The traditional marketing modes that dominated organizations for decades has been slowly replacing with digital marketing. Nowadays, the rise of digital technology has not a luxury but a necessity.
If you are one of those who want to explore the dynamics of digital marketing, there is a need to understand the dynamics of marketing and digital marketing. Furthermore, you have to identify the skills and qualities needed to become successful in this innovative strategy. This is the digital marketing guide for beginners.
While there are various ways and means to know the dynamics of this innovated industry, this guide can give everyone a glimpse about what is digital marketing- how its different from traditional marketing, and what are some skills required to do really well in this industry.
Table of Contents
What is Digital Marketing?
Let’s take a look first at what the concept of digital marketing is. Basically, it refers to various marketing strategies that apply to different digital platforms.
Digital marketing happens when a business wants some kind of transaction to happen. A business can want a sale or look at exploring how to increase their brand. There are a lot of forms it can take.
Social Media
For instance, you can create a business page or Facebook group related to your niche or business. if you have a product or service in social media networks like Facebook, you are involved in the dynamics of digital marketing.
Search Engine
Search Engine has become a huge business. The biggest of them is Google. Whenever you are looking at actively rank on the searches or pay for advertisements, you are engaged in digital marketing.
Paid and Free Traffic
Marketing is about getting eyeballs to your brand and product. There are different strategies you can use to broadcast your business.
Each platform like social media, search engines, and websites has a certain number of followers and visitors.
You can look at building content and engaging material to connect with visitors for free. The other option is to pay someone for the traffic they already have.
It’s important to build a strategy that works for your business model. For most businesses, it’s probably both.
The Change From Digital Marketing
The concept of marketing is to provide ways and strategies in which businesses can reach out to their audience. In digital marketing, the strategies of connecting to the audience are done via the Internet.
Since most people spend most of their time browsing the net, the demand for implementing digital marketing in every business is getting bigger.
Read: Direct Vs Indirect Marketing: What’s Is Better For You?
The Difference between Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing
Both digital and traditional marketing strives to supply the needs of their identified target audience and to get their loyalty to its products or services. However, when it comes to other aspects, there are vast differences between these two. Here are some of them:
Traditional Marketing: The Past Giants
Traditional Marketing is technically still big businesses. It was usually only accessible to the incredibly wealthy. The internet has changed the monopoly of marketing.
Television:
Television is a great way to get advertisers. If you’ve ever seen a commercial, the business has likely paid thousands of dollars to be shown on television.
Ad revenue is still a generator for shows and many different channels. Each network and channel had different influence.
Radio:
Radio is still running. It can be a live show, recorded, or music. Radio runs similarly to television. It’s usually a lot more local, and you will need to connect with the station to get mentioned on their network.
Print Material: Newspapers, Direct Mail, Magazines
Most of the time, they are reaching out to the local audience. Physical marketing materials like brochures, leaflets, and posters were ways to gain customers.
Live Events:
In bigger companies, massive activities like seminars and conventions are done to get a large number of clients.
The Multiple Platforms Now Available
In the past there were specific strategies for building out a marketing plan. It was relegated to the bigger businesses. The internet has opened it up to so many more people.
YouTube
YouTube is the second most searched engine in the world. It’s also the biggest video platform. There are thousands of videos on YouTube. You can create content and build up a following for yourself.
If you don’t want to wait, you can advertise on their platform. This can be a great way to make sales and other deals potentially in the future.
Facebook, Instagram, and Other Social Media Platforms
You can create a following right on a social media platform. These platforms give you the opportunity to build a following and advertise right on their platform as well.
Podcasts:
Podcasts are becoming increasingly more popular because of the opportunity to choose what you want to listen to. You can build your brand around a podcasts.
You can look at bringing in guests and going on as a guest to other podcasts. This can be a way to increase traffic on your platform.
As you build out your platform, you can look at selling other products and services. Advertising is also another opportunity if you want to gain greater reach.
Blogging on WordPress
Most websites are on WordPress. It’s because it gives you control of a platform. You can look at building a following by getting people to go into your email list.
There are opportunities to create ad space and get advertising revenue. It’s a great way to write about different products and services.
Read: Blogging as a Side Hustle
Blogging On Medium
Medium has thousands of followers on their platform. They have a monetization system to pay their writers. It’s also a great way to get a following and emails. This can be a good solution in selling different products and services in the future.
The Advent of the Webinar
Like traditional marketers, digital marketers can also do virtual seminars (also called webinars) and conventions, in which people can watch it in real-time. They can also watch it over and over again.
Read: Free Webinar Software You Can Use For Your Business
The Advantages of Digital Marketing
Focusing on Local Markets
Companies have access to data that you surprise everyone. You are able to target people within a specific geographic location if you are doing business locally.
With the use of the internet, customers on every side of the world can be reached. Despite this, digital marketers are tuning their demographics to make sure they can reach their locality first.
Testing Products and Services
Digital marketers are having vast opportunity to get a glimpse of what their market view to the product or service. With various platforms like social media networks and websites, they can get the pulse of their potential market with a comments section and direct message.
Multiple Platforms
When you are looking at digital marketing, look at building across different platforms. This will help you build up organic traffic across different platforms.
The dynamic aspects of the internet and various platforms can provide digital marketers more opportunities to showcase their products on different channels. For instance, their potential customer can watch their product demonstration via YouTube and Facebook videos.
The Skills Needed in a Successful Digital Marketing
There is no doubt how beneficial digital marketing can be for various businesses nowadays. With the vast opportunities everyone can have, particular skills must be known and enhanced to get the most of this digital strategy.
While some may think that these skills have to know, digital marketing experts encourage beginners to pick up a particular skill first, master it, before exploring the other skills.
Some of the skills that digital marketing beginners must know are the following:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Most of the time, people are browsing online and not just checking their social media accounts. They are looking for solutions to their problems, or something that can satisfy their needs at that moment.
They start going to Google, or Yahoo and start typing their need or problem. A few seconds later, various links will be right in front of their eyes, ready to answer their problems or satisfy their needs.
This digital marketing aspect refers to the process of optimizing online content. It intends to top rank this content so that this can be the first seen when an online visitor looks for related content.
A successful SEO can be achieved with:
Keyword research and analysis– this pertains to the use of particular words or phrases that will serve as the main word in a particular content.
It also involves determining which of these keywords can provide better opportunities for online content to be more visible in search engines.
Web traffic analysis- Here, the SEO expert uses tools like Google Analytics to analyze the number of traffic of a particular website.
Moreover, it determines its current trend. The results of these analyses will be used to evaluate and improve existing SEO strategies.
Ranking strategies- As mentioned, SEO strives to make digital content become “top one” in various site rankings. There are tools like Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines where it helps enhance the existing way of boosting content.
Content Marketing
According to The Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is “a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – to drive profitable customer action.”
Examples of content marketing are:
Infographics- Basically, infographics are long and visual graphics which include statistics, charts, graphs, and other information.
Webpages- Webpages that are used for content marketing are offered to various audiences for free. These can be viewed by almost everyone, which can bring in more potential customers.
Podcasts- For those who are tired or not interested in reading, the podcast is another effective tool in content marketing.
It is an audio-based content that can be downloaded on mobile phones or computers. Various topics can be discussed and shared, and are usually in series.
Online videos- These can be pricey and time-consuming for content marketing. But this is more effective especially in introducing a particular product or service because it is more appealing and faster to be watched and explored by everyone.
Digital books- Most of the electronic books or e-books nowadays aren’t there just to provide information. Oftentimes, these are used as marketing tools too.
For instance, some coaches use digital books to persuade its reader to avail of their coaching services.
Social Media Marketing
Almost every individual in this world has at least more than one social media account. Since these networks are available on every device any person can have, these are been maximized for various digital marketing strategies too.
In the digital marketing perspective, social media marketing is the usage of social media platforms to connect with a wider audience, introduce the brand, persuade them to avail, and be the brand’s loyal customer.
Strategies for this marketing include:
- Creating a business page
- Inviting social media users to like and follow the page
- Posting photos and videos of products and services offered
- Accommodating potential customers
- Availing of the product or service
- Setting appointments
- Encouraging customers to send feedback about the product or service
Social Media is a good way to get content and build brand trust. People will actively try to look you up. The longer your business has been on the market, the more you can leverage it into your social media campaigns.
Tips for Successful Digital Marketing Tactics
Now that some of the basics in digital marketing are introduced, here are some strategy tips that can help digital marketing beginners should always remember to ensure their success in this field:
- Be sure to know what you are talking about or offering.
- Always aim to have an effective marketing strategy.
- Make sure that the strategy is always relevant to the target market.
- Assess business performance regularly.
- Enhance marketing leads by assessing the experience of the customer.
- Always focus on the results.
- Consider data in making decisions.
- Audit the marketing program regularly.
- Be sure that the branding will cater to the needs and concerns of the target market.
- Consider working with influencers.
Think about the results you want to achieve for your business. It will have a large impact on how you should market your business.
There are free and paid sources of traffic. You should look at building organic traffic. This is a free way to get clients over time.
Depending on your business model, you may look into paid sources of traffic. If your revenue is more than your expenses, you made money.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Can any business benefit from digital marketing?
With the vast changes experienced by different sectors nowadays, considering digital marketing for business has various benefits, regardless of the industry it has. Failing to consider digital marketing to the business is like failing to provide a wider avenue were a venture can be introduced and experienced by more individuals.
Does digital marketing need a blog all the time?
Blogging may not be a good idea especially for those who are beginners in the digital marketing industry. However, other strategies like email marketing and lead generation can benefit even those who are still looking for their target market.
Is there “someone” that determines which of the websites and links must be on the top rank?
Unfortunately, different search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing cannot answer that question. Yet, one of the secrets of being on top (and maybe staying on top) is to make sure that the posts and content always strive to meet what the target market is always looking for.
