Digital marketing is essential to modern marketing strategies, allowing businesses to reach a larger and more diverse audience. With digital ad spending expected to reach $455.3 billion in 2022, up from $332.8 billion in 2020, it is clear that digital marketing is not just a trend but a necessity.
Businesses that embrace digital marketing experience higher conversion rates and increased revenue, with companies that prioritize it enjoying a 2.8x increase in revenue growth compared to those that don’t.
To succeed in today’s competitive market, it is crucial to understand the fundamentals of digital marketing, from developing a social media strategy to optimizing your website for search engines.
In this blog post, you’ll learn everything about digital marketing. So if you want to know every corner of this niche, just keep on reading.
What is Digital Marketing?
This term was in the past used to describe the art of digital marketing. With the increase in social platforms and digital presence, the term has evolved to encompass any form of reach through the digital arena.
Digital marketing serves as an umbrella term for any means by which leads are created and pursued. In contrast, inbound marketing focuses on the art of attraction, engagement, and customer satisfaction at every step of the consumer process.
Why Is There an Emphasis on Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing allows small and medium-sized companies to have an equal fighting chance. Regardless of your size, the digital space is open for access, depending on your efforts toward achieving that goal.
There are about 5.1 billion unique mobile phone users linked with digital marketing. 57% of phone users have access to at least 7 different social media platforms and since 49% of shopping is done on smartphones is crucial to optimize for mobile.
The average adult spends at least 4 hours on social channels a day, with teenagers averaging about 8- 9 hours.
Digital presence is so much that an average individual’s life is fully incorporated into social media. This ranges from their choice of what to wear to their choice of schools.
This serves to point out that any forward-oriented business will go where the business is, and in this case, the place is online.
1. Greater Reach
Any marketer with experience in the art of print marketing will tell you that the reach of print is narrowed first by who accesses print media and second by who will stop at the specific page, read it, and be driven to purchase.
Digital Marketing 101 bypasses these limitations by ensuring that the reach is very wide. Two that the advert engages, and three, that the ad is relevant. With these limitations thrown out the window, ads are more targeted, and the return on investment (ROI) is easier to gauge and analyze.
2. The Art of Hyper-Personalization
Do you know what appeals to prospective clients? Relevant ads, more than that, however, digital marketing ads that are personalized to a consumer’s specific needs and tailor-made to meet them make digital marketing a rare invention of our time.
Targeted ads, which are built to appeal to a person’s needs, are the reason for the rise in buying habits worldwide.
A company seeking to boost sales should get in on the hype while it lasts.
3. People Want a Choice in the Decision Making
More and more people are downloading ad-blockers, while the remainder can hardly wait before skipping ads that seem to take the time or force themselves on the consumers.
This means that content marketing, a subset of digital marketing, is gaining relevance as consumers prefer learning and making decisions by themselves.
This, therefore, means that the older form of marketing where ads bombarded clients is no longer relevant in the market today.
There are various forms of digital marketing available for business today:
Search Engine Optimization
This is the art of making websites and their contents more accessible to search engines. Search engine optimization involves optimizing websites to make them more suitable for higher rankings in organic search engines.
SEO is important because case studies have shown that many people trust the first few results on their search engines. It goes on to suggest that of the
Few impressions, the top three are more likely to get clicks which might
Eventually, it translates into sales. There are various ways of optimizing your website for search engines, So much so that there are white-hat and black-hat methods of achieving this end.
There are many kinds of SEO, but we shall focus on three:
On-page SEO
This is the manipulation of individual web pages for higher rankings in organic search results. Some ways to achieve this include specific keywords, keyword stuffing, and other detailed encryptions of relevant words on your web pages.
The benefit of this particular form of search engine optimization SEO is that it allows websites to speak for themselves frankly.
This means that relevance and actual content will prioritize engaging and maintaining leads using on-page SEO.
Off-page SEO
This, on the other hand, refers to all activities you and others do away from your website.
Raise your ranking. While this has been referred to as link-building in the past, in modern times, however, off-page SEO is more than that.
It comprises guest blogs, back-links, networking and authority website referencing, and online marketing.
Technical SEO
This technical end focuses on the website backend for web crawlers and the indexing phase.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is as old as time itself. For generations, man has enjoyed the theory of a good story.
The mind likes to be stimulated every so often and drawn into imagination. This is exactly the
The premise behind content marketing. The idea is that awareness of brands and businesses can be made through content creation. Not only so, but traffic growth and generation of leads, all with the rightly created content.
Blogs
Blog posts have been the oldest known form of content creation. Purposely created blog posts with the right wording, flow, and ideas can create not only traffic but leads.
The great thing about blogs is that they tend to build loyalty. Consistently posted blogs can build loyalty which is what ultimately creates a brand.
Guest posts on a company’s website are also great ways to offer ideas and suggestions to prospective consumers. They can also be a point of engagement and review sourcing.
E-books
The great thing about E-Books is that they allow the consumer to exchange their personal information allowing you to market to them personally.
Additionally, eBooks can be shared on numerous platforms and are a great way to raise awareness of your company. What it stands for and your products.
This creates a ripple effect, which is good in digital marketing 101.
InfoGraphics
An image is truly worth a thousand words in saying and marketing. Websites that cater to food and
Dining, hotels, and tourism greatly influence what the images on their websites say about them.
The same thing applies to all websites. Visual appeal converts to website traffic, and the rest is history.
Social Media and Channel Marketing
As noted earlier, over 50% of adults are on more than 7 social media platforms.
With Facebook having more than 70% of the world’s population in terms of users, what this means for the marketing strategist is that there are masses to be reached on their social network.
It also means that there is an equal playing field for all marketing companies in the digital media space.
How To Approach Social Media and Mobile Marketing?
In today’s digital age, social media and mobile devices have become an integral part of our lives, and businesses need to adapt their marketing strategies to keep up.
With social media platforms such as
- Youtube;
With the prevalence of mobile devices, businesses have a unique opportunity to reach a broader audience and connect with customers on a more personal level.
However, to successfully approach social media and mobile device marketing, businesses need to have a solid understanding of the best practices and strategies. Let’s explore some key tips and tactics to help businesses approach social media and mobile device marketing effectively.
YouTube Ads
Catchy paid ads before trending videos in a region will go a long way in outreach. Even with a large
A significant portion of people skips after the ad has been reached.
Instagram Sponsored Ads
The most hyped-up place to be, consider sponsoring your content on Instagram. This will increase your reach and likes, making your business noteworthy in no time.
Trendy videos are also one way to ensure your content is disseminated quickly and for free. The advent of Whatsapp has made sharing not only faster but global, meaning that a
Trending videos can go viral at the same time the world over.
The newer form of social network marketing is influencer marketing. Great examples of this form of marketing in action would be the Kardashian Family using their social media platforms to market their business.
Companies would benefit from using influencers in a particular region to market their products.
Pay Per Click
In PPC, anytime your ad is clicked on a publisher’s site, you pay the publisher a certain commission. The best and most widely used form of this is Google Ads.
Google Ads allows you to rank higher on Google’s search engine results. This allows you greater visibility to potential clients.
You are required to pay anytime you get a click. While this gives you leverage, you still have to engage and delight the customer to convert that lead into a sale.
On Facebook, videos, images, and clips are customized to your target audience, ensuring that your newsfeed reach is even greater.
The same principle applies on Twitter with the badge; your posts are customized to your specific region, allowing that a specific goal to reach for your business is achieved.
Instagram and LinkedIn have also implemented similar programs to ensure more followers, page growth, and lead generation.
Affiliate Marketing
This is where a website or a person receives a commission for promoting someone else’s products or services on their website.
Some channels that can be used for this are the Amazon affiliate marketing program, YouTube partner program, and affiliations through social media accounts.
The commission is earned once there is a successful purchase from clicking on a link. This would be a great way to use websites with high traffic and specific to a niche related to your business.
Native Advertising
Despite the name, native ads do not necessarily look like traditional marketing ads. On the other hand, they are ads that resemble the look, feel, and content of a website’s normal publication.
The great thing about native advertising is that it blends right in with the social media feed since it does not take up the banner. As a result, it is more appealing and engaging to clients who, in essence, can smoke an ad a mile away.
Marketing Automation
This IS whereby a company automates all its digital marketing services that a marketing department member would redundantly do.
This includes email list customization, scheduling social media posting consistently, and tracking and reporting campaigns. Any digital marketing agency can provide these services.
Email Marketing
This is where companies use Emails to reach, inform and educate the market on their products. Emails are generally submitted while on the website for free marketing newsletters or e-book downloads. This then creates an email list which is essentially a lead.
You can then use the email list to promote your company blog, welcome customers to your company, provide guidelines to royalty, or notify clients of new deals.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing focuses on engagement time, conversion to clicks, and the overall customer journey.
Some digital marketing skills that align with inbound marketing are blog posts, infographics, and social media content creation.
The point of inbound marketing is to do the final conversion, in essence, to seal the deal.
Application to Your Business?
A B2B (BUSINESS to business) company will require a digital marketing strategy that focuses on ensuring leads are generated that eventually lead to a salesperson.
As such, social media marketing should be centered on sites like LinkedIn, which are more formal.
On the other hand, B2C businesses (business to consumer) should have a digital marketing plan that ensures that the websites manage to speak and engage clients without the need for a salesperson.
How long it will take for results to reflect is one that no one can answer with absolute certainty. With good SEO, perfect and consistent content marketing, however, you.
They are likely to see changes and improvements within 4 to 6 months. In addition, using analysis tools like Google Analytics, you will see conversion rates, the levels of engagements and analyze what you will need to improve on lead generation.
How To Budget Your Digital Marketing Campaign
As with any other form of marketing, a clear-cut budget must be set aside for digital marketing. However, the good news is that digital marketing can be achieved without selling an arm and a leg.
It will, however, require plenty of time and patience. Paid ads, clicks, As well as influencers will cost money.
The actual cost will be dependent on the website, the competition for rank, and the influencer level. However, ROIs are likely to be much higher with higher investments.
It is important to note that Google regularly reviews its policies on ranking, and as such, “black-hatted” SEO pages are likely to be flagged out.
Updated: April 21, 2023
