Admit it. How often have you searched Google beyond the first two pages?
Digital marketing occurs when the answer is never or rarely. Digital marketers are experts at getting their products on the first page of search results. They do more. Digital marketing now includes content marketing, SEO, and more.
Want to know why digital marketing is so important? Read on.
How Does Digital Marketing Work?
Digital marketing involves promoting a product or service via digital channels. Digital marketing includes content, email, PPC, and SEO. Simply put, digital marketing encourages online purchases.
What’s the Point of Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing helps brands promote their goods and services. Traditional marketing campaigns have the same goal, but digital marketing lets brands target a more specific audience. Digital interactions build brand trust. Small businesses can use digital marketing tactics without a marketing department or agency.
How Should We Use Digital Marketing For Our Business?
Let’s use Ryan, a fictitious mid-level paper salesman, to illustrate how businesses use digital marketing. He wants a side business. He creates “Woof!”, an app that lets a person or company send the same message via text, email, Facebook, etc.
Ryan will use low-cost systems and processes to maximize his marketing budget. He’ll fund awareness. Value-packed content will propel his business. If he doesn’t have a marketing department, he’ll use digital marketing agencies or freelancers to use social media. He may handle social media marketing.
As his small business grows, he may outsource content marketing and other pillars to a digital marketing company. He self-teaches digital marketing management with these free online classes until then.
He can market his app by:
Content marketing
Ryan writes product blogs and guides. He could start a product demo YouTube channel. These materials demonstrate his product’s worth.
SEO (SEO)
Ryan has all this content, but online searches lost it. He searches online for his target customers’ communication tool searches. He optimizes his website with these search terms to rank higher.
Email marketing
Ryan then compiles a large list of interested buyers. He creates an email list to distribute product information.
Advertisements
Ryan uses content creation and repurposing to attract customers. To test advertising, he buys website traffic. Buying text, video, and image ads on websites and social media requires a budget.
Facebook marketing
Ryan found his audience only uses Instagram. He uses an Instagram business profile to promote his product without sounding “sales-y,” which helps him connect with his audience.
Influencer marketing
Ryan may promote his brand with influencer friends like Kelly, Pam, and Andy. Pam, a business communications consultant, helps her audience use cutting-edge tools. Pam’s referral code draws her followers to Ryan’s website to buy his product. Pam’s commission.
How important it is to market online
Digital platforms allow businesses to reach a large audience. Compare social media posts to local newspaper ads. That ad will only reach newspaper subscribers; each day you run, it costs money from your marketing budget. You don’t pay for the post’s daily visibility on your profile.
Online Users/Customers
Digital marketing lets Ryan reach customers worldwide. He only needs their phone numbers or email addresses later in the funnel. He needs to be where his customers are, like on social media or search engines.
Audience Reach
Ryan can target his ideal customers with digital marketing. He can tailor his ads to his target audience by posting high-quality content and studying who visits his website or engages with his posts. Should he show his ads and posts to older phone-only users? No. He doesn’t need to market to seniors.
Tracking, monitoring, and optimizing campaign performance quickly
With the right tools, Ryan can track many metrics to assess his digital marketing campaign. He can track real-time and optimize campaigns midway. He calculates digital marketing campaign ROI.
Offline advertising doesn’t allow this. He can’t measure the sales impact of a month-long newspaper ad.
Helps Brands Improve Digital Marketing Interactivity
Digital marketing lets Ryan interact with customers in different ways. He can host an Instagram live stream to discuss his product and vision with customers. These digital experiences subtly advertise to the audience.
Cost-Effective Over Outbound Marketing
Cold-calling and billboard ads are untrackable and more expensive than digital marketing. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing. Cold-calling requires constant staffing. Billboards/pamphlets must track how many people see them and buy their tools. Ryan uses cheaper digital marketing tools.
Dynamic Adaptability (Easier Strategy Changes)
Ryan can adapt his strategy based on campaign responses. He doesn’t depend on Instagram. Switch to what works. Digital marketing’s adaptability gives him the best value.
Customer Loyalty
Customer retention depends on personalization. Ryan regularly provides online content. He offers social media brand engagement. He started a daily email newsletter. Brand recall keeps its customers.
High ROI
ROI varies by digital marketing pillar. Strategic execution yields these impressive ROI figures.
Digital marketing can transform your business if you consider its flexibility and longevity.
Stay Competitive
Ryan can compete with big brands despite their massive daily marketing budgets. Ryan can grow his audience and search engine visibility with strategic marketing resources like SEO, social media, and content marketing. Google ranks content that meets search intent, not budget.
What Will Digital Marketing Cost Your Business?
Digital marketing costs zero to thousands per month. It depends on the business, preferred marketing method, marketing capabilities, marketing message, consumer engagement tactics, and digital marketing goals.
Small businesses spend less, but niche, location, competition, and goals can greatly affect budgets. This graph shows the percentage of UK, Germany, France, and North American businesses’ digital marketing budgets:
Here are some marketing package prices:
Digital Marketing Basics: $2000-$6000
Ryan may choose basic digital marketing services in the early years of his business to maximize benefits without a large budget. This could include hiring a freelancer to manage his Instagram business account, a content writer to write frequent blog posts, and a one-time website design investment since SEO and UX design overlap.
Intermediate Digital Marketing: $10,000–$20,000
Ryan can use intermediate digital marketing if his business grows. In that case, he might hire SEO writers, a multi-platform social media manager, a website designer on retainer, and two affiliate marketers.
Advanced Digital Marketing: 9-10% of Revenue
Michael’s large business is Ryan’s biggest rival. Michael’s budget is likely revenue-based. Big companies spend 9%-10% of Revenue on Google ads, content marketing, social media, and SEO.
Marketing FAQs
Digital marketing questions answered:
How Do Businesses Measure Digital Marketing Success?
Digital marketing KPIs and tools determine the effectiveness of your strategies. Google Analytics and Heap track these KPIs and provide actionable insights. Traffic, bounce rates, and average time per visit are important website metrics. A stronger social media strategy may use metrics like reach, impressions, engagement, and click-through rates.
Digital Marketing’s Core?
Digital marketing relies on audience knowledge. Digital marketing strategies don’t matter. No point if your business doesn’t know the audience and their pain points. Consumer-focused content must evoke empathy. No matter formats, platforms, or Google trends.
What’s Driving Digital Marketing?
Owners want to visit customers. Customers spend more time and money online. They view online ads. Businesses must tailor content to their audience. Digital marketing grows because this audience is online. The digital marketing industry is booming, too. Digital marketing salaries guide shows employment growth.
