One of the fashionable buzzwords that business owners are using to sound smart these days. Companies are going digital and concentrating on creating a strong online presence.
In this guide, you’re going to find all the digital marketing basics you need to know. This will help you to create an understanding of creating successful online marketing drives for your business.
In simplest terms, digital marketing means putting up your products and services using digital media as the medium.
There were 624.0 million internet users and 448.0 million social media users in India in January 2021. The number of social media users in India was equivalent to 32.3% of the total population. Now, if we consider this number, then we would easily get the answer to the question of why digital marketing is important.
When 32.3% of the population is on social media, then it is only smart to use that medium for your benefit. There are many reasons why digital marketing has been booming.
Why is digital marketing important?
- Wider audience – With traditional methods of marketing, your efforts get limited to a particular demographic. With digital marketing, your presence can be felt globally, hence reaching a wider audience.
- Compete with the big forces- If Reliance is on social media, so can you. Now the marketing opportunities are not limited to big businesses alone, but anyone can use digital marketing methods for their benefit, hence placing a small brand also in the major leagues.
- Reach to potential customers – Earlier it was difficult to reach out to potential customers. With the efforts of digital marketing, it has become easy to identify and reach the target audience. Targeting the potential audience will yield better results.
- Track the reach- Traditional marketing methods were hard to track. It is difficult to track how many people saw a particular billboard and ultimately made the purchase. But with digital marketing, it is possible with various tools that help to track the social media presence, website activity, etc.
- Return on Investment- Based on the Litmus report, email marketing ROI stands at 4,200% or 42x. Every dollar a company invests in email marketing receives $42 in return. This is the kind of return we are talking about. It is enormous and hence it would be a great decision to invest in digital marketing opportunities and see your business grow.
To understand the Basics of Digital Marketing, you need to understand what are the processes you can use for Digital Marketing
It is important that you understand the digital marketing basics regarding the various platforms. An effective marketing strategy can incorporate a variety of components.
Search Engine Optimization [SEO]
SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization is the first and the most inexpensive part of the fundamentals of digital marketing. It is one of the best and simplest ways to increase a brand’s visibility. SEO can be explained as the process of optimizing content through the strategic use of keywords. During a search on Google, Bing, Yahoo, or any other search engine, they index the content and show it to the right people.
SEO is the organic way of gaining traffic. Through the bots that search engine uses to index the content. The bots crawl the web, and using various algorithms, they analyze the content index and then decide in which order the content would appear in the search results.
Online Advertising
Online advertising is the paid aspect. When you search on Google, at the top of the search results, you would notice some links before which the word, Ad is mentioned. This is an example of online advertising. All those ads that pop up on your screen while you are scrolling through Facebook or Instagram are also examples of paid media.
Online advertising is considered the best way to reach the target audience and increase brand awareness.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a strategy to target the desired audience by creating relevant content. It can be in the form of articles, videos, podcasts, or any other media meant to engage and retain an audience.
Content marketing is also an organic way of increasing traffic by developing SEO- friendly content and helping in increasing brand awareness.
Content marketing, when done strategically, leads to great results, which can be analyzed through the fact that businesses with blogs get 67% more leads than other companies.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is nothing but generic mail that is used to target the audience. It can be understood as an advertisement that is aimed at garnering traffic on the website and has the highest conversion rates.
Social Media Marketing
Using social media platforms to market a product or a service is social media marketing. There are millions of people on social media swaying others with their opinions, and if brands use this fact for their benefit, then that becomes social media marketing.
Social media marketing can be adopted by any brand size, small or big.
Pay-Per-Click
Pay-per-click is a part of paid media that is used to increase the rankings on search engines through paid means. This is used to improve rankings by moving to the top of the search results and driving more traffic. The advertisement stays for as long it is being paid for, afterward, it won’t exist.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing dominates the digital landscape. It focuses on reaching the target market by means of phones or smartphones. This can be achieved through social media, text messages, email, etc.
Affiliate/Influencer Marketing
Affiliate marketing is promoting products or services of others and getting a commission on every sale made. The affiliate needs not to be an individual alone but can be an entity also.
Most companies have started collaborating with influencers to increase their brand awareness. Social media influencers have a great impact on the views of their fanbase. So brands are using this to their advantage by getting their products advertised through influencers.
Video Marketing
It is a proven fact that videos are more engaging than any other form of content. It can be used to increase awareness about the product and increase traffic to the website. Video marketing also holds the potential of the video getting viral. The videos can be showcasing the product while educating the consumers about its uses.
Audio Marketing
Audio marketing is now not limited to the realm of radio. With the introduction of internet radio, the audience has changed.
