“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories, you tell.”
The above quote by Seth Godin, Bestselling Author, and Blogger reflects the paradigm shift marketing has seen over the years.
From Marketing to Digital Marketing!
Over the years, the medium on which stories were told earlier have shifted from the conventional platforms like TV, Newspaper, hoardings to the Internet or digital.
The change or popularity of the new medium has brought forward a new form of marketing – Digital Marketing.
The storytelling is now more straightforward yet challenging because of the abundance of information available on digital platforms.
The challenge today is – how you present your business versus how the customer perceives it.
It is challenging for marketers to analyze vast reserves of data and recycle the information in new marketing efforts. A challenge that Digital Marketing addresses.
In layman language, Digital marketing is a method to promote a brand using various digital channels such as mobile and web.
A few advantages of digital marketing are:
• Increase in Brand Awareness
• Generation of Leads
• Boost in Sales
• Grow Viral
• Engage Customers and Audience
Today, the Importance of Digital Marketing lies in offering multiple ways to establish a personal rapport with the customer base.
According to Experian, Customers receiving numerous discontinued shopping cart messages are 2.4 times more probable to finish the purchase than those receiving only one email follow-up.
Evolution of Digital Marketing:
Over the past five years, marketing has changed more than it did in the last 50 years, and the rapid progress shows no signs of slowing down.
The scope of digital marketing has grown vast.
Digital marketing has changed the way marketing was done and has become an integral part of every marketer’s marketing strategy.
While some companies are at the cusp of the latest marketing trends, many others are still attracting attention to what was hot a few years ago.
Long ago, artificial intelligence or visual search was rejected as gimmicks from the last blockbuster movie.
Fast forward today, and we have, AI acting as a significant factor in how Digital Marketing will shape in the future.
Digital Marketing has evolved by miles, and as you read the article, it is changing every day.
Consider this:
• We see the adoption of Internet-connecting the digital technologies and applications by companies – on B2B exchanges.
• More than a third (36%) of marketers are actively attempting to incorporate digital and traditional marketing operations, with a quarter stating that they have restricted inclusion and 13% saying that their strategy is ad hoc and not integrated.
• Within the last year, 60% of individuals began using speech search. (According to MindMeld). At the same time, Google searches have reduced the average amount of organic outcomes from 10 to 8.5.
The inference from the above points is that there is a huge demand for visual content, while both search engines and users have developed a love for long-form written material.
As I mentioned earlier – marketing is evolving faster than ever – courtesy: Internet.
And digital marketing is the fuel that has put marketing on steroids.
But, what are the digital platforms on which you can do digital marketing?
Types of Digital Marketing or Digital marketing Platforms:
The most prominent digital marketing platforms are:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Pay-Per-Click Advertising
3. Social Media Marketing
4. Content Marketing
5. Affiliate Marketing
6. Influencer Marketing
7. Email Marketing
8. Viral Marketing
9. Mobile Phone Advertising
10. Pop-under Advertising
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO involves growing online visibility in non-paid (organic) search engine results.
When prominent search engines connect users with product websites, they don’t do it by guessing.
Every user receives an individualized results page based on keywords, user’s location at the searching time, and their browsing history.
Organic search results show in a list and are ranked using the search engine’s algorithm. Organic SEO is 5.66 times better than google advertisements that have been paid, as per a report by New Media Campaigns, 2018.
2. Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay-per-click (PPK) marketing covers the ground SEO ignores, paid traffic from search engines. Google AdWords is the most popular PPC platform. Next is Bing Ads.
PPC digital marketing method is a method wherein search engines charge a company for every click on their advertisement.
The relevant ads show in the news feeds of a company’s target user base.
PPC brings approximately 50% more conversions as compared to organic traffic.
As per a report by SocialMediaToday, during the year 2017, more than seven million advertisers invested a total of $10.1 Billion in PPC.
3. Social Media Marketing
“Content is fire; social media is gasoline.” – Jay Baer, Bestselling Author, Marketing Expert and Founder of Convince & Convert.
Every seller marketing strategy has SMM as a part. It allows the product seller to connect with their consumers more intimately.
Social media advertising similarly allows that product seller to narrow their target audience. Use the data they’ve collected about their users.
4. Content Marketing
Content marketing is the method of delivering user content to generate more traffic, leads, and sales.
Twitter comments, YouTube video comments, and blogs on your website all comprise content marketing.
Content Marketing works because it combines exceptional content with other types of digital marketing, like SEO and Social Media Marketing.
This content can live anywhere online. Content marketing is not always about sales but more so about engaging and educating your consumers to build brand recognition, trust, and equity.
Marketing content costs 62 percent less than traditional marketing and produces about three times the number of leads. (Metric Application)
5. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing provides the internet users to links about products or services, ask them to promote them, and if they generate a conversion to share their profits.
It refers to the process of paying for conversions.
Think of it as a step to hiring a salesperson for your product or service (commission-based).
According to stats by Mediakix, spend on Affiliate Marketing is estimated to touch $6.8 billion, growing at 10.1% each year.
Approximately 81% of Brands implement Affiliate Marketing to generate leads.
6. Influencer Marketing
Brands have collaborated across channels with social media influencers over the past five years to raise awareness about their brands.
Influencer marketing has grown from an ancillary marketing strategy to a $5-10 billion sector.
Brands promote their product/service by sponsoring the online content of an influencer.
Influencer marketing gains popularity because of social media channels like Snapchat and Instagram. Companies hire Instagrammers with maximum followings to promote their brand by posting one or more product photos by companies.
7. Email Marketing
Email lists remain one of the most precious brand-owned advertising goods, but relevance is essential to maximizing open and conversion rates.
Email marketing involves updating your email subscribers regularly about your company. This fosters a relationship entirely different for other types of digital marketing.
Email marketing is the oldest and most appropriate method of digital marketing when it comes to generating conversations. The email updates provide value to your consumers.
8. Viral Marketing
Viral marketing refers to content that is trendy, funny, or strange enough to garner a massive amount of shares online. B2C companies stand to achieve the most from viral marketing.
B2C companies use social media to reach an enormous audience across all of their operating platforms.
Viral marketing causes an enormous spike in website traffic over a minimum amount of time. The average conversion rate for video-using websites is 4.8 percent compared to 2.9 percent for non-users. (Studios Adélie)
9. Mobile Phone Advertising
All the methods of digital advertising work on Mobile. However, some specific promotions work only on a Mobile.
That includes SMS advertising – a widely used promotion technique for marketing – local.
SMS helps reach prospective customers (who have opted-in) by sending them special offers, coupons, and updates from your company.
Conversion rates on MobileMobile are up and take the third place according to a study by Monetate, Smart Insights.
10. Pop-under Advertising
Pop-up advertising has been there for a very long time.
Pop-Under advertising can be a terrific way to launch new campaigns to a broad audience and a low price. This works by displaying a company website, or a chosen graphic inside a full-page web browser window to visitors’ target.
Opportunity, Strategy, Actions are the heart and soul of digital marketing.
How do you succeed in Digital Platforms?
Here is a quote that succinctly describes the strategy to succeed on the Internet – “We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.” –Craig Davis, former Chief Creative Officer at J. Walter Thompson
