The Ultimate Digital Marketing Guide For Beginners

As simple as it sounds, digital marketing is just marketing through digital channels or platform. Digital marketing is a marketing structure developed to promote brands and merchandise online and thru alternative digital channels. Furthermore, most businesses have a specific audience they're making an attempt to reach.

Hence, digital marketing aims to assist businesses to reach these target audience through the web and alternative digital platforms.In addition, it’s been quite some time since we are moving away from traditional marketing. 

It not only means we have discarded traditional marketing completely but also it means that people these days are relying more on digital marketing. Moreover, why shouldn’t they? Digital marketing has proved its dominance and efficiency over traditional marketing.

Some of the most important types of digital marketing are noted below –

1. Social Media Marketing

Most brands today are using social media marketing to help their digital marketing campaigns and drive traffic to their site. Additionally, this form of marketing contains promotion of your content and connecting with your targeted audience. It happens via web-based networking media channels like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Moreover, this strategy is utilized in digital marketing to enable organizations to expand brand exposure as well as create more leads and improve client commitment. Additionally, one of the greatest interests of social media marketing is that it enables organizations to contact a more extensive group of people on the internet.

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing is considered an art of mixing storytelling with important data and information. As a result, it expands brand exposure with the objective of reaching your targeted audience. The goal of content marketing is to build up a connection with potential clients as well as turning them into partners instead of a promoter. In fact means that content marketing is frequently used in inbound marketing plans through techniques that centers on providing information and data to the audience. Some elements in content marketing include -

• Videos
• Images
• Info-graphics
• Podcasts
• Ad Content
• Blog posts
• Social media posts

3. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

SEM is one of the most effective ways to promote products and grow business in the competitive and global market. Consequently with millions of businesses out there, it’s crucial to advertise online. That is where SEM comes. SEO is not the only way to increase incoming traffic from search engines.

SEM is a kind of Internet Marketing that is related to the researching of the positioning of the site inside Search Engines to achieve maximum visibility. They help to drive organic traffic to the site.

4. Email Marketing

Email marketing is more commercial than others. In fact, this form of marketing mostly helps to develop a relationship with potential clients or customers.

This form of marketing is customer or client oriented and used for business purpose mostly. Email marketing works by regularly informing your subscribing clients via email. It is a very efficient way to build a connection in terms of individual clients.

Email marketing works by regularly informing your subscribing clients via email. Moreover, it is a very efficient way to build a connection in terms of individual clients.

Email marketing is more than just spamming people with a bunch of emails with promotional messages or newsletters. The emails sent provide value to their subscribed clients. The success of email marketing depends on how many clients you have personally gained.

If the number is sufficient then you can easily drive sales and traffic through an email campaign. Furthermore, Email marketing can become your biggest digital marketing asset if utilized properly.

Digital Marketing Channels

Digital marketing has various diverse channels or platform that is used to reach or communicate with their respective audience or clients. The success of using any strategy depends on how efficiently the platforms are being used. It’s best to look into each channel and determine which will work best for your business. There are more than 3.19 billion social media users all over the world!

1. Social Media Marketing (Top 3)

• Facebook – More than 2.2 Billion monthly users. As of 2018, it is the most popular social networking site globally. More than 90% of B2C marketers use Facebook as their preferred platform. Both organic and paid opportunities to engage with the audience. You can target a specific niche or audience based on demographics, preference, etc. etc.
• Instagram – Majority of the users of this platform are teens or young adults. About 41% of the users are less than 24 years old. Instagram has over 800 million users worldwide. Most fashion and beauty brands tend to rely on Instagram for their marketing strategy. The interface of Instagram makes it easier for fashion brands to do their promotion.
• Twitter – A very dynamic platform that enables brands to do their promotion and reach their target audience rapidly through a series of tweets, re-tweets, and hashtags. There is also an option to live-tweet during various special occasions.

2. Content Marketing

• Blogging Websites – If you want to share some personal opinions or stories or even information, blogging websites are there for you. Blogging websites are like a bridge that connects the author with his/her respective audience through the expression of the author’s personal interests/opinions/information etc. Most people blog to connect with their audience on a personal level. Since blogging is much more than just writing random things or posting photos, choosing the right blogging site is very important. Some of the best blogging sites are

WordPress.org

Drupal

Ghost

WordPress.com

Joomla

Squarespace

Weebly

Typepad

• Authority Site – Authority content marketing can be utilized to promote their own website in other platforms that have a very high search engine authority. Moreover, it can also generate a high amount of traffic. It can be done through the use of good quality content. In addition, you can do it as a guest blogger in high traffic generating sites. The benefit can only be gained if the website is able to get back-links.
• Forum – This platform provides an opportunity to discuss a wide range of topics with a huge amount of audience given the forum’s popularity. You can target a specific niche or a specific demographic. In fact, every forum can be used as a Q&A platform so there is always the chance to analyze the pros and cons.

The Purpose of Digital Marketing

Consumers and business alike are shifting more towards technology and as a result, traditional marketing channels like TV and radio are slowly dying, and the purpose of digital marketing and its channels are becoming clearer. Business and firms nowadays are relying more on digital marketing than its ‘predecessor’ (traditional marketing). And why wouldn’t they?

Through digital marketing, firms are able to easily track and monitor the results of their marketing campaign and consumer reach. Customer outreach is very rich and profound. The current market is extremely competitive and businesses which fail to adapt to changes will only last for a short run. Through digital marketing, businesses are able to get a clear idea of consumer demand and how they should approach to sell their products or services. The consumer demands are always ever changing so to keep up with the demands, digital marketing channels are platforms to be recognized.

The utilization of digital marketing is important for a business to grow and sustain and engage their targeted audience effectively. It is also highly affordable than other forms of marketing.

How to do Digital Marketing and what are the Steps of it

Digital marketing is not easy! The work that goes behind is huge, starting from idea generation to the actual selling of product/service. There are many tactics and strategies involved. While the opportunities in this particular field are massive, there is also an equal chance of risks involved. Digital marketing is a sophisticated process, to actually triumph in this field, there are certain steps and analysis that needs to be done before, while and after the digital marketing campaign. Some of the most crucial steps are noted below. Follow these steps if you want to expand your view in the field of digital marketing –

1. Know what you want

Before starting your digital marketing mission, you first have to understand what you want. You need to set an objective and a timeline (means what you want to accomplish within a specific time period).

2. Identify your Product/Service Ideas

Always keep in mind that the idea that you generate for your product or service must benefit its consumers. If it does not please your consumers, it won’t sell. Try to come up with an innovative idea that somehow solves a problem, if it’s not providing value to your customers, then no one is going to have a reason to buy it.

3. Identify your USP

Your USP differentiates your product from your competitors. Most successful brands have their own USP for every product. To determine the best and creative USP for your product or service, list down all its features and benefits that are unique and stands out amongst others. If you can identify aspects of your product or service that your competitors cannot imitate then you’re good to go.

4. Identify your target audience

It is important to keep in mind who you are offering the product or service to. For a business entity, it is essential to reach the right audience. Analyzing the targeted audience is a core process of any marketing strategy. This allows you to be informed about who your audiences are or who are not. In this analysis, the demographic is important as well as the language, location, preferences, interests, and other components.

5. Launching your DM Campaign

You know about your audience but your audience doesn’t know about your product or service! The main purpose of any digital marketing campaign is to give exposure to the new or existing products or services offered by any firm or brand. DM campaigns also help persuade consumers to buy the service or product that is being offered.

6. Optimizing the Campaign

Launching a campaign means a lot of data to work with! The optimization here basically means the process of improving the marketing efforts of the brand to maximize the desired outcomes or results. There are some very simple steps to follow as well!

• If the campaign is effective and is attracting potential clients, then keep on doing it and try to spend more money there.
• If the campaign is not fruitful, then don’t waste money there, and analyze what went wrong.
• Always try to come up with something new. Something that your competitors haven’t thought of and compare with what you’re working on currently doing.

7. Analyzing the Performance

The proper analysis of any campaign is critical for the outcomes, result and the overall performance of the campaign.

Conclusion

The marketing business isn't static yet it evolves, grows, and develops. Many businesses are coming up and biting the dust. To sustain in the market, businesses or firms needs to bring new marketing strategies and innovation especially in the digital marketing sector. Building up an effective online marketing technique includes a ton of skills, learning – and even experimentation. However you want to decide on your digital marketing strategy, make sure to be aware of 6 especially and choose the ones that you believe are best suited for your business. The best marketing strategy will be a mixture of several digital channels. Majority of the business out there use more than one digital channel. So make sure whichever channel you use, utilize it properly.

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