Category: Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing for Business

Considering the accessibility of the internet in today’s world, would you believe if someone told you that the number of people going online is increasing with each passing day?

Yes, that’s true. In fact, Pew research states that the number of adults using the internet has increased by 5% in the past three years. Though it is known, the way people shop, sell. purchase or browse the internet has changed i.e., offline marketing is not as effective as it used to be earlier.

Marketing is all about connecting with the audience in the right place at the right time. In today’s words, you need to connect with them in a place they frequent – the internet.

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing comprises marketing efforts that use electronic devices or the internet. Businesses leverage digital media like social media, search engines, emails, and several other means to connect with not just current but prospective customers as well.

It helps you reach a larger audience in a short amount of time when compared to the regular traditional marketing methods. Businesses can also target prospective customers who are more likely to avail their services or purchase their products.

What are the benefits of digital marketing?

  • Businesses can target customers who are most likely to avail of their services or purchase their products.
  • It is cost-effective when compared to traditional marketing methods.
  • Digital marketing enables businesses to outrank bigger players in the same sector.
  • It is measurable

How does a business define digital marketing?

The usage of numerous digital strategies and channels defines digital marketing; these methodologies help businesses connect with customers in places where they spend most of their time. Starting from a website to online branding assets, email marketing, digital advertising, brochures, and more. These strategies fall under digital marketing.

That being said, businesses either have to hire digital marketers who might drill holes in their pockets, or hire a digital marketing company that can help them cut down expenses alongside benefiting them.

A renowned digital marketing company, Team Yamama, is an expert in handling digital marketing goals, campaigning supports, and overachieving the goals.

Types of digital marketing

Digital marketing is the form of marketing that requires the usage of an electronic device or the internet. According to a research, the number of people using the internet constantly has increased by 5% in just a period of three years. The way people shop has changed a lot compared to the old times and traditional offline marketing is not as effective as it used to be. Marketing is all about connecting with the audience and today, with digital marketing, we connect with the audience where they spend most of their time – the internet.

Here are a few types of digital marketing methods that are used to reach the audience-

  • Content marketing:

    Content marketing is a type of digital marketing that completely focusses on a target audience by creating and distributing content for them. With the ultimate goal to drive profitable customer action, enterprises must aim the content at being relevant, valuable and constant. Moreover, instead of pitching products or services, the enterprise needs to provide relevant and useful content to potential customers in order to solve their issues. Content marketing increases the possibility of an increase in sales, potential and loyal customers and cost-saving methods. A few examples of content marketing include videos, podcasts, white papers, ebooks, blog posts and case studies.

  • Search Engine Optimization:

    Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is where certain changes are made to the website design and content in order to make it look more attractive to a search engine. It is the process of getting quality traffic by twerking and updating relevant keywords and phrases for the search engine to recognize it. The SEO process enables an enterprise to make sure that their website ranks high in the search engines by making the relevant changes.

    Moreover, it is important that an enterprise drives relevant traffic to its website. For instance, if an enterprise manages to attract huge traffic searching for shoes towards its website that is selling bottles, the traffic will do no good. SEO techniques include researching relevant keywords and adding them into an enterprise’s website copy, optimizing website titles, loading speed, backlinks and description.

  • Search Engine Marketing:

    Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the form of digital marketing that uses paid methods to increase the visibility of an enterprise’s website in search engines. Earlier, SEM was used for both free and paid traffic but over time, it is now solely used by various organizations and businesses for paid marketing.

    To simplify it further, SEM refers to the ads an enterprise puts out there on Google AdWords and Bing Ads. The combination of SEO and SEM increases the possibility of routing quality traffic to your website and further put yourself in front of potential customers that are actively searching for the services you offer.

  • Social Media Marketing:

    Social Media Marketing (SMM) is the form of digital marketing that uses various social media platforms to attract traffic and attention. Nowadays people frequently use social media, this enables enterprises to target potential customers towards their products and services. Enterprises are not only able to increase their exposure but also build a meaningful relationship with their customers.

    Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Software as a Service (SaaS) enterprises benefit the most from SMM as it is mostly about listening to customers, engaging in a conversation and providing valuable content.

  • Pay-per-click:

    Pay-per-click advertising is a form of digital marketing where enterprises pay a fee for every time a person clicks on their advertisement. It is the process of pulling paid traffic towards your website instead of getting them organically via SEO and other methods.

  • Affiliate marketing:

    Affiliate marketing is a popular form of digital marketing where an individual partners up with an enterprise to receive a commission for diverting traffic towards their website. For example, an individual’s blog or website contains the link of an enterprise’s website and the individual receives a commission each time a user makes a purchase using that link.

  • Television advertising:

    The list of the types of digital marketing will never be complete without television advertising, one of the most popular, powerful and effective medium for marketing. On average, people generally spend over five hours in front of the TV and most enterprises utilize that to market their products and services. However, enterprises need to come up with an engaging advertisement which not only takes a lot of time but also requires more funds.

Digital marketing

With over 4 billion internet users worldwide, the term digital marketing seems familiar but we still end up searching online when a related question arises. Digital marketing is a method of marketing products or services with the use of digital technologies over the internet, mobile applications and other digital mediums. Its channels are systems based on the internet that can create, accelerate and transfer product value from producer to a consumer with the help of digital networks.

The term digital marketing was first coined in the 1990s with the first clickable banner ad going live in 1994; around 44% of the people who saw the ad clicked on it. The further development of digital marketing has completely changed the way businesses use technology for marketing. Eventually, when digital platforms started getting incorporated into everyday life, people ended up using digital devices rather than visiting shops physically. Digital marketing further extends to non-internet channels that provide digital media including SMS, MMS, callback and television.

Why digital marketing?

Traditional marketing exists in print ads, physical marketing and phone communication while digital marketing can occur electronically and online. This increases potential opportunities for various brands including social media, video, email and website-based marketing.

Moreover, digital marketing provides many options and strategies associated with it and enables the user to take a creative approach and experiment with a variety of marketing tactics on a budget. Marketing tools including analytics dashboards enables a business to monitor the reach of their campaigns.

Advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing –

Advantages-

  • Global reach:

    Digital marketing enables a business to find new markets and expand their trade globally for a small investment. It further allows them to increase brand loyalty and effectively drive online sales.

  • Lower cost:

    With the help of a properly planned and targeted campaign, the business is able to reach the right potential customers at a much lower cost compared to traditional marketing methods.

  • Trackable and measurable results:

    The business is able to use web analytics and other metric tools to establish their campaign as well as track and measure the reach of their online campaign. Furthermore, they are able to obtain a detailed report on how customers use their website and respond to their campaign.

  • Personalization:

    On linking customer database to their website, organizations are able to greet the customers with targeted offers whenever they visit the site. With an increase in sales, business is able to refine its customer profile and market effectively to them.

  • Social media presence:

    By expanding and managing their presence in social media, businesses are not only able to build customer loyalty but also create and maintain a reputation for being easy to engage with. Moreover, digital marketing enables them to create engaging campaigns using content marketing tactics which increases the possibility of being shared and passed forward by potential customers.

  • Competitive advantage:

    With the help of various internet platforms, businesses are able to reach the maximum potential of digital marketing and further pinpoint the behavioural patterns of their customers. The data from potential customers along with social media reach enables them to improve brand awareness and compete with similar businesses.

Disadvantages-

  • Skilled employees:

    Businesses will have to ensure that their staff are skilled in the area of expertise in order to carry out digital marketing successfully. Moreover, it is also important that their staff are up to date with the latest trends and changes in the market.

  • Time consumption:

    Tasks like creating and optimizing online advertising campaigns and marketing content consume a lot of time, so it is important for the businesses to measure their results to ensure a proper return-on-investment.

  • Highly competitive:

    Along with reaching a global audience with digital marketing, the enterprise is also up against global competitors. It can be highly challenging to stand on par with the competitors and attract customers using tactics from outside the box.

  • Customer feedback:

    Negative feedback and criticism related to a brand are visible throughout the internet including social media and review websites that might damage the brand reputation.

  • Security and privacy:

    There are numerous legal considerations pertaining to collecting and utilizing customer data for digital marketing purposes. Every organization must ensure that customer data is handled with the utmost care.

Future of digital marketing

Digital marketing is where individuals or enterprises utilize digital technologies to sell their products and services. This type of marketing requires internet and can be done via various digital technologies including mobile applications, websites, digital boards and blogs. There was a time where marketing was only possible by a few methods like billboards and face-to-face interaction. However, like every other aspect in a person’s life, the advance in technology has changed it forever.

With nine out of every ten individuals using a smartphone, the number of people using the internet has increased drastically. In digital marketing, we utilize this opportunity to reach out to potential customers and keep them updated about products and services.

The world moves forward with a huge leap in technology and has turned highly competitive. It was once when companies became successful by showing their products and services and telling people how their problems will be solved. Nowadays, people have started trusting consumers more than how much they trust a brand or its advertisement. According to a research by ODM group, more than 70% of the consumers consult social media and check the reviews before purchasing a product. This clearly proves that businesses need to not only provide authentic products and services but also expand their social media presence. For businesses to stay on par with their competitors and reach out to more customers, they have to stay updated with the upcoming technologies and adapt to the competitive environment.

Generating paid traffic:

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) also known as paid search is the form of digital marketing where individuals or businesses generate web traffic by purchasing advertisements on search engines. Marketers either pay every time their advertisement is displayed or when a user clicks on their advertisement. Businesses harbour a dedicated team that scans through all the available platforms and decides the platform, according to them will advert most traffic to their sites.

Still holding on to traditional marketing methods, most entities end up in a loss as they are not able to reach the targeted audience. Research states that nearly $46 billion was spent on programmatic advertising for the Financial Year (FY) 2018. It was further predicted that by 2020, around 86% of all display advertisements will be presented by automation. This leap towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) is said to provide a more efficient, seamless, and accurate approach to SEM while cutting the cost at the same time.

Voice optimization:

Various voice assistants including Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Google assistant, the popularity of voice search has shot through the roof. Instead of typing or manually performing a task, all the user has to do is just speak directly to their device. With more and more people using voice assistants, marketers need to consider optimizing their websites to recognize voice search.

Furthermore, the way a person speaks is completely different than the way they type and marketers also need to optimize their websites accordingly. A research states that nearly 72% of the people who own a voice assistant use their devices as a part of their daily routine. Eventually, the idea of a completely hands-free assistant will take over soon enough.

The era of digitalization:

As the world moves forward towards a completely digital environment, along with the scope of digital marketing, numerous towns, cities and villages are also advancing towards the digital age. This change is leading to a huge increase in the number of consumers turning marketing into a highly competitive field. According to a research, the number of internet users in 2015 was 259 million which further shot up to 331 million in 2017. It has been predicted that the number of internet users might double up multifold by FY 2022. Businesses need to be in a state where they can not only engage multiple customers at a time but also expand their reach to every potential customer in order to gain more traffic.