What is Digital Marketing?
Marketing is an essential part of every business because without it a business cannot stand the competition. The earlier form of marketing was door-to-door marketing, which is now replaced with ‘Digital Marketing.’
Digital marketing is an ever-emerging technology that is being used vastly and helps businesses target their potential customers and keep updated the current ones with the latest services and/or products.
You must have seen ads while going through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. These ads on online platforms are an example of digital marketing. The business houses pay these social media giants as per the selected packages and in turn, the social media platforms keep on showing their ads to the users.
These social media platforms keep track of the data being used by the mobile or any other device user. For example, you search for a word on Google ‘trousers.’ This word will be used to consider you as a potential customer for showing trousers or clothes in ads.
Digital marketing ads automatically target and work on the basis of algorithms that choose the ads on the basis of the user’s search tracks.
Why Digital Marketing is Important?
Digital marketing has gained so much importance over the years and it is because online platforms have a vast user base and it saves time for doing door-to-door marketing and convincing customers.
For digital marketing not only social media platforms are used, e-mails, video sites, etc. are also used for accomplishing the task.
Various Types of Digital Marketing:
There are various methods that can be used to do digital marketing. These are:
Digital Marketing through E-mails: The e-mail IDs of potential customers are collected or bought and then the companies use them for marketing their services and/or products.
Digital Marketing on Social Media Platforms: Various social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, are used by companies to sell their services and/or products. These social media platforms have a wide user base and offer companies different packages. Thus the companies outsource the work of marketing to these platforms.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Method of Digital Marketing: The best example of the PPC method is the ads displayed on YouTube. The data and cookies about the users are collected and displayed relevant ads before or in between the video. The platform is paid on the basis of the number of times the ad is clicked and watched.
Sponsored Digital Marketing: In this method, the company itself does not do ads rather it pays some other company to do the marketing on its behalf.
Affiliate Digital Marketing: In this method of marketing, the help of digital influencers is taken, like a blogger is paid by the company for promoting their product.
SMS or Mobile Digital Marketing: In this method, the customers are made aware of the products by sending SMSs on their mobiles.
Search Engine Marketing: This marketing is done with the help of search engines. Whenever a user tries to search for a product, he is shown the relevant ads on the search engine itself.
Native Advertisements: Native advertising means showing paid ads along with non-paid content, like on Facebook, Instagram, etc. when you scroll the pages you see your friends’ posts (non-paid content) as well as ads (paid content).
Business to Business (B2B) vs Business to Customer (B2C) Digital Marketing:
Like traditional marketing, digital marketing can happen between two businesses as well as between a business and a customer.
When digital marketing happens between two businesses, it is called B2B digital marketing. In this marketing, other businesses are targeted as potential buyers for selling the services and/or products.
And when normal customers are targeted as potential buyers, it is called B2C digital marketing. The customer base of this marketing is wider than that of B2B marketing.
How one should do Digital Marketing?
While going for digital marketing, the company must do the following things:
- Set your goals.
- Identification of potential audience as per their interests, region, age, etc.
- Budget calculations.
- Looking out for free and paid digital marketing methods.
- Creating such content that can keep the users engaged.
- Properly research the keywords that are mostly used by the customers to search for products or services.
- Continuous monitoring of the traffic that is coming to your website and converting it into buyers.
Advantages of Digital Marketing:
Let us discuss certain advantages of Digital Marketing:
- Wide customer base.
- Across the globe reach.
- Targeting customers on the basis of various characteristics, like their region, age, interests, culture, etc.
- Budget-friendly packages as per business’s needs.
- Video as well as image-based advertising.
- Reduce the need of having sales personnel.
- Better competition with others brands in the same field.
- Better conversion rate.
- Better engagement of the audience.
- Easier to check if your marketing strategies are working properly or not.
Challenges in the Field of Digital Marketing:
Just like any other field, the field of digital marketing is not free of challenges as well. To adopt this method of marketing, a company must have:
- Highly creative ad makers who can prepare engaging ads.
- Strategy makers who can prepare strategies to stay ahead in the competition.
- Sensitive data handling skills to prevent unauthorized use of crucial data.
- Well-made and maintained Website of the company which is continuously updated whenever new products and services are launched.
What Skills Are Needed in Digital Marketing?
What Is Internet Marketing?
Digital marketing can prove to be a boon for your business if all the above-mentioned issues are taken care of.
