ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF DIGITAL MARKETING

Digital marketing helps brands reach their target audience and promote their product or service. While that's the goal of a traditional marketing campaign, too, digital marketing allows brands to target a more specific or niche audience. Connecting with customers helps build a broader audience that trusts your brand. It's beneficial for small businesses, which can easily leverage digital marketing tactics without the help of a marketing department or agency.

How Do Businesses Use Digital Marketing?

To understand how businesses use digital marketing, let's use the example of John—a fictitious mid-level salesman at a paper company. As a side hustle, he wants to open up a small business. He created an app named "Woof!" which allows a person or company to simultaneously send an identical message across different mediums—text, email, Facebook, etc. Since John has a small marketing budget, he will rely on systems and processes that have maximum reach with minimal investment. He will channel his resources towards awareness building. Value-filled content will be sufficient to propel his business. He might not have an in-house marketing department, so he will leverage social media through digital marketing agencies or freelancers who specialize in these areas. He might take on the social media marketing aspect himself.

Content Marketing

John can create written content about his product, such as blogs and guides. He could also launch a YouTube channel featuring product demos. These kinds of content allow people to understand his product's value better.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

John has all this content, but it's lost in the abyss of online searches. He looks at what his target customers look up online when searching for communication tools like his. So he uses these search terms as keywords to optimize his website in the hopes of higher content ranking.

Email Marketing

John then identifies a sizable list of prospective customers interested in buying his product. He creates an email list to send information and resources related to his development.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing can be a great full-time job if you are willing to put in the effort and work hard. To become successful with affiliate marketing, it is essential to have a robust website, good content, and compelling ads. You also need to create an effective affiliate program that allows you to earn commissions on sales generated by your affiliates.

You will also need ample time to research the latest industry trends and strategies so that you can provide accurate information about your products or services. Additionally, you will need to stay up-to-date with changes in Google AdWords settings so that your ads appear as best they can. And finally, always make sure that all of your links are active and working correctly so potential customers can find you easily online.

Website Analysis

Let's do a little reverse-engineering of our thought process. Before driving traffic to your website, you must learn about your audience. To do this, analyze your website using platforms, such as crazy egg, to see where you're losing and gaining visitors. With this information, you can create the right content to drive traffic to your website.

Advertisements

John has been relying on creating and repurposing content to build his pool of customers. He now wants to dip his toes in advertising, so he pays for ads to drive traffic to his website. Buying ad space for text, video, and image ads on websites or social media will require a budget.

Social Media Marketing

John has researched his audience and identified that they hang out on only one social channel, Instagram. So he created an Instagram business profile to talk about his product without coming across as too "sales-y," which helps him connect with his audience more intimately.

Influencer Marketing

John may use his influencer friends like Kelly, Pam, and Andy to promote his brand. Pam is a business communications consultant and assists her audience with innovative communication tools. She recommends John product to her followers, who flock to his website to buy the product using Pam's referral code. Pam gets a commission.

The undeniable reach of digital mediums means a business can access a large audience for its products and services. Compare the space of an ad in a local newspaper versus a post on social media. It will only limit that ad to the newspaper's subscribers, and for each day you run it, that's money out of your marketing budget. The post can reach anyone on the platform; you don't pay for each day it's on your profile.