What Digital Marketing is and How It Works
In modern marketing, there are numerous ways to influence consumers. One of the most popular methods is digital marketing, which involves creating content and promoting it using multi-channel and digital devices. Promotion can occur through channels such as websites, social media, email, and mobile applications. Simply put, digital marketing encompasses any promotional activity within the digital environment. This article will delve into the definition of digital marketing, its practical application, and the pros and cons associated with it.
Why you need digital marketing
The main objective of marketing is to understand consumers, capture their attention, and ultimately prompt a specific action.
Digital marketing builds upon the same concept but is executed through diverse digital channels of interaction.
Digital marketing differs from traditional marketing in several ways: the platforms where marketers promote products and a broader range of tools for evaluating results.
With the assistance of digital technologies in marketing, it's not just about promoting products or services but also about attracting new customers or retaining existing ones.
Internet marketing encompasses key tasks, such as:
- Gathering contact information from loyal users.
- Expanding the reach of the target audience and increasing brand awareness.
- Cultivating a positive company image.
- Enhancing consumer loyalty and growing the number of brand followers.
- Gathering information through marketing research.
- Keeping the target audience informed about various promotions, special offers, and company news.
- Introducing new products and services.
Distinctive features of digital marketing
- Measurability of indicators: This involves analytics. Nowadays, marketers have the ability to obtain quick and measurable results for each advertising campaign: clicks, conversions, transitions, interactions, and much more. Any metric can be measured to be effectively used in future work.
- Extensive Reach: The greater the number of channels a marketer employs, the broader the audience they can engage in an advertising campaign. In today's era, nearly every individual utilizes the internet and social networks, making it possible for advertising to effectively communicate messages to a vast audience.
- Automation: Smart assistants, mailing automation services, and chatbots play a pivotal role in saving considerable time for managers or marketers. They enhance the precision of numerous tasks and eliminate mundane work.
- Immediate Response: Digital marketing facilitates prompt feedback from users via email, social networks, messengers, and website chatbots.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Digital Marketing
Let's explore the pros and cons of online marketing:
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| Targeting. Digital marketers use targeting to display ads only to the target audience. | Variability. To effectively utilize digital marketing tools, one must be prepared for changes and be able to quickly adapt to innovations in digital platforms. |
| Precise Analytics. In digital marketing, it's possible to thoroughly evaluate the results of advertising campaigns, from conversion rates to the cost of purchase. | Data Protection Limitations. If a user has not consented to the processing of cookie files, the company receives less information about the user and their actions. |
| Diverse Tools. To adeptly execute digital promotion, various tools are utilized, such as TV and radio advertising, in-app video clips, push notifications, and text messages. | Requirement for Specialized Analysis and Research. Mastering internet marketing requires understanding search engine technologies, advertising methods, and content creation. |
| Instant Response. Digital marketing ensures instant communication with users through social networks, email, messengers, etc. |
Digital Marketing Channels and Tools
Search Marketing
This refers to SEO, which involves promoting content on search engines. The goal of SEO is to generate traffic to the website. SEO helps discover user queries and adjust the website to search engine algorithms. Search marketing improves search engine rankings organically.
Content Marketing
An essential tool in digital marketing is content marketing, which involves creating valuable content and distributing it to attract a target audience. Understanding the target audience is crucial to engaging them effectively. Only then can the materials meet customer needs, address questions, and ultimately drive purchases.
Content marketing encompasses all materials created within a company, including videos, podcasts, articles, social media posts, and newsletters.
Valuable content is incorporated into the company's website through a blog or knowledge base. Content marketing facilitates the gradual promotion of complex products, shapes the company's image, maintains expert status, aids in customer retention, and boosts loyalty.
Personalized content can also be created using email newsletters.
Influencer Marketing
When collaborating with influencers, their social media pages serve as a platform for advertising your products and services, as well as for launching joint projects.
Many companies nowadays offer bloggers brand ambassadorships. This involves a long-term collaboration where the ambassador publicly demonstrates their commitment to the company and its product.
Internet Advertising
This category includes almost all types of advertising on digital platforms, excluding those related to search marketing. Online advertising aims to attract traffic, generate sales, or increase brand awareness.
Banners, or display advertising, consist of images with text and a call to action. They operate similarly to street billboards. When a person clicks on them, they are directed to the advertiser's website.
Targeted advertising involves promoting on social media platforms, where you pay the platform directly. It is tailored to a specific audience based on factors such as gender, age, education level, interests, geographic location, and more.
Native advertising refers to promotional content that seamlessly integrates with the visual and stylistic elements of the platform on which it is displayed. Native ads do not openly showcase the product or include direct calls to action, making them non-intrusive. The goal of native advertising is to subtly engage followers, communicate the product's benefits, and highlight its advantages.
Partnership
A tool in internet marketing that broadens the audience and attracts new customers. Partners can include individuals who endorse your brand (affiliate marketing) or other companies that collaborate in advertising efforts.
Affiliate marketing involves a company paying third-party platforms for placing links to its products or services, or for bringing in new customers or leads.
Collaboration allows two brands to swap audiences. Companies jointly launch a product and promote it to their respective customer bases. Consequently, some buyers or users of Brand A become customers of Business B, and vice versa.
Van Leeuwen x Kraft Macaroni & Cheese colab
Mobile Marketing
A method of promotion through mobile devices. Advertising within applications, text messages, push notifications, QR codes, and voice marketing—all of these are tools of mobile marketing.
Video Marketing
An emerging trend in web marketing over the past few years, video marketing is the promotion of brands, products, and services through the creation of video content. It helps reach a broader audience and enhances engagement with the brand's products.
How to Choose Digital Marketing Tools
There are several crucial steps to effectively implement online marketing in a company:
The first step is identifying the audience's needs. At the initial stage, it's essential to study both current and potential customers. Determine the apps, social networks, and messengers they use, their online behavior, how frequently they check their inbox, and what they search for in search engines.
The next step involves analyzing the sales funnel and selecting appropriate tools for each stage. Different approaches are necessary for communicating with a user who knows nothing about your business compared to a warm lead ready to make a purchase. The former may prefer learning about the brand through influencer advertising, as these influencers are someone they trust. The latter could receive an individual discount code through an email newsletter.
The third point is to test various scenarios, approaches, and methods. In digital marketing, each case is unique: what works for competitors may not work for you. Therefore, the best strategy for finding suitable tools is to try everything: platforms, texts, images, etc.
How to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Digital Marketing
Assessing the success of a project objectively can be challenging, so it's crucial to monitor key metrics and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Identifying KPIs in digital marketing is essential for goal-setting and measuring the efficacy of campaigns.
To track results, various metrics come into play, such as:
- Sources of web traffic, revealing how people discover the website or landing page;
- Total number of visits, indicating the number of individual viewing sessions by visitors;
- Visitor retention on the site, gauging engagement and showcasing user loyalty to the resource;
- Total number of unique visits, the cumulative count of individuals who have visited the company's site;
- Click-Through Rate (CTR), showcasing the percentage of people who clicked on a link or button;
- Average time on page, the average duration all users spend on a single page;
- Return on Investment (ROI), a measure of the profitability of marketing programs and campaigns;
- Bounce Rate, determining the proportion of visitors who exit the site immediately after landing on it. It's essential for the site to have a clear interface and user-friendly navigation.
Digital marketing is an ongoing process that requires constant development and the expansion of the company through various digital channels.
Conclusion
The following key aspects can be highlighted:
Digital marketing involves creating content and promoting it through various channels and digital devices.
Digital marketing involves several key tasks, including:
- Collecting contact data.
- Increasing the reach of the target audience and boosting brand awareness.
- Building a positive company image.
- Enhancing consumer loyalty.
- Gathering information through marketing research.
- Informing the target audience about various promotions, special offers, etc.
- Promoting new products and services.
Advantages of digital marketing:
- Utilizes both offline and online tools.
- Engages with a broader audience.
- Establishes personalized communication.
- Provides in-depth analytics of advertising campaigns.
Analytics is essential for digital marketing; without it, achieving the maximum customer attraction is not feasible. Before launching campaigns, it is crucial to study the product characteristics and understand the preferences of the intended audience to ensure the advertising campaign works effectively.