As a digital marketing agency, we write lot about our services and how as a business you can get the most out of your marketing efforts. But what we’re finding is that during that first initial meeting with the client, we have to first start explaining what digital marketing entails.
Hence this beginner’s guide. This guide is for business owners, marketing professionals and anyone who is looking to embark on this journey. So buckle up!
What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing (also known as online marketing or internet marketing) refers to any type of marketing that is done online. Strictly speaking, cell phone marketing can also be classified as digital marketing. But today we are only focusing on marketing that uses the internet to reach the consumer.
Online marketing is not that different from traditional marketing. As an organization, you’re looking to turn prospects into customers by showcasing your products or services. The main difference between the two is how and where that is done.
How Is It Different From Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing uses billboards, newspapers, street pole ads, magazines, etc. It is mostly local, except for TV which can reach a wider audience. The biggest disadvantage of traditional marketing is that it is not interactive. You cannot talk to your audience and find out how they feel about your product or service.
Online marketing is designed to reach today’s consumer who spends most of their time online.
What Are The Benefits of Digital Marketing?
- It’s cost-effective. Who doesn’t like to save a bit of money? I know I do. The cost of running an online campaign is nothing compared to advertising on TV or radio. Even you don’t have a budget at all, you can still post on social media for free. The cost of a billboard is the same whether it converts for you or not. But with digital marketing, you can spend more or less on a channel depending on the ROI.
- Create content for every stage of the sales funnel. You can use social media to create awareness of your product or service to prospects who have never heard of you. You can convert them to customers by directing them to your website. With online marketing, you can carefully walk them through the sales funnel and influence how much time they spend at each stage.
- It is measurable. If you put an advert in a magazine, it is difficult to know how many people flipped to that page and saw it. But with online marketing, you can see metrics such as likes, shares, impressions, etc. And you can see these results in real time. There are a few website and social media metrics to keep an eye on.
- You can target only people who buy your product or service. If you’re targeting women, the practice has been to advertise in a woman’s magazine. That’s as far as you can segment with traditional marketing. But with social media for example, you can target specific age groups, gender, interest, behaviour, etc. There are tools available that allow you to conduct the research needed to better understand your audience.
- Level the playing field. As a small business, I cannot compete with international agencies who have millions of Rands to invest in TV commercials. But with some clever marketing strategies, I have the opportunity to outrank big players. A big budget is no longer a requirement for successful campaigns. What matters is producing content that solves the searcher’s query.
What Are The Different Types of Digital Marketing?
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and practice of growing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website by increasing its visibility to search engines through organic search results. Note that I mention both quantity and quality in one sentence. Most people only want quantity without thinking about quality. If you want to convert your web visitors (and obviously you do) then the right traffic is just as important as the amount of traffic.
So how do you do this? It is really a combination of on-page (focuses on SEO on your website or content), off-page (activities not on your website such as backlinks) and technical SEO (issues such as load speed, mobile responsiveness, etc. The end goal of SEO is to make sure that your website ranks high in search engine result pages. Read our SEO glossary to get familiar with the terminology.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is about educating your customers about your product or service in order to increase sales. It can be written, audio or video. The advantage of diversity in your content is that you get to reach a wider audience.
Content marketing helps in building trust and credibility with your audience. It allows you to have a two-way conversation with your clients.
Social Media Marketing
With over 2 billion people on various platforms, social media is very hard to ignore. You can use social media to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website and generate leads.
Platforms like Twitter let you schedule your posts in advance without relying on third party software. Also, they have in-depth analytics that will give you an idea of how well (or not!) your content is doing with your target audience.
E-mail Marketing
What is great about e-mail marketing is that your email recipients have chosen to receive content from you. How great is that! Most of the adverts we see are unsolicited, and some are unwanted. But with e-mail, you have a captive audience. They are further down the sales funnel and are probably considering making a purchase. By sending the right content or planning the right campaign, you can finally close that sale.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC is when you use Google Ads (the most popular one) to advertise your business. Unlike advertising on social media, with PPC you get charged when someone clicks on your link (hence the name).
So what’s the benefit? If your website is new and doesn’t have a lot of authority, it will probably not show up on the first page on Google. By advertising, you’re buying a top slot (or bottom) on the first page. In this way, you can get more traffic to your website and hopefully more conversions.
Influencer Marketing
It will be hard to talk about digital marketing without mentioning influencer marketing, which is the hot topic of social media. With influencer marketing, you have an influencer (who can be a celebrity or someone with a huge following) talk about your product with the end goal being to ‘influence’ their audience to buy your product or service.
Big brands have been using celebrities to advertise their products on TV for a long time now. But now, social media has made it possible for the small guy to take advantage of this too. Choosing the right influencer is key, as is this person represents your brand. We have seen how brands have cut ties with influencers who have been involved in scandals, so choose wisely!
Affiliate Marketing
Not to be confused with influencer marketing, affiliate marketing uses partners called affiliates to market your products. The biggest difference between affiliate and influencer marketing is that affiliates earn commission only when their audience buys your products. And you don’t have to go out and look for affiliates. They find you!
You’ve probably seen affiliate marketing at work. You read a review of a running shoe or dress you’re thinking of buying and then at the end of the review you see a link or code that when you click on sends you directly to where you can make a purchase. Most affiliates disclose that they earn commission when you buy, so that you can make an informed decision before making a purchase through their link
So How Do I Get Started?
Create A Buyer Persona
A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your real customer. By creating a buyer persona, you can personalize your marketing efforts to try and convert your audience quicker as you will know what their needs are.
Remember, don’t make up information about your persona based on what you think they need. You have to take the time to research and talk to your potential customers to find out their pain points and how you can help. We wrote a blog post last year on how to create a buyer persona for your business. Read through it and download the free template to get started.
Define Your Goals
Your digital marketing strategy should support your overall business strategy. If one of your business goals is to increase online sales for example, then your marketing goals could be to increase brand awareness or increase top of funnel traffic.
Put together a digital marketing strategy
Write down your strategy and share it with your team to make sure you are all on the same page. A strategy becomes your guide when you choose social media channels, content types (video or text or audio) and frequency of posting. You will know the amount of resources to allocate at any one time to facilitate a smooth workflow.
Have a content calendar
Posting content daily or weekly is a lot of work. What makes it even harder is trying to come up with relevant content on the fly. A content calendar will help you get organized as you can plan your content months in advance.
Does Digital Marketing Work For Small Businesses?
Yes, yes and yes! Online marketing works for all types of businesses. What makes it perfect for small businesses is the cost factor. It levels the playing field. With the right strategy, you can move to the top of the search engine results page and outrank your competitors. So what are you waiting for?
It’s A Wrapp!
It really is no longer a question of whether you should get into digital marketing, but how. It is cost-effective, and the benefits for your business are endless.
For more information, read our blogs on how to create and buyer persona, creating content for each stage of the sales funnel and analytics for both social media and your website by clicking here.
