Definition, Types and Benefits of Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing

INTRODUCTION:-

The term Digital Marketing was first used in the 1990s. The digital age took off with the coming of the internet and the development of the Web 1.0 platform. The Web 1.0 platform allowed users to find the information they wanted but did not allow them to share this information over the web.

Digital marketing continues to evolve with the invention of new technologies. The internet has generally transformed the marketing world for the past decade. It has liberalized the way businesses and companies market and advertise their products. Previously, voice and video were the most preferred ways of passing information to customers about products and services.

Defination:

In simple words Digital Marketing (online marketing) is the promotion of products over the internet or any form of electronic media. This includes not only email, social media ,and web-based advertising ,but also text and multimedia messages as a marketing channel. 

Through digital marketing, you can find people interested in your offering, interact with them, and build trust with your brand.

A digital marketing Strategy or plan is an essential tool for your business. 

Types of Digital Marketing:-

There are many types of digital marketing that you can leverage to increase your audience reach. Using multiple digital marketing channels can help you create a well-rounded digital marketing strategy that will yield the best results.

To help you determine which digital marketing strategies may work best for your business, here are seven of the most effective types of digital marketing:

• 1.Search-Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Search engine optimization, (SEO), is the strategy of creating content in such a way that search engines like Google will rank your page high on the search engine results page (SERP).

SEO is one of the most important types of digital marketing. By optimizing your content for search engines, you can increase a steady stream of relevant traffic that will only grow over time. Without search engine optimization, people simply won’t be able to find you on the Internet.

2.Search-Engine Marketing(SEM)

Search engine marketing is a digital marketing strategy used to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs).

The main difference between SEM vs. SEO is that SEM is a paid strategy and SEO is an organic strategy. 

While there are many types of paid search ads, let's take a look at how one of the most popular forms of SEM works: Google Ads. 

• 3.Social Media Marketing (SMM) 
• Social media marketing involves using social platforms as channels for brand promotion, target audience growth, driving website traffic, and increasing sales. Social platforms are the center of SMM.

 The goal of SMM is to produce content that users will share with their social   network to help a company increase brand exposure and broaden customer reach.

 SMM is the easiest way to reach an enormous audience — nowadays a half of the global population, 3.8 billion people, use social media. Moreover, this number is constantly growing — since 2019, social media use has grown by 9.2%.

• 4.Pay Per Click (PPC)

• Pay-per-click is a form of paid advertising that allows marketing teams to essentially purchase traffic to their website. Marketers place ads on websites or search engines such as Google and Microsoft Bing, and pay a fee each time the ad is clicked on. These ads often appear at the top of the search results page, and are typically determined by bids on specific keywords, while banner ads on websites usually have set prices.  

5.Social Media Optimization (SMO) 

SMO stands for “Social Media Optimization”. SMO refers to a set of techniques for visibility and optimizing a brand's presence on social media networks with the aim of developing brand awareness and image.

6.Content Marketing 

Content marketing refers to the publishing and distribution of text, video or audio materials to customers online. Blogs, videos and podcasts are common ways for businesses to engage in content marketing.  

Marketing teams create content, videos, and other assets to answer questions or provide context to consumers throughout the three stages of the buyer’s journey:

• The awareness stage: Buyer realizes they have a need .
• The consideration stage: Buyer determines a course of action to meet this need .
• The decision stage: Buyer decides on a product / service to purchase to meet the need.

7. Email Marketing 

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which sends information, offers, blogs etc. directly to your mailing list’s inboxes. It is a great way of reaching your customers, interacting with them after purchases or even sending them a newsletter. The use of automated newsletters is common in this context.

8. Affiliate Marketing (Influence marketing) 

Both influencer and affiliate marketing utilize those in a position of ‘power’, usually social media influencers or industry experts etc. This is to assist you in marketing a product or service to their audience. It’s become more and more popular in recent years, through sites like Instagram and YouTube, where companies will enlist a well-known influencer, to promote their products or services on their social pages or affiliate websites. 

Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing another person's or company's products. The affiliate simply searches for a product they enjoy, then promotes that product and earns a piece of the profit from each sale they make.

Benefits of Digital Marketing:-

1. Low Cost

Unlike traditional marketing one of the key benefits of digital marketing is the cost-effective way of promoting your business product and services. For smaller businesses, it is difficult to advertise traditionally with a limited budget. But when it comes to marketing digitally, it is possible. With affordable digital marketing tactics and limited budget, small businesses can advertise their product and services globally.

2. Easy to Measure

Email marketing software allows users to track the performance of their emails; they can know how many were delivered, how many were read, and learn all about their conversion rates. Google Analytics is a very effective tool for measuring specific goals to be achieved on a website or blog. Google AdWords manager allows users to monitor the performance of their ads on Google search; they can know how many people viewed their ads and learn all about their conversion rates.

3. Easy to Share

Most digital marketing channels feature sharing capabilities that allow campaigns and articles to be shared with multiple followers. This helps to create a multiplier effect and has the capacity to tremendously improve sales results.

4. Connect with mobile users

One more important benefits of digital marketing are that it allows you to connect with the users who are constantly on the move and are browsing and consuming content through various mobile devices. As per the study, around 47.96% of the total global online traffic is mobile internet traffic. Online marketing can help you to reach out to the people who are using mobiles, tablets, laptops and desktop computers.

5.Global Reach 

Online marketing makes it possible to run a campaign to be visible in any part of the world. This benefit of Digital marketing helps small businesses to advertise their business globally and connect with the potential buyers. This helps the businesses to expand the reach within a limited budget frame.

6. Better ROI(Return on Investment)

Nothing matters more to a business than the return on the investment it makes. Digital marketing offers a substantial return on small investments. Email marketing or running advertising campaigns on social media platforms cost little when compared to traditional marketing techniques.

7. Increased Engagement 

The key to staying relevant and keeping customers in this highly competitive business world is to ensure continuous engagement with your audience. Effective marketing allows businesses to stay competitive and relevant by engaging with customers through different digital media channels. These platforms allow businesses to answer customer questions, alleviate misconceptions, and even generate sales. This can be achieved via regular useful blog posts, newsletters, shows, promotions, and special offers.

The idea is to hold the attention of your customers for as long as possible while building a credible reputation.

8. Target the Right Audience(Effective Targeting)

With the digital marketing campaign, you can target the right audience depending on the age, location, interest and other factors. 

Social Media Marketing platforms run a smart algorithm which studies and compares user preferences, so those specific ads are shown to the audience with similar and specific likings. This helps in increasing the number of potential customers and decreasing the amount of marketing.

The benefit of digital marketing for targeting is the opportunity to develop better and more targeted audiences for future campaigns. With optimizing audiences, you can always be on top of who is the best customer for you.

9. Improved Conversion Rate

Higher conversion rate is another added benefits of digital marketing tactics. Conversion through the online medium is just a click away. Unlike the traditional way, it is not necessary for the customers to a phone call at the station or drives to the shop to inquire about the product and service. With the online shopfront, all the information is easily available to the customers to help them to make the comparative study and take a quick decision. 

10. Reach Out To Social Media Users

According to the study, there are around 2.4 billion social network users worldwide. Digital Marketing helps you to reach out to these customers not only through posting but also through paid advertising. Social Media Marketing is allowing a target based advertising that will help you to reach out to the users who are most interested in your products and services. Not only advertising, but you can also communicate with the customers and help them out with the queries and difficulties.