What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing, also known as online marketing, is the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers using the internet and other forms of digital communication.
This includes not only email, social media and online
advertising, but also text and multimedia messages as marketing channels.
The key benefits of digital marketing include
Global Reach
Digital marketing has no geographical boundaries, unlike
traditional marketing approaches.
This way, you have the opportunity to market and interact with
customers from various corners of the world. It's your choice to focus on a
local market or go global.
Low entry cost
It can be too expensive to gain a global presence through
traditional marketing channels.
The same effects can happen with a small investment of time and
money when equipped with a digital marketing strategy.
Better targeting
Digital marketing allows you to track your efforts down to very
specific potential customers.
You'll have a much better chance of engaging with a target
audience from a specific location, industry, or social media platform
Flexibility
Progressive companies can adapt their marketing activities on
the fly. Any change in the external/internal factors can instantly alter the
course and course of the chosen technique without much waste of resources.
Immediate connection
Nowadays, customers usually search online for information and
check recommendations before making a purchase.
The first step in this process usually starts with the search
engine and allows your business to connect with customers via the click of a
mouse.
Building relationships
Buyers want to interact with businesses on their own terms.
Showcasing the human side of your business on social media can build long-term,
loyal relationships with customers.
Now let’s look at the various marketing strategies which we can
apply for our businesses, either small or big:
Effective digital marketing strategies
There are dozens of ways to do digital marketing depending on
your needs and business goals.
However, there is no single winning strategy that will work in
every case, so you better consider them all first when planning the strategy.
Fortunately, the strategies listed below work for all
businesses. Let's examine them in detail.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization, (SEO), is technically a marketing
tool rather than a form of marketing in itself.
The Balance defines it as “the art and science of making web
pages attractive to search engines”.
The “art and science” part of SEO is the most important. SEO is
a science because it requires research and consideration of different
contributing factors in order to achieve the highest ranking possible.
Today, the most important things to consider when optimizing a
webpage include:
· Content quality
· The level of user
engagement
· Ergonomics on
mobile device
· The number and
quality of inbound links
Strategic use of these factors makes SEO a science, but
unpredictability makes it an art.
In SEO, there are no quantifiable criteria or constant rule to
get a high ranking. Google changes its algorithm almost constantly and
therefore it is impossible to make exact predictions. What you can do is
closely monitor your page's performance and make adjustments accordingly.
Content Marketing
SEO is an important factor in content marketing, a strategy
based on distributing relevant and useful content to a target audience.
As with any marketing strategy, the goal of content marketing is
to attract leads who are likely to convert into customers. But the method is
quite different from traditional advertising.
Instead of enticing prospects with the potential value of a
product or service, it offers free value in the form of written materials.
Content marketing is important, as many statistics prove:
· 84% of
consumers expect companies to produce engaging and useful content
· 62% of companies
with at least 5,000 employees produce content daily
· 92% of sellers
think their company views content as an important asset
Despite the effectiveness of content marketing, it can be
difficult. Content marketers need to be able to appear at the top of search
results while attracting people who read the content, share it, and take their
engagement with the brand further. When content is relevant, it can build
strong relationships throughout the pipeline.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing means generating traffic and brand
awareness by drawing people into online conversations. The most popular
platforms for this type of marketing are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram,
followed closely by LinkedIn and YouTube.
Social media marketing involves active audience participation,
which is why it has become a well-known way to grab attention. It is the most
popular content medium for B2C sellers at 96%, and it is also increasingly used
in the B2B sphere. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 61% of B2B
marketers used social media more this year.
Social media marketing offers built-in engagement metrics, which
are extremely helpful in helping you understand how you're reaching your
audience. You choose what types of interactions matter most to you, whether
it's the number of shares, comments, or total clicks on your website.
It is even likely that direct purchase is not an objective of
your social media marketing strategy. Many brands use social media to engage
with audiences rather than encouraging them to spend money immediately. It's a
particularly common practice among brands that target older audiences or offer
products and services not suited to impulse purchases. It all depends on your
business goals.
Pay per Click Marketing
Pay-per-click, or PPC, involves posting an ad on a platform and
paying each time a subscriber clicks on it.
A bit more complicated is when people see your ad and how they
perceive it. When space becomes available on a search engine results page, the
search engine fills the space with what is effectively an instant bid. An
algorithm prioritizes each available ad based on a number of factors,
including:
· The
quality of the ad
· The
relevance of the keyword
· The
quality of the landing page
· The
amount of the offer
Every PPC campaign includes at least one target action that
visitors intend to complete after clicking on an ad. These actions are called
"conversions", and they can be transactional or non-transactional. A
purchase is a conversion, but so is signing up for a newsletter or a call to
your office.
Whatever your target conversions are, you can track them through
your platform of choice to see what your campaign looks like.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing allows
one person to earn money while promoting another person's business. You could
be the developer or the company working with the developer, but the process is
the same either way.
It uses a revenue share model. If you are the affiliate, you
receive a commission each time someone buys the item you are promoting. If
you're the merchant, you pay the affiliate for every sale they help you make.
Some affiliate marketers choose to feature a single company's
products, perhaps on a blog or other third-party site. Others have
relationships with multiple merchants.
Whether you want to be an affiliate or find one, the first step
is to establish a connection with the other party. You can either use a platform
designed to connect affiliates with sellers, or start or join a unique selling
program.
If you are a retailer and choose to work directly with
affiliates, there are many things you can do to make your program attractive to
potential promoters. You will need to provide these affiliates with the tools
they need to be successful. This includes incentives for achieving great
results, as well as marketing support and predefined materials.
Native Advertising
Native advertising is disguised marketing. Its purpose is to
blend in with the surrounding content so that it is less blatant than the
advertisement.
Native advertising was created in response to today's consumer
cynicism towards advertisements. Knowing that the creator of an advertisement
is paying for its delivery, many customers conclude that it is biased and, as a
result, choose to ignore it.
Native advertising circumvents this bias by offering information
or entertainment before it becomes promotional, thereby moving beyond the
"advertisement" aspect.
It's important to always clearly label your native ads. Use
words like "promoted" or "sponsored". If these indicators
are hidden, readers could end up spending a considerable amount of time
engaging with the content before realizing that it is actually an
advertisement.
When your consumers know exactly what to expect, they feel
better about your content and your brand. Native ads are meant to be less
intrusive than traditional ads, but they weren't designed to be misleading.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation uses software to power digital marketing
campaigns, improving the effectiveness and relevance of advertising.
Marketing automation allows businesses to meet expectations for
personalization. It allows brands to:
· Collect
and analyze consumer information
· Design
targeted marketing campaigns
· Send
and publish marketing messages to the right audiences at the right time.
Many marketing automation tools use the engagement of prospects
with a specific message to determine when and how to reach them next. This
level of real-time customization means you can efficiently create a
personalized marketing strategy for each customer without investing extra time.
E-mail marketing
This approach is underestimated when it is important for the
success of your small business. Basically, email marketing is all about
promoting your products and services digitally - through newsletters, updates,
promotions, or general news - and about building a list of your current and
potential customers.
This list consists of people interested in your business, who
have signed up to receive news and offers from you.
You can present them with free coupons for registration or
updates on upcoming new items/features.
Many marketers view list building as an essential long-term
marketing strategy for small businesses.
Besides email marketing, use automations well to save time. With
the help of small business automation tools, you are able to leverage your
efforts in email marketing.
Which strategy to choose?
Every professional marketing strategy requires a
well-thought-out and meticulous plan.
The choice of a strategy depends above all on the specifics of
your company, the field of activity and the audience.
In addition, it is important to make your strategies flexible,
adjustable on demand. This can be done using a lean mockup canvas. Being willing
to make a few on-the-go tweaks seems difficult, but the result can be more
valuable - you'll evaluate intermediate results, you're free to experiment with
other marketing approaches.
Research your customers and recognize their needs, preferable channels.
Your budget will undoubtedly be an important factor when deciding which
approach to choose.
Try several techniques to choose the best practice for your
business. Evaluate intermediate results to see which techniques work best for
your clientele.
Conclusion
Operating a business, you will need to attract potential
customers and retain buyers. For that, you need a consistent, engaging and
appealing marketing strategy.
Try one of the approaches described in this article or combine a few. Don't be afraid to experiment and you'll find the best practices for your business and your niche.
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