In the past decade or so, digital marketing disrupted the marketing world in ways that are both fascinating and scary. It shook up traditional marketing practices that they had no option but to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, that is, if they want to move with the times.
Digital marketing has become such a vital component in today’s businesses overall marketing strategy. It allowed businesses to tailor-fit their messaging to reach specific audiences, made it possible to market directly to audiences who are likely going to be interested in their products or services.
Digital marketing allowed marketers to align traditional tactics and shared information with some types of digital marketing that is in wide practice now.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing covers a wide variety of marketing tactics and technologies that are employed to reach customers online. This form of online marketing allows businesses to establish a brand identity. Digital marketing revolutionised the marketing industry.
Although digital marketing may seem like a new strata or level of marketing, it is in fact based on many of the principles that are familiar to traditional marketers. Though it requires foundational marketing knowledge, it also requires a competitive level of technical know-how on internet use and online based digital technologies.
Why is Digital Marketing Important for Business Growth?
From a general standpoint, marketing, per se, is the practice of identifying and satisfying the needs of customers. This is particularly of prime importance in the business context. Successful marketing efforts drives inbound leads and attracts a large customer base.
Digital marketing was borne with the explosion of digital technology and the pervasive use of computer, smartphones, and other technologies. The divide between traditional and digital marketing methods have grown wide over time.
Businesses today are diverting funds from traditional to digital marketing methods. For most businesses to survive and grow, they need to plan and execute a viable digital marketing strategy.
Given its diversity, there is a similarly diverse set of benefits that are available for digitally savvy marketers. On an all-embracing level, digital marketing enables businesses to reach customers daily through social media, online articles, watching videos, etc.
Customers who are exposed to this type of marketing regularly can yield a variety of commercial benefits. Here is a list of some of the benefits that digital marketing can provide:
- Global Reach – Digital marketing is not necessarily bound to a specific geographic area. Since the internet is available to customers across the globe, it removes many traditional barriers to entry. It allows businesses to market and sell to customers who live in a different state or country.
- Low Entry Cost – With traditional marketing channels, a serious price tag and time must be paid just to achieve a global reach. With digital marketing, it can be achieved with both a small investment of time and resources. Even small or start-up businesses can put up a website, manage social media, and publish blogs without breaking the bank.
- Measurable ROI and Adaptability – Digital marketing provides real-time visibility into the effectiveness of each campaign. This enables business leaders to make well-informed decisions to drive revenue and increase profit. Since digital marketing is extremely flexible and malleable, it enables businesses to adjust course on the fly to realise commercial opportunity.
- Immediate Connection and Targeting – People today generally conduct online research and evaluate reviews before making a purchase. Businesses with developed SEO, SEM, and PPC can immediately connect with customers. It also allows for businesses to target demographics of potential customers.
- Relationship Building – social media has become more than just a communications platform. Its rise has also become a source to identify many customer demographics. In turn, businesses with an effective SMM practices can build long time and loyal relationships with current and prospective customers.
7 Types of Digital Marketing
There are as many specialisations in digital marketing as there are various ways to interact using digital media. Below are a few key examples.
- Content Marketing – It involves the process of publishing and distribution of texts, video, audio, and images to customers online. It employs storytelling and information sharing to increase brand awareness and to ultimately drive audiences to take an action towards becoming a customer. Content marketing is powerful, but it can also be challenging. Content must be able to rank high is search engine results while engaging people who consume the material, share it, and interact with your brand.
- Website Design – Your website is the centrepiece of your digital marketing activities. On its own, it can be a powerful channel, but it is also the medium that requires a variety of online marketing campaigns. A website represents your brand, product, and service in a clear and memorable way. To be more effective, it should be fast, mobile-friendly, and easy to use.
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – is a marketing practice to improve ranking within major search engines to increase online traffic. SEO marketers research words and phrases consumers are using when they search for information online and use those words and phrases in their own content.
- Social Media Marketing – This includes everything a business does that involve social media channels, which marketers must approach social with an integrated and strategic approach. A crucial part of social media marketing is analytics that savvy marketers use to analyse the performance of their posts, and creating strategies based on that data.
- Email Marketing – it enables businesses to send branded and promotional content directly to prospective customers. Many digital marketers employ all other digital channels to add leads to their email list and hen, through email marketing, create customer acquisition funnels in hopes to turn those leads into customers.
- Social Media Advertisements – they are advertisements served to users on social media platforms. User information is utilised by social networks to serve relevant ads to target markets. Social media advertising can provide huge increases in conversions and sales with relatively lower cost of acquisition.
- Google Advertising/Search Engine Marketing – Google advertising/Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are two of the most effective ways to grow any business in a highly competitive marketplace. It is the practice of marketing a business using paid ads that appear on search engine results pages (SERPs). Advertisers bid on keywords that users on search engines use when looking for certain products or services.
Create Growth with Digital Marketing
Digital marketing should be one of the primary focus of any business’s overall marketing strategy. At The Growth Manager, we support businesses with their marketing processes and help them recognise opportunities while their brand resonates with their ideal audience.
Join us, as we embark in showing you the possibilities that our Digital Marketing Growth Guides can provide for you to realise your company’s growth potential and create the business of your dreams.
