What is Digital Marketing?
823K people have searched for the term “digital marketing”. (reported by h-supertools) .
Many influencers talk about what it’s like to be a digital marketer, how much they earn and other related topics you’ll find on all the platforms.
In simple terms, Digital marketing is bringing leads (people) to the business using the internet.
Without leads, it affects the income pipeline of a company. It’s a big responsibility for a digital marketer to generate new leads for the business.
Digital marketing has been a career since the early 2000s.
In 1996, the first online ads were sold by HotWired to AT&T and other companies. The first search engine advertising was sold by GoTo.com in 1998.
You can firmly state that it’s not a “quick-rich scheme”. And there are people who promote businesses online for a living.
But why can’t a business owner do it on their own?
So picture a boss handling SEO, SERP, social media, emails, website development, graphic design, content marketing and many more.
It’d take them forever to complete, since you never stop marketing your business for a day.
Else your competitors will continue to grow their business online and potentially beat other businesses who’re not consistent in marketing.
Time is the most precious thing you could ever ask from a busy owner. They constantly recruit people who could save them time. Which’s the reason why a business owner hires a digital marketer. So that the owner could focus on other aspects of the business
Whereas SME or Small-medium enterprises hire specialists and form a team which’ll improve the reach of the business.
Types of Digital Marketing:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Improving the chances of appearing first in the search results. A marketer must research keywords related to the company, tweak website content, pitch guest blogs for backlinks and continually monitor & adjust their SEO strategy. Always be aware of the new updates and algorithm shifts of the search engine in order to improve your search rank.
SEO marketers should have a clear idea on these: Keyword research, Long-tail keywords, Meta tags, Headings, Alt tags, Backlinks, Anchor text, Bounce rate, Organic traffic, SERP, Robots.txt, Sitemap, On-page optimization, Off-page optimization, Crawler, Indexing, Algorithm, Quality Score, CTR, KPI, Keyword density, Google My Business, Local SEO, Mobile optimization, Rich snippets, Schema markup, Voice search optimization and Featured snippets.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Similar to renting a billboard but in this case it’s renting a space in the search results and in social media platforms. PPC ads can focus on the given keywords and demographics of the audience. Advantage of PPC ads over billboards is it tracks the number of clicks, accordingly you’ll pay for each click.
Mastering the Google ads, Bing ads & Facebook ads will position you as a PPC specialist.
Eg: To calculate the CPA (cost per acquisition), take the total cost of the PPC campaign (let’s say it’s $500) and divide it by the number of customers who bought your product/service through the campaign (10 in this case).
CPA = Total cost of PPC campaign / Number of customers acquired
CPA = $500 / 10 = $50
CPA is $50, meaning every $50 spent on the PPC campaign, one paying customer was acquired.
Another important metric is the click-through rate (CTR) which’s calculated by the formula:
CTR = (Number of clicks / Number of ad impressions) x 100
In this case, the ad was shown 100 times and it got 50 clicks.
CTR = (50 / 100) x 100 = 50%
So the click-through rate is 50%, meaning that every time the ad played, only half of the people clicked on it.
Social media marketing
Almost every business exists today having their company page in all social media platforms.
So how do you stand out?
By using the trends and new features released, you can leverage them to promote your company’s product or service.
Nowadays, social media is used as a platform to hire and network with professionals such as LinkedIn. It helped millions connect with each other around different parts of the world.
Utilizing social media helps you to engage with customers real-time. From startups to big MNC companies, most use social media as a part of brand strategy. This makes people think about your product first while they’re out purchasing online.
Posting regular updates and social media ads will generate brand awareness and increase their sales by 23%.
Content Marketing
Not many knew content marketing existed before the internet. Successful marketers back then would give a free sheet or even hard-copy of a book for free to potential leads. Knowing they’ll convert into a regular buyer for the brand.
A brand which gives and gives valuable info or support for a cause are what keeps people motivated to support your brand.
The videos you’ll find in Youtube, the informative infographics & helpful short form video reels you see on Facebook or Instagram and the blog you’re reading right now … are all part of the content marketing strategy.
General formula behind content marketing is to:
Attract viewers to the content → Gain interested leads download your lead magnet → Creating desire for the product by emailing guides, testimonials, and discounts → Finally persuade them to take action after providing value.
Email Marketing
Most booming career field in digital marketing, nearly everyone has an email address (+4.26 billion email users worldwide).
It’s popularly known to get 42$ ROI in each dollar spent on emails.
Especially brands hesitant to get into social media can find success in email marketing.
Free discount coupons, ebooks or coded website tools can all be used to exchange email addresses. These email lists can be later used to send out: Welcome email flows, Abandoned cart flows, Cross-sell & up-sell emails, and newsletter used to promote the website content.
Never underestimate emails, as there’s no cap in the amount you could potentially earn, as you’ve 24/7 access to your audience email list. Unlike other social media, the platform decides whether to show your content to them or not.
It’s even ranked higher than every social media platforms because of these reasons:
- It’s immune to algorithm changes. Whereas, social media makes you pay for its ads.
- You own your audience email Id. But you can’t rely on the usernames of social platforms.
- It’s the only channel with less distractions (you won’t find search ads or videos ads)
- The ROI of email marketing is higher combining every social media platform.
Email marketing has its downsides as it’s mainly for mature audiences who’d like to read their work emails.
Conclusion
Overall, digital marketing helps a business reach its audience, build brand awareness, generate leads, and drive sales. Use all the features and tools available like social media, search engine optimization, email marketing, content marketing and engage with customers by building brand loyalty and staying competitive always.
Keep in mind digital marketing is a never ending process. To learn more check our MPDigital Tech all-in-one digital marketing course. It’s the one you’ll ever need to dominate the digital world.