What is Digital Marketing?
Online marketing, internet advertising or digital marketing as we popularly know it, is the promotion of products and services exclusively through digital mediums. Digital marketing is simply an umbrella term for any kind of advertising that is done through electronic devices. When people hear about digital marketing they typically recognize and constrain it to channels like social media, emails, and websites; basically, anything associated with the internet.
Why Digital Marketing?
We live in a world that is integrated with technology more than ever before. A majority of us own smartphones, laptops, tablets, and even smart watches! Since everyone is slowly getting online, it’s crucial for businesses to get on the internet too. As more and more customers get online, digital marketing is the best and immediate way to reach them. Conventional marketing can no longer reach people quite like the way digital marketing does.
Here are some of the most crucial digital marketing services that will help accelerate the growth of any business
- SEO
- SEM
- Content Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- PPC
- Affiliate Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Branding
- Product Launch
- Influencer Marketing
- Lead Generation
- Conversion Rate Optimization
- Data Analytics
- App Store Optimization
- Brand Identity Design
- Brand Communication
- Remarketing
- Drip Marketing
- Website Design
- UI/UX Optimization
SEO
SEO is an acronym for “Search Engine Optimisation”. It is the process of optimizing your website to boost organic traffic. To break it down further, the goal of SEO is to get your website the best rank in non paid or organic search results in search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. SEO helps optimize your online content so that a search engine will show it in its top three results for searches for a certain keyword. Basically, it makes yourself easy to find.
On page – On page, SEO is everything related to what goes on within your website, that you can directly control. Some elements of on-page SEO includes the quality of your content, keywords, meta tags, etc
Off-page – Off-page SEO is the process of optimizing external elements which are connected/related to your website that will, in turn, help your brand. Some crucial elements of off page SEO are the websites backlinks, citations, NAPs and social engagement, etc.
Technical SEO – Technical SEO basically deals with the way the website is built and how accessible it is to the visitors and crawlers. Some crucial elements of technical SEO are the site architecture, crawlability, content accessibility, etc.
SEM
Search engine marketing is also known as paid search marketing, SEM is an effective way to increase your websites traffic rapidly and grow your business in no time. This is done by attracting quality leads to your page by bidding for keywords on search engines like Google, Bing, etc. SEM is a very powerful and cost-effective marketing tool that gives you the ability to target customers the moment they search for your service or product related keyword.
With an increasing number of consumers searching and shopping for products online, SEM has become a great strategy for increasing a company’s visibility. In search engine marketing, advertisers only pay when there’s a click on their ad or a call made to the company making it an efficient and great marketing tool.
Content Marketing
Marketing is impossible without great content. Despite what sort of marketing strategies you use, content marketing should be a part of your procedure, and not something independent. Content Marketing is the strategy of putting out quality content and letting it do the marketing for you! It is the process of creating, publishing and promoting content across all your online channels such as your blog, website, or social media. It can be in the form of infographics, well-written articles, videos, blogs, and even pictures. The content you create doesn’t necessarily need to be promotional but instead, stimulate interest and ultimately, improve and give a voice to your brand.
Social Media Marketing -Organic
Organic social media is when you use social media to promote your product without paying for it. In spite of organic reach being low, it is important to have an active, frequently updated and consistent page on social media. It is on your social media platforms like your Twitter feed, Instagram account and Facebook page where people come for updates and queries about your company.
Organic social media marketing helps to improve your online presence, brand reputation and allows you to connect with your followers.
Social Media Marketing – Paid
Social media marketing isn’t just a buzz word anymore. In fact, it is an exceptional driver of sales and leads. Over the years social media has had a huge impact on people and on the internet. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms are filled with a huge base of active customers.
Businesses have a great opportunity as social media gathers a large amount of user information. In addition to the traditional socio-demographic data, social media uses interests, connection, and behavioral based targeting methods. With mobile users already checking their phones multiple times a day social media marketing is the best way to reach them.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a way for you to work with other people in order to get them to market your product and increase your website’s traffic. Affiliates get a commission for selling your product or service through affiliate programmes. If you have a product you like to promote, you can send the information to your affiliates to create a buzz around your product. Affiliates can earn a piece of the profit for each sale that they make.
Your affiliates are indirectly your sales team. Through affiliate marketing, you can incorporate social proof. Social proof is when your customers believe that your product is the right choice by conforming to the actions of others or your affiliates. Affiliate marketing is an effective way to increase the sales of your business.
Email Marketing
Since the growth of social media, many marketers began to question the value of email marketing in the future. Those thoughts, however, quickly waned as marketers saw the return on investment (ROI) of email continue to be the best among all marketing channels.
Email marketing is a method of telling your potential clients or customers about a product, service or a combination of the two by sending promotional messages via electronic mail. It is a way to give them an insight into what is going on with your business and to build a strong working relationship with them. Emails are an efficient and cost-effective tool that drives newcomers to your site, builds brand awareness as well as keeping current clients engaged.
A fully integrated email marketing tool will allow you to create, manage and perfect successful emails with staggering results.
Product Launch
Launching a new product/item is a thrilling new pursuit for any business. A product launch is done to introduce your new product to the customers. It is the steps that involve debuting your new product in the market.
A product launch passes through a number of steps known as the product launch process, starting from the ideation phase to the development phase, testing phase to the analyzing phase to finalize the launch of the product or service.
The key to an effective product launch is a coordinated and integrated strategy. One channel alone won’t do what’s necessary to truly reach the audience you want to reach.
Influencer Marketing
It is easier to get users to show interest in a product/service when someone who he/she trusts tells them about it.
In influencer marketing, you don’t directly advertise to your audience. Instead, you pinpoint key leaders in your niche and convey your message through them. This works because the key leaders have already influenced and earned the trust of your target audience.
Influencer marketing is becoming a popular form of marketing with the growth of social media and emerging of influencers with a large following. Influencers, unlike celebrities, can be anywhere. They can be anyone. They can be bloggers, CEO’s, adviser and even entertainers. What makes them influential is their connection to people and their large followings on the web and social media. Different from other traditional marketing methods, this brand marketing method is powerful enough to influence the purchasing decisions of customers.
Lead Generation
Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and visitors into someone who has shown or expressed interest in your product or service.
The purchasing process has changed, and advertisers need to discover better approaches to achieve customers and be heard through all the commotion. Rather than discovering clients with mass marketing and emails, advertisers should now concentrate on being found and figure out how to build associations with purchasers.
Conversion Rate Optimization
Conversion is the action you would like someone to take while they are on your website. This could be either filling in a form, subscribing to a newsletter or it can also be the increase of the average time a person spends on your website
There is a popular misconception that increase in your website traffic is equivalent to an increase in profits. It is actually the rate at which things convert that matters to marketers. You can get a thousand people on your website but no conversions will certainly not help your business.
Conversion rate optimization uses techniques, skills and best practices to increase the rate at which website traffic converts and increases profits.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of enabling people to take action when they visit a website. By modifying and adjusting certain components and elements of a site page, a business can increase the odds that visitors will “convert” into a lead or client before they leave.
Data Analytics
Data Analytics is an easy way to figure out what’s working well for you and what’s not so that you don’t waste your time, money and resources on ineffective marketing strategies.
There is an ocean of variables that you can track which makes data analytics both crucial and complex. With data analytics, you can track every move a visitor makes on your website and to some extent on other platforms where you are running paid campaigns.
Intrusive? Yes, but this is the reality of the world we live in. So as marketers it only makes sense to dive in and embrace it. Ignorance is no longer bliss, so the more you know about your customer the better you’re able to serve them.
App Store Optimization
The most common way that users find apps and download them is simply by searching for them on the app store or play store. To make sure your app is being seen in an inundated store, you need to focus on something known as app store optimization or ASO for short. With over 2 million apps, it is important that your app store page is being optimized to the highest standard.
As SEO is for websites, ASO is the process of optimizing your mobile app in order for it to rank higher and to increase the visibility in the app store. More visibility means more downloads which ultimately translates to increased revenue.
Branding
Branding is a practice of actively shaping a distinctive brand. A brand is the perception of the company in the eyes of the world.
Strong branding creates customer loyalty that increases the perceived value of your product. In a highly competitive global market, it is important for you to stand out in the crowd. A strong brand positioning helps your customers differentiate your business from thousands of other businesses from around the world
Brand Identity Design
Have you ever chosen a product only because of the way it looks? Just like your personal identity makes you uniquely you, your brand identity helps your business stand out from the rest on the block.
Your brand’s identity is like a preview of your brand, and each element of it tells your audience what they can expect from your brand. It forms a connection between your customers and you, builds a sense of loyalty in them and determines how people perceive your brand.
The main components of your brand’s identity are your,
- Logo – Identifies your brand by using a particular symbol, design or both.
- Colour – Defines your brand in a very powerful way. Not only does it create a strong impression on the viewer but it also portrays your brand’s values and style
- Typography – Text is one of the simpler aspects of your brand’s identity, but it can be surprisingly expressive and impactful. The text you choose can determine the look of the brand
Brand Communication
Clear communication is the key to the success of any brand. It is the voice of the brand that has to be clear, current, relevant and true.
Brand Communication is an imperative tool which companies use to educate, convince, edify, instruct, remind, and enhance the information about the brand, its strengths, values, fundamentals, and its offerings of products and services. It is an act of communicating and delivering meaningful and focused messages pertaining to the brand to the stakeholders.
Remarketing
Remarketing, also known as Retargeting is a smart tactic that marketers use to connect with their website’s visitors that have not made any call to action during their previous visit.
Unfortunately, most prospects do not convert to customers on their first few visits to your website. The reasons being either it’s their first visit to your website and their concerns about the page’s credibility, or they simply just decide to shop later and it slips their mind.
This is where remarketing comes into play. With the help of pixels, marketers position ads related to your website throughout the web, to an audience that have previously visited your website. These ads are shown to them as they browse different websites on the internet.
The purpose of remarketing is to remind your audience about your page that they had previously visited and get them to pick up where they’ve left off.
Drip Marketing
Drip marketing allows you to easily generate intelligent communication campaigns that cater to your contacts’ interests and are executed inadvertently. They are a set of marketing emails or any type of messages that are scheduled to be sent out automatically and have a specific objective.
Drip Marketing is an automated way of keeping your leads engaged with you and your brand and sharing content with them that they will see as valuable. That content will build trust and help move them through the sales funnel.
Website Design
Did you know that 94% of all the visitors to your website decide in the first 5 seconds if they like your website or not based on the design alone?
Would you want to shop at a run-down store or good looking one? When you enter a store don’t you want to have a great experience? Of course! Your website is your virtual storefront. However, the difference is, unlike a storefront, it never closes and is always available to your customer. A website is the core of all your online marketing activities. An amazing, user-friendly website is vital for converting prospects. A website should showcase the company brand and attract more people and convert them into customers.
UXO
The web has witnessed mammoth changes since its inception; however, one thing that remains constant is how your users interact with your website which ultimately decides the success of it.
UXO is the process of optimizing your webpages to enhance the user experience. The goal here is to get your visitors to engage with each of your web pages by either getting them to scroll, click, or just interact with the elements of your website. UXO is all about getting your users to answer “yes” to all the questions above.
Through SEO, search engines read your sites, rank them and make them visible. But what gets them to stay is a great user experience. It’s all about keeping your users hooked
Long story short, this list of services explains exactly why digital marketing is so crucial to a business.
Online is where the world is and that is where your customer prefers that you reach them. As the internet is the center of all activities, the importance of digital marketing becomes even more clear. A majority of your competitors are already into digital marketing and that is where you should be too.
