can make money online at home. Digital marketing like email marketing, doesn't need you to have an office or shop.
Have you heard of success stories where a young person is making millions every year just playing games in the comfort of their home? That is all part of what we're talking about!
Even More Benefits
Helps create awareness for your business. You can reach potential customers by creating awareness for your products through advertising on paid ads such as google ads.
Such ads usually pop when people are scrolling the internet, and that is how you score clients. It also helps in engaging customers before and after-sales.
For instance, you can send emails to your email list when you have offers and discounts and follow up even after making the purchase.
Cost-effective, for the longest time, companies and businesses took to traditional methods of advertising such as billboards, television, hoarding, and visiting cards.
However, these methods were very expensive, and only a few could afford it. The good thing about digital marketing is it's cost-effective. Sending emails or posting on social media is free.
Even those methods that cost something are very affordable.
Return On Investment
Digital marketing also helps to calculate your return on investment, something you cannot with conventional marketing means.
It's a win-win for the buyer and seller- digital marketing is timesaving for the buyer since they can access the right offers whenever they need them.
Instead of making a trip to the store with no surety, a buyer can get the product at any time, and even ask questions about it. The seller can also interact with the beer to understand their needs and buying habits.
Flexibility - digital marketing is an umbrella of different strategies such as affiliate marketing, branding, social media, content creation, multimedia marketing, analytics, traffic generation, and email marketing, to name a few.
Therefore, it means that every business or company irrespective of the size can use these tools to promote their business. If one does not work for you, there are still other means that may work.
Its flexibility, therefore, makes digital marketing a gem.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is revolutionizing small and big businesses. It's one strategy you cannot afford to ignore if you want a successful business venture.
This can take some time, so don't get discouraged. It may also seem overly complicated, especially if you are moving from conventional marketing into the digital world. My only advice is to never quit!
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You shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. It's important to combine online and offline digital marketing tactics to diversify your strategies. Offline strategies such as TV commercials and radio marketing can do wonders too.
For more information on digital marketing and all other types of marketing, here is our #1 recommended business training.
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