What is Digital Marketing?

Have you ever wondered how you’re able to see the ad for the exact thing you were thinking about? It’s spooky, isn’t it? Well, technology has advanced so much that marketers are now able to target customers like you just by seeing your personalized data digitally. The product or service they advertise through your mobile screen or desktop is part of digital marketing. Sounds familiar. Right? Let’s jump into the concept of digital marketing. 

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing, also known as Internet Marketing, is a form of marketing that can be done through any electronic device. Marketers and advertisers use this type of marketing to promote products and services through social media channels like social networking sites, display ads, email, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), etc. Digital marketing is quite different from traditional marketing where marketers use offline channels like Billboards, TV ads, magazines, newspapers, etc., for advertising their products and services. 

Ever since the dot com bubble boom happened in the late 1990s, organizations and companies have started relying on digital marketing ever than before. Post pandemic phase has given a push to businesses to move to online marketing from offline marketing. Even though people still get fascinated by creative billboards when they see them on road yet they spend 80% of their time online. India’s digital journey is one of vitality as it had the world’s second-largest internet population at over 749 million users in 2020. Of these, 744 million users accessed the internet via their mobile phones. Estimates suggest that this figure would reach over 1.5 billion by 2040.

The majority of businesses have turned to Google and Facebook to generate revenue that traditional media companies failed to do so. The amount spent on digital advertising in 2022 is up 16.2 percent from $491.70 billion in 2021. The global digital advertising market in 2022 is valued at $602.25 billion—66.4 percent of the overall expenditure on media ads. With nearly 5 billion people using the internet worldwide, it’d be a heavy loss for big companies and small businesses not to invest in digital marketing in their marketing strategy. 

As a marketer, it is critical to use the digital domain with an online advertising presence, by developing a brand and giving a fantastic customer experience that attracts more potential consumers, and more, through a digital strategy. A digital marketing plan enables you to engage with existing clients and individuals intrigued by your products or services by leveraging various digital channels. As a consequence, you can create your personal brand, give an excellent customer experience, attract new clients, and much more.

Why is Digital Marketing Important for Your Business?

If you’re a GenZ or Millenial, you must have surfed Instagram quite a few times throughout the day and those cute pearl clips and handbag reels just want you to purchase them right away. Let’s be real – you also want them back! That’s what digital marketing is – attracting your attention through the channel you use the most. A study found 67.9% of Millennials and 70.2% of Gen Z had made at least 1 purchase or more in the past month based on social media. If you want your business to thrive, you need traffic and this is where digital marketing will help you.

Digital marketing also gives you access to additional data and analytics about your customers, how they buy, and what they desire. For your business to prosper, you must understand and utilize digital marketing. Unlike traditional marketing, Digital marketing requires less cost to start with so it’s an apt form of marketing for small business owners who want to attract customers and make themselves known in their locality. According to Google, 88 percent of mobile phone users who make a local search visit a linked store within the next week.

Not only businesses can increase their customer rates but also retain customers. According to a report by Invesp, companies with strong omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers. Compare that to companies with weak omnichannel programs and they have a retention rate of just 33%. So, this calls for companies to invest in Digital Marketing. 

Types of Digital Marketing Channels

As we mentioned above, there are two types of marketing. Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing. Traditional marketing channels still exist but digital marketing channels have evolved with time. Let’s see the type of digital marketing channels:

1. Paid Search/ Pay Per Click (PPC)

Paid search, also known as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, usually refers to the paid result that appears at the top or side of a search engine results page. These advertisements charges when you click the ads and these ads will only show when certain targeted keywords or search phrases are entered into the search engine box. 

Your adverts are basically targeted to audiences looking for a specific product or commodity. As a result, because they rely on data collected from individuals’ online behavior, these advertisements may be incredibly effective in increasing website traffic by providing relevant adverts to the right people at the right time. These advertisements also use retargeting, which means that marketing automation solutions may create unique, personalized cross-platform ads depending on the behaviors of clients.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is an act of optimizing your website so that it “ranks” higher in search engine results pages, increasing the quantity of organic traffic to your website. Websites, blogs, and infographics are among the mediums that profit from SEO.

There are several approaches to SEO that may be used to drive quality visitors to your website. These are some examples:

On-page SEO focuses on all of the content that resides “on the page” while viewing a website. You may answer queries for readers and rank better on search engine results pages (SERPs) by analyzing keywords for their search volume and intent (or meaning).

Off-page SEO focuses on all of the action that occurs “off the page” while optimizing your website. Now you must be thinking, “What happens outside my website will have an impact on the ranking of my website?”. Yes, it will affect you. You will need inbound links for this.  The number of publishers who link to you, as well as their domain “authority,” influence how highly you rank for the keywords you care about. You may get the backlinks you need to raise your website up on all the right SERPs by networking with other publishers, publishing guest articles on their websites (and linking back to your website), and creating external attention.

Technical SEO is concerned with the backend of your website and how your pages are coded. Image compression, structured data, and CSS file optimization are all examples of technical SEO that may improve the loading time of your website, which is a significant ranking criterion in the eyes of search engines like Google.

In short, organic web traffic generated by SEO significantly impacts search rankings and, by extension, organic site traffic. You may utilize SEO to significantly enhance exposure and build long-term consumer engagement by leveraging keywords and phrases. SEO is described as enhancing a website’s ranking in online search results, and hence organic site traffic, by the use of popular keywords and phrases. Because exposure is the first step toward a long-term consumer connection, robust SEO methods are extremely powerful in digital marketing initiatives.

3. Content Marketing

When it is about content marketing, it aims to educate and inspire people seeking knowledge rather than being commercial. When you provide valuable content to your audience, you may position yourself as a thought leader and a reliable source of information. Do you know that content marketing generates three times the number of leads as paid search advertising? When you create blog articles, educational guides, whitepapers, or any other sort of content, you’re basically opting to generate a massive amount of traffic through them. 

4. Social Media Marketing

SMM or also known as social media marketing – it’s everywhere. Social media has become a part of people’s daily lives. This strategy promotes your brand and content on social media networks in order to raise brand recognition, boost traffic, and create leads for your company. 

You can utilize the following channels for social media marketing:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Snapchat
• Pinterest

Many marketers will utilize these social media sites to launch a viral marketing campaign. A viral marketing approach involves collaborating with a prominent content producer or participating in a trend that connects with a large audience. The goal is to develop something shareable in the hopes that it will spread organically over a social media platform.

5. Email Marketing

Like millions of people, your mail inbox is also filled with tons of promotional emails from brands and companies you don’t remember signing up for. We agree that it’s frustrating but most of the time it also convinces you to purchase their product or services. If not buy, at least go to their website and look at what they’re selling. After more than two decades, email is still the quickest and most direct means to reach consumers with essential information. To avoid being buried in your customers’ inboxes, successful email marketing must be extremely engaging, relevant, instructive, and amusing.

To be successful, your marketing emails should meet five key criteria. They must be:

• Reliable
• Appropriate and relevant
• Informal but not too informal
• Blendedacross channels
• Strategic

6. Marketing automation

Marketing automation is a critical medium that links all of your digital marketing endeavors. In fact, organizations that automate lead management enjoy a 10% or more increase in revenue within six to nine months. Without it, your campaigns will resemble an incomplete puzzle missing a critical component.

Marketing automation software:

• Marketing activities and procedures are simplified.
• Results are measured.
• Calculates the return on investment of your digital marketing.

Marketing automation may provide significant information about which campaigns are successful and which are not. It will also give measurements that will help you to demonstrate the impact of digital marketing on your company’s bottom line.

Digital Marketing Roles

Marketing campaigns and projects are only as good as the individuals who plan and execute them. As more businesses and organizations see the value of a sound digital strategy, it’s critical to identify the digital marketing roles and duties that contribute to a successful digital marketing team. Let’s see the key digital marketing roles that you can consider to have a career in:

1. Digital marketing project manager – They oversee the whole digital marketing project. They employ project management tools and approaches to simplify an organization’s marketing workflows, procedures, and systems. A digital marketing project manager must be able to handle cross-functional teams as well as collaborate with external teams and contributors.

2. Digital marketing strategist – They work on creating strategies to execute the digital marketing project. To do tasks more quickly and efficiently, digital marketing strategists must keep current with the top digital marketing tools on the market.

3. Social media manager – SM Managers oversee what’s going on behind their social media channels. Social media managers use social media to disseminate the organization’s message. They evaluate audience growth, engagement, organic reach, and click rates to assess brand effectiveness.

4. Content writer/Copywriter – Content Writers and Copywriters focus on writing engaging and eye-catching copy for brands that can generate more leads and conversions through blog posts, social media copy, infographics, etc.

5. SEO Specialist – SEO specialists are accountable for search engine optimization, analyzing website performance, rating against rivals, and developing a data-driven plan to increase ranks.

6. PPC Specialist – PPC Specialist manages pay-per-click advertising campaigns, which includes overseeing the budget and spending, tracking performance, and recommending new approaches.

7. Graphic designer – Yes, graphic designing is also a part of digital marketing. Every digital marketing effort relies heavily on design. Visual components that are clean and elegant are no longer “good to have”; they may make or break a campaign’s success.

Graphic designers contribute significantly to the creation of compelling content and eye-catching brand assets like logos, media kits, presentations, and social media postings. Customers will remember and recognize your brand if you use consistent branding.

Inbound Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: What’s the Difference?

Inbound marketing is a strategy of attracting, engaging, and delighting consumers online by utilizing digital marketing assets. Digital marketing, on the other hand, is just an umbrella term used to represent any type of internet marketing approach, whether inbound or outbound. Although digital marketing is sometimes compared to inbound marketing, it does not distinguish between ‘inbound’ and ‘outbound’ strategies. It’s more of an umbrella word for everything digital marketing, whereas inbound marketing is more of a strategy.

Bottomline

Everyone remembers how the Amul girl in the Amul Butter Ads in the newspaper looked cute and witty and left a great impression in everyone’s mind and heart through traditional means. But now companies are shifting to digital to retain the same attention. Digital marketing is today as important as, if not more important than traditional advertising and marketing methods. As a customer or a business owner, you should anticipate things to continue to evolve as technology advances. Digital marketing will only grow bigger with time. 

FAQs on Digital Marketing

Q1. What are the 4 types of digital marketing?

Ans. 4 types of digital marketing are as follows:

• SEO
• PPC or Paid Ads
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Marketing

Q2. Is digital marketing a hard skill?

Ans. Digital Marketing is not a hard skill to master if you have a creative, keen, incisive mind with an eye for detail, as well as an awareness of data, which are extremely beneficial for analytical professions such as SEO, content, social media, and strategy jobs that benefit from creativity and inventiveness.

Q3. What skills do you need for digital marketing?

Ans. There are 7 skills you need to master to be an expert in digital marketing:

• Data Analysis
• Content creation
• SEO/SEM
• An eye for design
• Proficiency in CRM
• Effective communication skill
• Social Media Savvy

Q4. What is a digital marketing job salary?

Ans. According to Glassdoor, a  digital marketing executive’s typical income ranges from 2LPA to 6LPA. A digital marketing analyst’s salary ranges from an average of 3.6 LPA to a maximum of 9.4 LPA. A Digital marketing manager’s salary starts at 6.2 LPA and may rise to 18 LPA with experience.

Q5. Can a non-IT person learn digital marketing?

Ans. Yes, a non-IT person can also learn digital marketing through online education platforms. Certification in digital marketing and a good marketing portfolio can get anyone a good career in digital marketing.