Digital Marketing
What is Digital Marketing?
Since digital marketing has taken over, what is it, exactly? In an attempt to avoid overwhelm, I’ll keep this simple.
Digital marketing is data-driven and targeted brand promotion through technology.
While the umbrella term, “Digital Marketing,” can include mobile apps, podcasts, and other forms of digital media, the internet is the center of all tools and channels at a digital marketer’s disposal.
Digital marketing is exceedingly organized, highly targeted, and delivers measurable results in real-time.
There is no guesswork involved. Strategies are tested continually in order to see what’s working and what isn’t. You’re able to measure results and implement strategy adjustments immediately.
This is the way of digital marketing. Let me rephrase that. This is the way of digital marketing when you have a highly skilled digital marketing agency executing the marketing activities for your brand.
What Does a Digital Marketing Agency Do?
You often hear that the world of marketing is changing. It’s true, but we should all be looking at that statement a little differently.
The world of marketing has changed.
It’s not a matter of predicting where marketing is heading. We’re living it, right here, right now. Traditional marketing is failing to reach audiences like it used to. Even in its heyday traditional marketing wasn’t considered a precision approach. It was a numbers game, one that simply doesn’t work anymore. Newspapers and magazines are all but obsolete, and TV and radio are declining in a major way.
In its place rises digital marketing, or as we like to call it, “marketing.” Simply put, it’s the most effective way to market a business today, and for the foreseeable future.
I’ll reevaluate that statement as soon as one of these ever-popular end-of-days movies is made a reality. Until then, I stand behind it.
Implementing traditional marketing strategies for your company is like breaking out your old FM radio and hoping that you pick up a few stations. Digital marketing is streaming your favorite song straight to your mobile device. You target a specific audience and keep ideal leads and buyers coming to you 24/7.
What a Digital Marketing Agency Should Do?
Now that I’ve made digital marketing agencies sound like teams of superheroes, you’re probably wondering what it is that they typically do. Let’s review the top three areas digital agencies focus on.
Digital Marketing Agencies Improve your Business
A great digital marketing agency has the means to take over your marketing from top to bottom. For starters, their business expertise allows them to evaluate your brand’s needs and develop a powerful strategy that maximizes profits.
They’ll work with your company to improve efficiency and productivity. With their help, you’ll better define your objectives and set measurable goals.
Moreover, the focus on data and targeting requires a clear definition of your target buyer, which is typically more specific than companies currently have in place. When working with a digital marketing agency you’ll determine exactly who your ideal buyer is and analyze their buying journey. Like I said, digital marketing is highly targeted.
When you know your target well, you’ll determine what your messaging and benefits should be to speak directly with your ideal buyer. Your unique selling proposition as it aligns to your ideal buyer is what forms a connection with the people who buy from your company.
Digital marketing is the promotion of products or services using digital technology. It is mostly focussed on Internet-based technologies because they are so widespread, but also includes marketing to mobile phones and other electronic devices.
A successful digital marketing campaign supports an organization’s business goals. It often will work in conjunction with traditional marketing techniques, helping the business develop its brand, identify leads, become an authority within the market and much more.
Digital marketing is particularly important for businesses because it allows them to connect with consumers where they spend a lot of their time — online. Some of the techniques that are often used as a part of a successful digital marketing campaign include:
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is the process of increasing the level of high-quality traffic to web properties by improving their search engine rankings. It requires the use of several different techniques including link building and on-page optimisation.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM takes advantage of programs like Google Adsense and Bing Ads to place advertisements on search engine results pages. These advertisements are typically placed above organic search engine rankings and can be very effective at attracting traffic to a website.
Content marketing
Content marketing involves the creation of highly-valuable content that is distributed across several digital channels. This can include white papers, blog posts, articles, social media posts, and videos. It is a very useful and recommended way to drive brand awareness and establish an organization as an authority within its chosen industry.
Influencer marketing
This is one of the most recent forms of digital marketing. It involves hiring prominent figures on social media to endorse your organization’s products or services. Their endorsement influences their followers, improving brand awareness and image through social media, encouraging more consumers to try your product or service.
Social media marketing
This form of digital marketing uses social media platforms and websites to promote your products or services. It is a very cost-effective and easy-to-use form of marketing which can help you market to specific demographics.
Data-driven marketing
Data-driven marketing involves the analysis of big data to form predictions about future behaviors. This information helps marketers improve their digital marketing efforts. The data that is used includes consumer interactions and engagements, behaviour of competitors, and analysis of marketing trends.
Ecommerce marketing
The goal of e-commerce marketing is to drive awareness of businesses that sells products or services electronically. It incorporates a wide variety of other marketing techniques including social media marketing and content marketing.
Display advertising
This is a form of online advertising that uses banner ads that are placed on websites and social media platforms. These ads can include images, videos, HTML 5 animations, and any other kind of rich media.
Email direct marketing
Email direct marketing uses email-based campaigns that are sent to a targeted list of recipients. These emails can include text, HTML, images, videos, and other types of rich media. It is a very useful form of digital marketing that typically achieves high levels of user engagement.
Web conferencing
This is an umbrella term for several types of online collaborative services including webcasts, webinars, and web meetings. These services can be used to promote products or services, provide training sessions, answer customer questions, and to provide support.
Mobile phone marketing (SMS and MMS)
This form of marketing aims to reach consumers on their smartphones, tablets, an and other mobile devices. It uses a range of technologies including SMS and MMS, mobile apps, websites, email, and social media.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a form of performance-based marketing where an organisation rewards affiliates for each visitor or customer they bring in via their own marketing efforts. Essentially, the affiliates will be launching their own marketing campaign in an effort to sell your product or service in return for a commission.