Every business who has an online presence needs digital marketing to promote their products online. It is defined as a marketing effort to promote your services or products online. Nowadays, almost every business has a website which means we cannot ignore its importance. A large number of people around the world are spending their time online using a smartphone and other digital gadgets. It means that there are lots of opportunities online to attract these people. A recent study shows that a person spends an average of 12 hours in a single day on online media. People are now watching live television on their smartphone. They spend their time on radio, television, browsing websites, social media, etc. These numbers are very impressive and encourage to advertise a business digitally. The question is; “What is digital marketing and what are effective ways to market a business on digital media?”.
In this article, we are going to explain everything that you need to know in details.
Understand Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is a combination of different strategies and media to help you engage, identify and convert prospects. It can have a variety of goals that includes increasing sales, brand awareness, increasing your website traffic, customer insights, building relationships and providing valuable information to the customers. All of the digital marketing efforts are focused on online platforms and tools. There are many specialized companies like Atastic that are providing digital marketing services to clients. It is not an easy task; hence you need a team of professional marketers to do so. It includes:
- Content Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Social Media Marketing
Digital Marketing Assets
To promote your businesses digitally, you need some special tools that are designed for marketers to promote their product and services. There are mainly three categories of these assets which are as follows:
Owned
These are the type of assets that you create and mange which can include a website, blogs, emails, social media profiles, brochures, etc. These types of assets are very good for business because you can control them as you wan to. You are the owner, so you can optimize them according to your needs like how they look and what audience they target.
Paid
These types of tools you buy from others such as display and banner ads, pay-per-click, social media ads, etc. The cost of these assets is more than the owned ones. But they are very effective in driving quality traffic to your website. If you will combine these tools with yours then it can help you generate more leads and sales.
Earned
You do not need to pay anything for these kinds of assets. But you need to do some hard work to get benefits. These kinds of assets include your media coverage, testimonials, content contribution, guest blog, social media posts, and product reviews.
Search Engine Optimization
If you have a website and want some quality traffic from search engines then you must know about search engine optimization. It is a set of strategies that you use to rank your website and make it visible in search engine results. For example, if you are running an online store then you have competitors like Apple, then SEO is the only way to increase your sales. If your website is showing in the top results of Google search engine then there are high chances of increase in sales. There are two types of search engine optimization:
On-page involves the optimization of your content or you can say on your website. It includes content optimization, keyword usage, Site speed, Internal links, URL Structure, creating engaging content, using proper headings and tags, etc. Recently, I was reading a review on dan tech reviews and the content was very engaging. It was explaining all the expects of the product. If your content is not engaging then the visitor will leave your website which is not good.
On the other hand, off-page focuses on building website authority by building quality backlinks. The main purpose of building backlinks is to tell the search engines that your website is relevant, authentic and valuable which is important for rankings.
Content Marketing
Content is the king in digital marketing. It is the main way to engage with your audience and attract new visitors to your website. It should provide the visitor with valuable information to keep your audience engage with your content. The way you create your content depends on the topics of your website and its audience. The things you need to make sure it to product quality, relevant, authoritative, well written and interesting content for your audience. Types of content include blogs, web page content, emails, whitepapers, E-books, Infographics, Podcasts, Videos, and How-to guides.
Email Marketing
It is one of the best strategies for digital communication and one of the effective ways to market your business. There are about 3.7 billion email users which mean there are high chances for you to promote your business. There are high ROIs of email marketing which makes it an effective marketing effort. If you will invest 1$ on email marketing then you expect to get 44$ in return.
For this strategy, you first need to generate an email list of your audience and their permission. The second step is to generate an email template which includes updates, newsletters, links, videos and product promotions. After that, you need to segment your email list according to purchasing history, buyer journey, demographics to target the audience. You also need to know how often your subscriber wants an update. Because some people are good with receiving daily emails but some want to get fewer emails.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is no doubt a perfect place for advertising your business. Approximately 80% of Americans use social media websites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. That makes them the best platform to improve your brand awareness.
The best way to use social media as part of your marketing strategy:
- Engage Your Audience
- Share Your Content
- Participate in Conversions
- Identify new prospects
- Respond to queries
- Advertise