Ever wondered? Why do only a few product websites or businesses appear whenever you type a query online? What makes them rank higher than any other product or business with the same niche, similar features, and similar content? No, it is not because that is some big company but because of “Digital Marketing”. Whether you are a small business owner or a giant, you can not ace the online ranking game if you lack digital marketing. 

Brightlocal revealed in a local consumer review survey conducted in 2023 that 98% of consumers use online resources to find local businesses. This highlights the point that the marketplace has changed and thus, the audience from offline to online. Everyone uses the internet to promote their businesses and services. It’s high time now that you learn the importance of digital marketing and the necessity of creating your business’s online presence.

In this article, we will talk about the importance of digital marketing in detail, discover the different types of digital marketing, and also explore the other valuable aspects of digital marketing for websites and businesses. Let’s dive into the blog.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing, also known as online marketing, is the process of promoting a brand or a product and building a potential customer connection using different online marketing platforms. Digital marketing uses the internet to create an online presence that describes your business best. Various online marketing platforms can be used such as social media, search engines, and emails to connect with potential customers and create awareness about your business. 

Digital presence is required to build trust and authority in your audience. According to Google consumer insights, 53% of shoppers say they always research before buying, highlighting the need for businesses to have a strong online presence to influence buying decisions. If anyone comes across your business or company then the first step they will take is to check whether you are present online in any way like do you have a proper website or a social media presence or whether you are listed online or not. 

Digital marketing gives you the liberty to showcase your business the way you want. It also, provides you a platform to be creative, engage with your audience, and deliver your message to your audience globally.

Why digital marketing important For Business?

As per Statista, global digital advertising spending is projected to reach $526 billion by 2024, highlighting the growing importance of digital channels in marketing strategies. 

Every business runs on advertisements and earlier, traditional advertisement methods were used like huge banners, radio advertisements, television ads, and more. These methods are still relevant but are not affordable for every business. There is also one drawback as it reaches a massive audience which is good but not every audience is relevant to your business.

These problems are solved in the digital era. Everything has been digitalized with the accessibility of mobile and now it has become necessary for businesses to acquire digital practices as the audience has shifted to digital platforms. Everyone knows how to operate the internet, digital platforms, social media platforms, and more. So, a business can not be done without customers and to acquire them digital marketing comes into practice.

Digital marketing allows you to start a business from scratch with little amount of money which is a boon for small businesses, entrepreneurs, or anyone who wants to start their business but has little money to invest. It allows you to reach millions of people globally. Some social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. work as your marketing channels where you can target your audience. It gives you the liberty to advertise or sell your product who are interested in it. You can also control your ads according to the demographics and can make them more precisely targeted.

Today, there is no business if it is not online.

Top 9 Digital Marketing Types You Must Know.

There are various digital marketing types and each one is equally valuable and important:

1. SEO: SEO full form is “Search Engine Optimization”. SEO is a process to generate online organic traffic and increase the Google search rank of a website or brand. According to Brightedge research, 53% of all website traffic comes from organic search. It includes various factors and SEO techniques to make your website optimized for SEO. Various types of SEO should be followed:

• On-Page SEO: On-Page SEO includes optimizing the “on-site” (means that is present on the page) website pages and content by using relevant “keywords”. In this type, the major focus is to include all the relevant keywords or questions that people are asking online inside the titles, descriptions, and website content so that it can rank higher on SERPs (Search Engine Related Pages).

• Off-Page SEO: Off-Page SEO includes all the practices that take place “off the page” or “outside the website”. These practices include creating backlinks. Backlinks, also termed inbound links, are created to link one website to another. This is required to build user’s and search engine’s trust and authority on your website. 

• Technical SEO: Technical SEO involves all the technical aspects like website code, mobile optimized site, compressed images, website structure, indexing, and more. All these are important to improve website page load speed which is a major ranking factor and organic ranking of the website.

2. SEM: SEM full form in digital marketing is “Search Engine Marketing”. It is a method of using paid ads to promote a product or rank a website online. SEO drives traffic organically i.e. without paying any money but here we invest a certain amount of money to run ads to drive traffic like PPC.

In PPC (Pay-Per-Click), you have to pay a certain amount every time whenever someone clicks on your ad. It allows you to target relevant customers with precision. According to WordStream 2023, PPC ads generate an average ROI of 2:1. Google ads are one of the major types of PPC where you pay to rank on the top of Google’s search engine page. Others are Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Twitter ads, etc.

3. Social Media Marketing: Social Media Marketing is a process of creating awareness about the product or business and promoting it to a larger audience to build engagement around it. It is a platform where you can directly deliver your message to your audience. There are various platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, and more. The complete Digital 2024 Global Overview Report gives you an idea of what people are doing on social media. 

You can share your content in the form of videos, texts, images, or the way you want it to be presented. You can instantly receive the audience’s response and can work on it accordingly. 

4. Content Marketing: Content marketing involves creating informative and engaging content that delivers quality to the users or customers. In a 2023, HubSpot study shows that businesses with active blogs generate 55% more leads than those without. Content can be in different forms like blogs, articles, whitepapers, videos, images, infographics, and e-books. 

The purpose of content marketing is to educate people, promote awareness, generate leads, and increase website traffic. Design your content for your users and make sure the content is providing a solution or answer to your user. 

5. Email Marketing: Email marketing is an important tool that is used to send personalized emails to specific customers based on their interests, needs, and requirements. It serves as a communication tool for various companies to promote their content (in the form of newsletters, tips, and techniques), exclusive discounts, offers, various online and offline events, news, and competitions, and redirect customers to their website.

According to Litmus, email marketing generates an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent. 

6. Influencer Marketing: Influencer Marketing is a modern technique of promoting your business or product by collaborating with a social media influencer. There are many influencers out there but you have to check whether the influencer is related to your niche and how popular it is among your target audience. 

Influencers usually promote your content through sharing posts and videos in their feed or stories. It is much more affordable than television ads as you can collaborate with the influencer as per your requirements.

7. Performance Marketing: Performance marketing is a type of digital marketing in which brands or advertisers only pay when a certain measurable outcome is achieved such as clicks, leads, conversions, and sales. It requires publishers or marketing agencies or marketers to run completely optimized and fully analyzed campaigns. 

For this, publishers make use of all the social media channels to target the relevant audience. Campaigns are precisely optimized by analyzing the digital marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) to generate the maximum ROI (Return On Investment) as a measurable result.

8. Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is a form of performance-based advertising marketing strategy. In this, affiliates (you) earn a commission when they drive a sale or traffic through a unique link or code on other websites. You can also earn commission by promoting or advertising other products or brands on your website. It is a great source of passive income.

There are many ways to do affiliate marketing like through social media, YouTube, and many other websites that provide affiliate programs. Influencer marketing is also a great way of affiliate marketing which can yield maximum results when done correctly.

9. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Marketing: Artificial Intelligence is one of the most emerging technologies in the digital world. AI marketing enhances digital marketing performance through AI automated decisions based on data. Companies are using AI in every stage of the consumer journey, optimizing digital marketing campaigns, even running ads, and more.

Learn How to do Digital Marketing in Simple Steps.

Step 1. Define your business goals: First, identify and set your clear business goals like building brand awareness, driving sales, generating leads, and more to create an effective marketing strategy. 

Step 2. Understand your audience: Conduct thorough market research about your audience considering various parameters like their demographics, interests, behavior, and pain points. Follow these parameters to understand your audience in and out. 

Step 3. Develop buyer personas: Use the above-collected data to create your detailed ideal audience persona to segment your target audience. Then use it to send personalized marketing messages.   

Step 4. Choose appropriate digital channels: Now, according to the crafted marketing strategy, select the relevant digital channels like social media, search engines, and email. While selecting the relevant digital channel, consider factors such as your audience’s preferences, behavior, and where they spend their time online the most. 

Step 5. Create and craft compelling content: Craft high-quality and informative content considering your audience’s needs and interests that educates your audience. Create blog posts, videos, infographics, ebooks, courses, posters and more.  

Step 6. Optimize your content for SEO: Creating content is not solely sufficient to rank higher on Google. If you want to rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs) then optimize your content for SEO. Include all the relevant keywords in your main content, title, and meta-description, and earn relevant inbound and outbound links.  

Step 7. Set up paid advertising campaigns: To reach your target audience or to drive website traffic, use paid advertising platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or LinkedIn Ads. Craft campaigns strategically to achieve specific goals and optimize them according to the data achieved to earn maximum ROI.

Step 8. Strategically utilize social media marketing: Utilize social media platforms to share engaging content, and interact with your audience through comments or live sessions. Leverage the relevant social media platform where your target audience is.

Step 9. Implement email marketing: Share personalized messages and provide valuable content through email marketing. Send exclusive discounts, offers, and other event information to enhance engagement with your subscribers.

Step 10. Utilize content marketing: Share different types of content like blogs, videos, infographics, and others across various platforms like social media, websites, and more. Through content marketing, you can build audience trust and brand authority.  

Step 11. Engage with influencers: Connect and collaborate with relevant influencers online who are similar to your niche and carry your target audience.

Step 12. Monitor and analyze data for maximum ROI: Track key metrics and analytics to analyze your data and digital marketing performance. You can use various tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and email marketing software to improve your ROI (Return on investment).

Step 13. Optimize user experience (UX): Optimize your website for a smooth and enjoyable experience for your users. Design your website for mobile devices and improve the navigation process for your users so that the desired action can be taken. 

Step 14. Stay updated and Keep experimenting: Digital marketing is all about experimenting and being updated with the relevant trends. Keep yourself updated with the latest updates on various platforms and policies. Implement various strategies to figure out what is working for you the best and then optimize accordingly.  

 

Follow these steps to start your digital marketing journey today and if you feel somewhere that you need some help or you want someone to do these steps for you then Digital43 – a digital marketing agency is here to help you.

Do share your experience in the comments or ask if you have any questions.