The world is evolving and the transition is pretty clear to all of us. We live in a digital space today and everything we want is at the tip of our finger. Marketing is not an exception as the number of people using the internet and social media has increased rapidly in the past few years. According to Mary Meeker’s 2019 Internet Trends Report, global internet users have touched 3.8Bn which is more than half of the world’s population.
Although we notice, the way people shop and purchase has evolved along with time – meaning offline marketing isn’t as effective as it used to be. As every marketer today wants to connect with the right audience, at the right place and at the right time, you need to connect your audience where they spend most of the time: on the internet.
Though there are various explanations for this term, I kept it in the simplest form possible. So, basically, it is a new way of approaching your customers through the internet and understanding their behavior, unlike traditional marketing.
Definition of Digital Marketing: Digital or Online marketing is an approach that relies on digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, etc as well as electronic devices to connect with the target audience for marketing a particular product or service.
Though traditional marketing does exist in the form of phone communication, print ads, etc yet, people are hugely inclined towards online shopping and rely on the brands having a better internet presence. Digital Marketing has got limitless opportunities like email marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, SEO and the list goes on and on…!
Adopting digital marketing is a must for every business today, or you can be left far behind in the race. Today, every big or small business has an official website or social media presence to attract, engage, or retain customers. Serving your customers online, maintaining social relationships, or understanding audience behavior/interest is vital for every business growth.
To beat the competition today, being a business owner you must embrace some aspects of digital marketing. It gives you a better approach to analyze ROI with different analytics platforms and you can accordingly build or mold your business strategies.
A digital marketing asset could almost be everything that is a marketing tool and which you can use online. That being said, most marketers don’t realize how many assets they have in the reserve for different marketing purposes. Here are just a few examples:
This list is just what we can call a start. Most digital marketing assets will fall into one of these categories, but smart marketers are consistently coming up with better and new ways to reach customers online, so the list keeps growing!
There are two main important pillars of digital marketing. A. Online marketing & B. Offline marketing. I have mentioned below the big categories of both these types of digital marketing, their concept, and ways it adds value to new marketing trends. Without further ado let’s dive straight into the categories.
Online Marketing – The big 7 categories of online marketing are:-
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engine optimization or SEO is the process to improve the quality, visibility, and ranking of a particular website or web page. With the help of efficient SEO strategies, you can understand customers’ behavior as well as analyze your competitors online.
2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Search engine marketing is a technique to improve brand visibility and traffic through paid strategies like ads. In layman’s terms SEM generally means paid marketing methods for branding and improving website standards.
3. Content Marketing: Content marketing is a planned approach to create informative and value content for customer interaction as well customer retention. The main strategy here is to provide consistent quality content for the audience and build a strong relationship with your target niche.
4. Content Marketing: Social Media marketing is an internet marketing strategy which includes both organic and paid approaches to promote various products/services online.
5. Pay-per-click advertising (PPC): PPC, Pay-per-click, is a paid advertising technique that is a part of search engine marketing (SEM). With PPC, the advertiser only pays when the user interacts with their ad through clicks or impressions.
6. Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing in which an individual promotes a certain product/service on the behalf of a brand and gets a certain amount of commission with every sale he does.
7. Email Marketing: This is one of the most effective strategies of digital marketing in which a bunch of emails is sent to a particular niche or target audience in order to promote a product, customer nurturing, or generating leads. Successful email marketing is capable of converting prospects into customers and then into your most loyal buyers of all time.
This sector of marketing is entirely offline but does include the use of electronic devices like radio, television, etc. The most common types of offline marketing are as follows:
Enhanced Offline Marketing – You can see many examples of enhanced offline marketing in our daily lives like the digital tablet menu you receive in a restaurant or the electronic billboards. This is an enhanced marketing technique for promotion with the use of digital devices. Some of the great examples are:
Radio Marketing – As social media is ruling over the industry and is highly admired by the world, it is quite obvious to miss out on the tried methods of promoting businesses. But they still work better than ever. Radio marketing is one of the best and most productive forms of advertising today. It just requires a local radio station, good content & the best air timing – and there you go! Though it is an old school technique yet it has got a different fan base and also:
TV marketing – TV marketing is that one type of marketing that stays with you no matter how effective or worth the result is. It is the commercials that we watch on our television promoting several brands and products. It has fairly declined due to the rapid increase of YouTube ads and social media. The very common examples are:
Phone marketing – Mobile marketing helps to market your brand and make it more impressive, popular, and appealing among mobile device users. When done right, mobile marketing provides customers using smartphones with personalized, time- and location-sensitive updates so that they can get exactly what they need in the easiest way possible.
The world is drifting towards digitization, as 60% of the world population uses the internet, online marketing has gained immense momentum in recent years. Any brand without an online presence or an official website is already at a big loss, thus digital marketing has definitely got massive opportunities and scope for enterprises of all sizes. Exploring and building strategies for better branding and long-term customer relationships is an exciting area.
The future of digital marketing is undoubtedly brighter as it will remain the most powerful way of marketing and will surely be the heart of global businesses in the coming years. As a marketer, if you’re looking to dive into it, the landscape is versatile and super dynamic so you need to be very smart, alert, agile, and stay updated with the latest trends in the industry. Good Luck!
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