Table of Contents
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital Marketing is the promotion or marketing of a service or a product using different digital channels, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Quora, etc., through digital devices like desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, and tablets.
Why is Digital Marketing Important?
According to Statista, there are 5.44 billion internet users worldwide as of April 2024 and 751.5 million internet users in India, of which 462 million are social media users.
On average, people spend 4 to 6 hours on the internet daily, which means that people watch more ads and promotions on the internet than on television. So, if a business is not practising digital marketing, it will miss the traffic and leads that could be generated online.
After the pandemic, the use of digital media increased. E-commerce websites for shopping and OTT platforms for streaming entertainment have taken a leap.
So, businesses must adapt to the changing trends and promote their products and services online to enhance brand awareness, build credibility, and generate leads.
Benefits of Digital Marketing
There are numerous advantages to using digital marketing for your business.
Improves brand awareness:
Promoting a brand online helps reach people where they are. It helps focus on marketing the services or products to the target audience. It helps people discover your brand online, follow the activities, and engage with the brand directly.
Cost-effectiveness:
Digital marketing’s cost-effectiveness makes it popular among businesses. Advertising on television or in newspapers may be very costly and unaffordable for small business owners.
Comparatively, advertising on digital platforms is cost-effective, easy to monitor and analyze, and helps reach a specific target audience sector.
Measurable results:
By measuring key metrics like website traffic, conversion rate, cost per acquisition, return on investment, click-through rate, bounce rate, customer lifetime value, etc., you can measure the growth of your brand and its online presence.
Website traffic :- It is the number of people who visit your website.
Conversion Rate:- Conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of website visitors or clicks. The higher the conversion rate is, the higher the chances of customer purchases of your products or services.
Cost per Acquisition(CPA): This is the cost of acquiring one new customer. It is calculated by dividing the total cost of the campaign by the total number of customers.
Return on Investment (ROI)—This metric calculates the revenue generated from an ad campaign or advertising campaigns. It is calculated by dividing the total profit by the total ad spend or advertising costs.
Click-through rate (CTR): This helps to focus on the right audience. A high CTR helps to understand that we are focusing on the right audience. It is the ratio of the total clicks to the number of impressions.
Bounce Rate is the number of visitors leaving a website without taking action. A high bounce rate indicates that the website or landing page content needs to be improved to satisfy the visitor’s expectations.
Customer Life Time Value (CLTV)- Customer lifetime value is the net profit a customer generates throughout his journey with your brand.
It is calculated using the formula –average monthly customer spend * the average customer life span. CLTV helps to find your valuable customers and optimize your ad spend accordingly.
These metrics can effectively measure the success of your marketing efforts and optimize them accordingly. They also help plan the budget required for advertising in each digital channel.
Flexibility:
It is easy to change the content of ads published on an online platform. The target audience, Creative, or caption can be changed, while this is not possible when advertising on a print media.
Helps to Compete with global brands:- Using Digital Marketing makes a business competitive and helps to compete with global brands as the target audience is not restricted to a particular area but can be expanded worldwide.
Engagement with audience:- Social media Marketing and Email marketing help a brand to directly engage with its customers and get their feedback about its products or services.
B2B VS B2C Digital Marketing
B2B is the buying and selling that takes place between two businesses, and B2C is the buying and selling that takes place between a business and a consumer.
B2B focuses on advertising on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, and B2C focuses on advertising platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
B2B content always involves serious content that shows the brand values. In contrast, B2C content mostly entertains people, solves their pain points and focuses on quick solutions.
Types of Digital Marketing
There are various types of digital marketing that you can use to promote your products or services. They are:-
Content Marketing
Content Marketing is a marketing strategy that educates your target audience about your brand. You make your brand and identity familiar to people by consistently publishing content about your products and services and how they solve customers’ pain points.
Content Marketing could be done through blogs, videos, social media posts, podcasts, e-books, etc.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is a type of digital marketing done through social media platforms. Businesses have to choose the platform on which their target audience is most active.
LinkedIn is a professional platform apt for B2B marketing, while Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube can be used by E-commerce businesses and D2C businesses. On these platforms, you can directly reach and engage with your customers.
You could promote your brand organically by posting relevant content to your target group or running ad campaigns to reach a larger mass of your target audience.
Search Engine Marketing
In search engine marketing, businesses use search engines to promote their products or services.
Marketing through search engines could be done organically using Search Engine Optimization or by running PPC ad campaigns.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process of optimizing your webpage to increase its visibility in the search results page relevant to the user’s search query.
PPC Ad Campaigns are paid campaigns that promote your products or services on search engines. Advertisers pay only when their ad is clicked hen,ce the name Pay Per Click Ads.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is the most effective and cheapest way to promote your products to customers and prospects.
By sending newsletters, offers, reminders about abandoned carts, and valuable information that your customers might be interested in, you could upsell your products to existing customers or get new customers to subscribe to your Email and convert them.
A good database of prospects’ and customers’ emails is important for effective Email marketing.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has gained popularity recently, where a brand uses the influence that a person has over his followers. An influencer is a person who has attracted several people with their talent on social media.
Businesses believe that these influencers are trusted by their followers, and when they promote a product, their followers are likely to buy and use that product.
The influencers get paid for promoting these products or are given products for free in return for promotion on social media. It depends on the agreement between the influencer and the business owner.
Online PR
Maintaining a business’s reputation with the public through paid media is called Online PR. Many agencies provide online PR as a service, and you can contact them for press releases or news articles about your products or services.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is a marketing technique where a person called an affiliate earns a commission every time a person purchases products through his referral link.
Businesses provide affiliate options on their websites; anybody could apply for it and get their referral link if they are qualified. These affiliates bring in many sales and customers to the brand.
Mobile Marketing
Any marketing or promotion done through smartphones and tablets is called mobile marketing. Mobile marketing uses the different technologies used in these devices, helping businesses reach specific customers in a particular location.
Native Advertising
Advertising a product or a service in a natural way that matches the media format on which it appears, where the user does not have the impact of watching an ad, is called Native Advertising.
These ads have a higher click-through rate, as the ad copy contains a hook that attracts the user to click through.
Challenges in Digital Marketing
Although Digital Marketing has many advantages, it also has its cons. Let’s discuss what they are:-
Time-Consuming
Digital Marketing practices like optimizing a campaign or your website can be time-consuming.SEO takes at least six months to show progress, and paid campaigns should be created, experimented with, and optimized consistently to grow the campaign objectives.
Competitive
When digital marketing started booming a decade ago, only very few businesses practised it, making it easier for them to generate leads and revenue.
Today, every business practices Digital Marketing. The online marketplace is crowded with companies and their competitors, so small businesses and startups might need help to compete.
Technology
Digital Marketing involves emerging Technology, and some areas require technical skills. Also, the algorithms of digital marketing platforms constantly change, and businesses have to adapt quickly to stay up to date with the trends.
Consistency
Digital Marketing is a consistent process. It is closely associated with frequency and time. Businesses should be consistent in what they do, whether it is branding activity or advertising.
They should keep reminding people about their products and services and always try to stand out from their competitors.
What skills should a digital marketer acquire?
A digital marketer should have expertise in one or more of these skills and have a fair knowledge of the other skills mentioned below:-
- Search engine Optimization
- Social Media Marketing
- Graphic Design
- Website Design
- Content Creation
- Paid Advertising
- Data Analytics
- Email Marketing
While the above skills are the technical skills that digital marketers should possess, some soft skills will help them grow in their careers. They are:
- Communication skills
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Passion to learn
- Adaptability
- Strategic Thinking
- Persuasive skills
- Customer Relationship
A person with sound technical and soft skills can make a good digital marketer.
Digital Marketing Team
A digital marketing team comprises of
- Content Writer– A content writer is a person who writes content for websites, blogs, and Email newsletters. A content writer may also be a copywriter who writes ad copies, Social media captions, and product descriptions.
- Graphic Designer—A graphic designer is responsible for creating stunning ad creatives, website banners, social media posts, videos, and other company marketing collaterals like brochures, e-books, etc.
- SEO Specialist—An SEO specialist is responsible for driving traffic to a company’s website through on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO.
- Social Media Manager—A social media manager manages all the company’s social media accounts and is responsible for increasing the brand’s online visibility and engagement.
- PPC Specialist– A PPC specialist manages all the paid advertising campaigns.
- Web Developer—A web developer develops the company’s website, regularly updates its content, and is responsible for its proper operation.
- Email Marketing Specialist– An Email Marketing specialist runs email campaigns through Email automation to reach prospects and generate leads.
Digital Marketing Strategy
What is a digital marketing strategy?
A digital marketing strategy is a series of actions taken to achieve a company’s objectives or goals. These goals include increasing brand awareness, increasing online presence, engaging the target audience, gaining new customers, and increasing sales and revenue.
How to create a digital marketing strategy?
A well-planned digital marketing strategy is essential for any business to achieve success. Here are some important pointers to consider while planning your strategy.
- Establish your digital marketing goals:-
The first step in a digital marketing strategy is to identify the goal or objective you want to achieve through digital marketing. It could be more sales, revenue, discovery of your new product, or branding. Be clear about what you want to achieve and set a time goal.
- Define your target audience:-
The next important step is to define your target audience. Determine who is your customer and develop buyer personas to understand your audience better.
- Determine your marketing budget:-
Planning and allocating a definite marketing budget is crucial because spending too much on campaigns may result in a business’s financial crisis, while spending too little may not produce results.
- Select your digital marketing methods:-
Some businesses require omnichannel marketing, while some require marketing in only one channel. Also, some businesses, like E-commerce, require driving traffic to their website to sell more products, so Social Media Marketing, SEO, and PPC can be utilized to grow their brand digitally.
However, some B2b businesses rely mainly on Email marketing. So, it is important to determine the digital marketing method that is suitable for your business and allocate the budget required for each type of marketing method.
- Track and analyze results.
Periodic tracking of your digital marketing efforts is essential to monitor whether or not you are close to achieving your goals. Analyzing and optimizing the results to achieve better results is always good practice.
Future of digital marketing
The use of Technology in digital marketing is increasing. AR and VR technology are the future of digital marketing, and AI has already become an essential part of it.
AR, or Augmented Reality, is a technology in which digital elements are integrated with real-time environments.
For example, an online furniture store can help you visualize its products in your home environment and make decisions about buying them.
Similarly, an optical store can help you choose the right pair of glasses through AR by visualizing yourself wearing them.
VR or Vitual Reality is a computer-generated environment which appears to be real, and the user feels as if they are in that environment.
This Technology is used in games, 3D movies, and fun rides in amusement parks to give users a real and fun-filled experience.
These two technologies can be used by businesses to promote their products and give customers a whole new experience.
Conclusion
Digital marketing, on the other hand, is cost-effective and has become mandatory for every business
‘s online growth.
Traditional and digital marketing go hand in hand for a successful business. Marketing on TV, newspapers, and radio and offline marketing through billboards and display banners may be costly, but they are as effective as digital marketing.
