Digital Marketing – Meaning, Types, Problems, Future

Digital Marketing is the use of Online Media and the Internet for the promotion of brands and selling products. This includes using social media, e-commerce websites, and online advertisements, promoting and sharing digital content such as videos and images on social media platforms, and using email to target potential customers and create a position in the digital world.

Meaning of Digital Marketing

With the exponential growth in the telecom market and the online service industry, digital marketing has become an integral part of our lives.

Let me ask you a very irrelevant yet related question, did you ever feel shy and think how are you gonna sell your product in the market to customers physically?

If the answer is yes! then digital marketing is the one thing that can help you.

I was this way, and I was very shy about interacting physically with customers and selling my products then the internet platforms allowed me to sell my products and acquire an even larger number of customers than I would have acquired in marketing my product personally with distributors.

For me, the solution was E-commerce marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart, and grew my business to a very large number. But there are many other options in the digital marketing field to grow your business and yourself.

The meaning of Digital Marketing is Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning through/by online or electronic means.

• Segmentation of your product and business
• Targeting the potential customers
• Positioning your business on the World Wide Web

What is the concept of STP?

STP stands for Strengthening, Targeting, and Positioning. It is the widely known concept of traditional marketing which suggests three ways of developing your business and brand by the means of Strengthening, Targeting, and Positioning.

What does Digital Marketing do?

Digital Marketing or Online Marketing does mainly two things, it promotes your brand to a bigger potential customer group, and it lets you create sales opportunities that you need, it generates leads for sale to grow the business. This can be done by any method of digital marketing whether it’s search engine optimization, e-marketplace, or social media.

Why digital marketing is the key to winning the market?

You can find several objectives of digital marketing on the internet, but reading through every line to understand the heading of the objectives is a bit lethargic and can be boring so let me cut it short for you in just the heading points –

• It creates Brand Awareness and lets the public know your product.
• It is a continuous source of leads for sales generation, especially on marketplaces like Amazon.
• Easily Measurable through various tools.
• It’s cost-effective and reaches more audiences than traditional advertising.
• Creates Brand Validation in Consumer’s minds.
• It helps Retaining Old Customers.
• Best for promotion of new products or services as it’s cheaper and faster.
• Helps in Brand Building easily.

Interesting fact about Digital Marketing

81% of people agree that they do detailed research about the product or service online before making a purchase decision, doesn’t matter if they purchase online or offline, they do complete research on the internet.

Digital Marketing Types

There are several methods that you could go for in the journey of digital marketing and I tried to explain them as simply as possible without any over-technical jargon and tried to keep it as knowledgeable as possible.

Here are the different aspects of Digital Marketing –

• Search Engine Optimization
• PPC (Pay Per Click)
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Mobile Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• Marketing Analytics

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Have you ever heard the term Search Engine Result Page?

If yes, then perfect, and if not Search Engine Result Page or SERP is the page that shows up after you search anything on a search engine such as Google, Bing, etc.

For Example, you search for ‘Free Tools for Keyword Research’ and the webpage came up with multiple websites and options to choose from.

The results you see on that page are ranked according to the extent they are optimized for those particular words/keywords that you searched for.

There are various activities involved in the process of ranking your webpage for a particular keyword.

So, we can say that Search Engine Optimization is the set of activities in the process of ranking your website or webpage on the Search Engine Result Page (SERP) when a user searches for certain keywords that describe your content.

The activities involved in this are classified into 3 major categories –

• Technical SEO
• On-Page SEO
• Off-Page SEO

What is PPC (Pay-Per-Click)?

Pay Per Click model of Digital Marketing is in which the advertisers are charged a certain amount each time someone clicks on the ads they are promoting.

You can generate multiple ad campaigns according to the budget.

Now, this all might be a little confusing so let me make it more clear with a simple explanation and example.

There are two things to consider before running the PPC campaigns which I call as BTRs of PPC –

• Budget for the campaign
• Target audience for the campaign
• Reason for the campaign

Budget

It is important to define a specified budget to make sure that you are not overspending on a certain campaign and to make sure that the costs of the campaign are not exceeding the revenues generated from it.

Target Audience

It is crucial to have a clearly defined target audience when setting up a PPC campaign. By doing this, you can make sure that your advertising amount is being used wisely and that you are communicating with the right audience.

Reason

It is most important to define a specific objective for a PPC campaign, whether it is to generate sales or get profile visits, or communicate a message.

How does the PPC model of Digital Marketing work?

• As the name suggests Pay Per Click, means you will pay X amount whenever someone clicks on your ads.
• This certain amount is defined through a bidding process.
• Bidding is based on keywords.
• You want to run a PPC campaign for Earphones and you want to generate sales from the ads.
• These ads are based on basis of the keywords you chose in your ad campaign.
• The keywords that are the most common and most relatable to your product have the highest cost per click.

Cost Per Click

Cost Per Click or CPC is based on basis of bidding. When more people use the same keywords the CPC of those keywords increases, and you have to spend more for that keyword to get your ad displayed on the top for that keyword.

Say the keywords you selected have a Cost Per Click of Rs.4, this means you will be charged Rs.4 whenever some clicks on your ad after searching this keyword.

Now you need to define a budget for the campaign. You took a budget of Rs.100 per day.

Now, what does this budget mean, as you have set the budget for Rs.100 per day this means 100 is the maximum amount you want to spend, which means you will get a total clicks 20 clicks in a day.

This is how a PPC Campaign works.

More about PPC Campaigns

• Reaching a highly targeted audience is one of the main advantages of PPC for businesses.
• Businesses use keywords to target users who are actively looking for goods or services related to the results.
• It is simpler to turn these users into clients and produce a profitable return on investment (ROI).
• PPC is highly measurable to the deepest proportion which is an additional advantage.
• Real-time campaign performance tracking enables businesses to make necessary changes in strategy.

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing is utilizing social media websites and platforms to advertise a good or service.

It entails producing interesting, creative, and shareable content for a range of social media websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and many others. The purpose of social media marketing is to increase brand recognition, attract website traffic, foster customer relationships, and ultimately produce leads and sales.

As more and more people have started using social media platforms, social media marketing has emerged as a critical component of digital marketing.

Interesting Fact about Social Media

Social Media has over 4.2 billion active users around the world

The secret to good social media marketing advertising is to understand your target audience.

Social media platforms enable businesses to communicate with target clients in person.

This includes creating the most effective social media content that will appeal to the target market, content such as text posts, images, videos, infographics, and more.

A systematic and strategic approach is needed for social media marketing. Creating and publishing high-quality content regularly and engaging with fans and clients are all part of this.

Metrics like engagement rates, website traffic, and conversions can be used to gauge the effectiveness of social media marketing initiatives. Businesses can modify their strategy to maximize results based on these metrics.

Also Read: What is Geotargeting in Hyperlocal Social Media Marketing?

What is Content Marketing?

In content marketing, you need to create and share relevant and attractive content about your business on various media platforms that have audiences of the general public. Content Marketing is done to attract and retain specific audience groups and convert them into customers.

What actually Content Marketing is?

In the world of rapidly upgrading technology, it is easier and easier to get access to valuable information on the internet. This is why the traditional form of advertising is getting outdated and no more.

But this has a downfall to it as we know we are getting bombarded with lots and lots of messages and advertisements on our devices every day and it is quite annoying, so to solve these problems there is the concept of Content Marketing.

Content Marketing is not your regular random sharing of irrelevant messages and ads but in content, marketing companies share valuable, relevant, and attractive content with consistency in their posts and banners, following a consistent theme and posting regularly.

Through content marketing, companies create their brand comparatively faster and more efficiently.

You can build trust in the minds of the target audience and build their confidence in buying your product, you can build credibility in the marketing and can ultimately derive valuable traffic and customers for your business.

Now, we know what is the basic concept of Content Marketing so what is Content in Content Marketing?

Content can be anything digital that the audience watches or reads that is created to attract, engage, and retain the audience.

Types of Content in Content Marketing

The content can be of many forms such as:

• Social Media Posts: Graphics, messages, quotes, and videos posted on social media posts you post on Social Media Sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
• Blog Posts: Written articles about the topics relevant to your brand and company (Best about 700-800 words)
• Videos: Short videos, and animations to convey the instructions and information about the product.
• Infographics: Infographics are visual representations of data or information.
• E-Books: A digital form of books that contains information about the product.
• Podcasts: Video and audio recordings that can be listened to or downloaded.
• Whitepapers: These are deeply informative reports on a specific topic.

Related: 8 Best Tips For Effective Article Marketing – Insert Articles Where Necessary

While performing content marketing you should always consider one thing that is, you should always know your target audience as we already know that this is the only thing that separates randomly bombarding messages from Content Marketing.

By a constant stream of high-quality content, you can also improve the search engine ranking of your website.

What is Mobile Marketing?

Mobile marketing is a very misunderstood term among all the elements of digital marketing. Some of us still wonder, what the difference between mobile marketing and content marketing is. So here we are going to understand every bit of detail about mobile marketing in general.

Interesting Fact

In a population of 8 billion people, there are around 6.4 billion smartphone users around the globe.

Mobile Marketing is a form of digital marketing in which you use mobile devices to promote your product among the target audiences.

Mobile Marketing contains the use of devices such as mobiles, smartphones, tablets, and wearable technology.

Mobile Marketing is a wider term that involves all the elements of content marketing. Every bit of advertisements you see on your mobile devices whether it’s a social; media post, a blog, a video, or a PPC advertisement is part of mobile marketing.

So, what actually is Mobile Marketing, and how is it different?

Mobile Marketing is actually optimizing content for mobile devices and targeting the mobile audience.

In the current times, people are most likely to see your ads on mobile devices rather than laptops and desktop PCs as mobile devices are more convenient to use.

Interesting Fact about Mobile Marketing by Google

By a recent survey conducted by google 3 out of 4 people watch videos on their mobile devices rather than using a desktop PC or laptop, this is only with Youtube but with all the channels on the internet.

Many of you must be reading this blog on your mobile devices and that is also because this website is optimized for mobile devices.

Mobile Marketing Includes –

• Mobile Notifications
• Messages
• SMS
• MMS

Why Mobile Marketing?

One of the major reasons to use Mobile Marketing is to connect with your users much faster than the desktop as people respond much quicker getting faster results on mobile is easy.

For Example: Emails, how fast you open your emails on your mobile as compared to your PC or laptop.

The email opening rate on mobile devices is 61.9% which is much higher as compared to the desktop which is 9.8%.

Another reason for using Mobile Marketing is the convenience of the feature, for example, Mobile applications are great for keeping viewers involved for a long time throughout –

• Ads
• Emails, and
• Mobile Notifications

What is Email Marketing?

When we hear the word Email Marketing, the first thing that comes to mind is firing emails to the public to promote your product and generate sales.

But, Email Marketing is not as simple as that.

Email Marketing is not about you getting an Email list, uploading it to the Email Marketing Tool, and starting to send Emails, you will never get results by this means and you will always say that Email Marketing doesn’t work or Email Marketing is finished now.

Email Marketing is only dead for those who do spam.

The number of active email users in 2023 is forecasted at 4.34 billion and around 3.51 billion emails are sent and received each day.

Don’ts of Email Marketing to get results

• Don’t send emails to every random person
• Don’t send only sale-oriented emails

If you only send sales-related emails the audience will get nauseous about it and start ignoring it. You can also take your example for this, you usually get agitated by spam sales emails.

So, if you have the target audience sorted out then you first need to nurture them and start with the process of making an image in their minds, this is a complete process that you need to follow and then you can send sales-related emails to generate leads and customers from the same.

If we go for the technical definition, it is like this, this is a form of digital marketing that involves the process of creating and sending commercial emails to promote your product and generate sales.

Here, the word ‘commercial emails’ consists of many things which we usually ignore.

There is also confusion in the industry that Email Marketing is only done for cold audiences but that’s not true we perform email marketing for warm audiences too and also to the prevailing customers to generate cross sales from them.

Email Marketing is at every step of the journey of the customer from the start but we need different approaches for different phases of the customer cycle.

The first step is to spread awareness among the public by email.

Then, we engage the audience by sending different kinds of emails such as informative and knowledgeable emails that will create a certain value for the audience.

Then, the customer processes your product and gets converted into a customer.

The only you need to keep in mind is the rule of thumb of the consumer market – “ If 1 consumer is satisfied he will bring 2 more, but if the consumer is dissatisfied he will take 4 more future leads with him”

And the cost of creating a new customer is much more than the cost of retaining the existing customer but if you successfully provide value to the existing customer they will promote you on your behalf for free.

So, the funnels of Email Marketing are used for such activities that are:-

• To spread awareness
• To engage the audience
• To provide informative values to the audience
• To retain the customer by adding value to their experience

What is Affiliate Marketing?

The basic definition of affiliate marketing is –

It is a process of earning a commission by selling someone’s product or by promoting someone’s product or services.

If you promote or sell the product or services for others which creates revenue for them, then from that revenue the vendor pays you a specified percentage of commission on each sale, it’s a mutual agreement between the owner of the product and affiliate marketer.

The commission depends upon the profit the owner is generating from the sales if the profit is already very less then the affiliate commission will also be less and if the profit margins are high then the affiliate commission is higher too.

This all depends on the niche you are targeting.

For example, taking a reference to the real estate industry, there is a new builder in your town and he has built various flats in the city, the builder has no knowledge about the environment of that particular city and you approach the builder with a proposal that you will generate leads for the builder and if it gets converted into sales the marketer will get some commission out of it.

If we talk about the aspect of internet affiliate marketing, many things get involved, as we know the internet is very vast, and if you don’t have the audience to generate the leads from then affiliate programs might not work for you.

You need to know about making your appearance on the internet and generating traffic and audience to promote your affiliate links.

You also need to be true to your niche which means that if you the audience in digital marketing who likes your content then you need to promote products related to digital marketing to them, if you start selling protein supplements then the audience might not believe you and this will also harm for online goodwill.

All About Marketing Analytics

The process of –

• Measuring
• Managing
• Analyzing

To determine the efficacy and impact of marketing strategies is known as marketing analytics. The ability to better understand their target audience, monitor the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and make data-driven decisions that have a positive impact on business outcomes is a quality that marketers have all thanks to data analytics tools.

Marketing analytics includes a variety of data sources, such as

• Website Analytics
• Customer Behaviour Information
• Marketing Campaign Metrics
• External Information (Market Trends and Economic Indicators)

Data analytics tools have made Marketing Analytics a vital part of contemporary marketing, allowing businesses to make wise decisions and optimize their marketing efforts in real-time.

The biggest difference between the marketing that makes you money and the marketing that is a giant waste of your time and money all comes down to simple and important marketing metrics.

The opposite approach is just hoping and wishing that things will eventually magically work out but that’s not marketing that’s gambling and not knowing your numbers is a significant advantage for your competitors.

But when it comes down to marketing metrics there are just too many numbers to look at that’s why people don’t even try.

Metrics you need for Marketing Analytics

Here is what you need and what is important to analyze in marketing analytics-

• BUDGET
• COST PER MILL/THOUSAND: Cost of getting 1000 Impressions on the user’s screen even if they don’t click it or do not even look at it.
• COST PER CLICK (Budget/Number of Clicks): CPC is the cost of every click that you pay whenever a user clicks on your advertisement)
• CLICK THROUGH RATE (Number of Click/Number of Impressions): This describes how often users click on the ads that are being displayed on their screens.
• Actions: Sales, calls, leads, etc.
• COST PER ACTION/ACQUISITION (Total Amount Spent/Total Number of Actions)
• CONVERSION RATE (Total Number of Conversions/Total Number of Visitors x 100)
• REVENUE (Price of Product x Units sold)
• PROFITS (Revenue – Spending)

By these metrics, you can effectively manage and analyze your campaigns and start making more out of marketing rather than gambling.

How can I start a career in digital marketing?

Starting anything can be overwhelming at first, but I can promise you one thing if are planning on starting digital marketing as a career then you are on the right path, as you know there has been a sudden boom in the online market after the COVID-19 pandemic and people started becoming more and more familiar with the digital world and most of all everyone is adopting the digital world at such a rate that we can’t even imagine.

So, if you have doubt will it be a good decision or not to choose digital marketing as a career then my friend you definitely have no need to worry because in the worst-case scenario even if you are not able to crack a job in digital marketing then you will have an excellent skill by which you can start your own such businesses that require no investment.

Now let’s get to the point of how to start digital marketing, I have divided the task into certain steps to follow –

Step 1: Start Right

The right beginning is the key to success in any field not only digital marketing. Before you select any course or institute to learn digital marketing first of all consult someone with prior experience in the field if you don’t have anyone to consult with you can always email us at marketingglicth5@gmail.com.

Step 2: Self-Evaluation

Get to know where you stand in the market, and evaluate yourself on various online free certification exams and courses in digital marketing. Be true to yourself, this is the only key that will give you the confidence to start finding the correct position for yourself.

Don’t just collect certifications learn in the process as in my opinion, everything has some value to provide, now you also don’t have to waste your time on courses that are not worth watching in full so I have provided links to courses with certifications that you can refer for online certifications.

Step 3: Go for an internship rather than a fresher job

This can sound a bit out of the world but yes you should look for an internship first rather than going for a fresher job.

The reason is that even after you learn digital marketing and let’s say you have also completed certain hands-on projects in the process but still you only have theoretical knowledge, and many people feel confused about where to start after they have completed a course, consider the internship period a part of the learning time frame and get to know what really happens in the world of digital marketing.

Another benefit of an internship is that the employer doesn’t expect you to perform the most professional work as a specialist and you can focus on learning from the job.

The most important thing is that you will get experience on a good note and there are chances that you get a job offer from the company as well so it’s a win-win situation in any condition.

Step 4: Create a habit of keeping a Database

Once you have started a job, every company has a prior database of websites they work for and does various digital marketing activities such as websites for Off-Page SEO and Content Marketing and different online tools.

Start creating a database of such resources for your own from that database this will help you in the future as you will not have to look for resources every time you switch jobs and at the end of the day, you will have a database of tools and websites which will weigh in gold.

Step 5: Never stop learning

Digital Marketing is a rapidly upgrading field and search engines like looks and sites like Facebook and Instagram are constantly upgrading their technology and algorithms.

Every day there is a new tool in the market for you to explore, so keep upgrading yourself too otherwise these things will leave you outdated no matter how experienced you are.

What are the problems of Digital Marketing?

Now, we talked about everything good and beneficial about digital marketing but it has many benefits, it also has some problems that you need to focus on, to become successful in the wide world of the web.

• Huge amount of data to monitor
• Rapidly changing technology
• Difficulty in measuring Return on Investment
• High Competition
• Data Privacy
• Online Frauds and Misbelief among consumers

Huge amount of data to monitor

There are so many analytical metrics to monitor in a digital marketing campaign, so it can be difficult to monitor all of them.

Rapidly Changing Technology

We should rapidly upgrade technology for better understanding, as we know the technology is evolving at an overwhelming rate and we can only try to keep up with it to some extent.

Difficulty in Measuring Return on Investment (ROI)

Measurement of what you are getting out of the investment that you have made is the biggest challenge in digital marketing as there are various metrics to monitor and there are many campaigns and it is not possible to evaluate each and every one of them for the exact result.

High Competition

Competition is everywhere in this world no matter where you go and the digital marketing industry is no different, there is a highly competitive environment in digital marketing as well.

Data Privacy

Organizations must be aware of safeguarding the privacy of customer data and adhering to data privacy laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) as the use of digital marketing expands.

Online Frauds and Misconception among Consumers

The perception of the general public towards online marketing is both negative and positive, some people tend to believe that online advertisements are all fraud and misleading and only for the interest of the advertiser or the company, it is difficult to convince the target customers about your brand without a proper plan.

What is the future of Digital Marketing?

The future of digital marketing is one of the most secure from every point of view whether for a digital marketing professional or an organization creating its online presence. As it is becoming more important for organizations of every size and scale.

• There is a growing demand for digital marketing in the industry.
• The Digital Marketing industry is highly dynamic and keeps on evolving as I am writing this article and you are reading this.
• Digital Marketing has a wide range of roles to offer such as Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, and so on as we discussed above.
• It has high earning potential as the audience is the whole internet for your product or service.

Final Words

To sum up, all that is mentioned we can say that digital marketing is very exciting and promising, offering a wide range of chances. Digital marketing will remain crucial to companies’ success as technology keeps evolving and the changing ways how businesses connect with and interact with their customers.

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