When we think of marketing, we often imagine catchy logos, commercials, and people handing out flyers. Digital marketing takes that idea and uses the power of technology to reach your audience. We can use technology to reach our audience through a number of different media including websites, blogs, social media, and email marketers. The digital marketing basics can be broken into four different aspects: SEO, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, and Email Marketing.
1. What Makes Digital Marketing Relevant
Most people check their phones at least a few times a day, and even more frequently when it comes to social media. It’s for this reason that digital marketing is so powerful, if you can get your product in front of someone while they’re looking at their phone, there’s a good chance that they’ll click on your ad or website. It introduces immediacy where you used to have none, allowing customers to make decisions in an instant. The revolutionary technology of the internet allows consumers to have access to a larger range of products that they can compare and contrast. Digital marketing makes use of this by allowing businesses to create websites through which they can share their product with the world, as well as other avenues such as social media, email blasts, and podcasts.
2. Digital Marketing Strategies
A digital marketing strategy is going to be different for every business, the first thing you need to do before creating a plan of action is to determine your target audience and your main objective. You should have some idea about what kind of product or service you’re trying to sell.
If it’s something more complicated, you’ll need to break it down into its different aspects and identify which parts of your business can be marketed. If you find the nuances somewhat overwhelming, you can always turn to a digital marketing company for help. Once you know what you’re trying to market, the next step is to determine how much time and money are available for investment in marketing.
This will obviously depend on your budget, but also your goals. If your goal is to raise brand awareness, then the marketing will look different than if you’re trying to get leads or turn potential customers into actual customers.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization is how you optimize your website in order to get more traffic on the site. It’s important to do this because 69% of consumers use search engines first when looking for something online. If they don’t find what they are looking for, they will leave your site and go to a different brand.
There are a lot of rules that you need to follow when doing SEO. It’s best to work with a professional who understands the field of online marketing in order to get traffic coming to your site as efficiently as possible. Doing SEO on your own can feel very time-consuming, and it’s difficult to do correctly, especially for those who are not familiar with the language of online marketing.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do on your own. It just means that you should be more aware of what you’re doing and why rather than simply following a checklist of SEO best practices.
4. Social Media Marketing
Social media has changed the way we communicate with each other. We have become accustomed to using social media for everything in our personal lives, which is why it’s even more important when you are marketing your business. The key to social media marketing is to identify which platforms your target audience uses the most and when they are on them.
Once you know what your potential customers are doing, it’s simply a matter of making posts that coincide with those activities. Asking yourself why people use social media can prove to be very helpful. In general, people use Facebook when they’re bored at work or waiting for something. Knowing that you can post marketing materials on their wall when they are likely to see it.
A similar approach can be taken when it comes to Twitter, for example, with the only difference being that most people use the platform while they’re on the go. That means that your posts must be clear and concise in order for them to understand what is being advertised.
5. Content Marketing
Content marketing is important because it provides value to your customers. It can be used in a variety of ways, from blog posts to infographics, and videos on YouTube. The goal of content marketing is to teach people about a topic, so they can become an expert on the subject.
However, businesses often use this tactic as a way to promote their product or service to their audience. The way this is done is by creating a content piece that is related to the product or service and then including an ad in the middle of that post. It’s important to only include one advertisement per post so that you do not interrupt your audience’s experience.
This can be a tricky tactic to master, especially if you’ve never done it before. For many businesses, digital marketing is one of the most cost-efficient ways to get in front of new potential customers. However, it’s important that you know what you’re doing before spending any money on a digital marketing campaign.
6. Email Marketing
Email marketing is becoming less popular than it used to be, but there are still millions of potential customers who do not use social media and rely heavily on email to communicate online.
The goal is to provide value to them, so they want to open the emails that you send out each day/week/month. You can also use email marketing to let people know about any sales or special events that are coming up. This tactic is important because it allows you to communicate directly with your audience.
However, this can be difficult if you don’t have a list of people who are interested in receiving emails from your brand. A great way of building this list of potential customers is through social media, which is the first tactic that we discussed.
The end goal of digital marketing is to bring more customers to your business and then provide them with a great experience on your website. Just like any form of advertising, it’s important that you track your results, so you know how much money you are spending and if that money is being well spent. Try to come up with a plan or strategy before beginning your digital marketing campaign to make sure you have a good idea of what you want to accomplish, rather than simply creating posts and hoping for the best.