THE Digital Marketing has fundamentally changed the way businesses grow.
We live in a super connected world these days and as such, advertising and marketing is not the same as it once was.
This is especially true because of the rise of social media, which has changed the way businesses communicate with potential and existing customers.
What is digital marketing?
THE Digital Marketing or even called digital marketing encompasses all aspects of marketing that use digital channels.
Digital marketing includes several different channels such as natural referencing (SEO), paid referencing (SEA), social networks, emailing, marketing automation, etc.
If you are new to digital marketing, this may seem difficult.
But in many ways, digital marketing is no different from traditional marketing.
In both cases, businesses are looking to develop relationships and obtain new leads and customers.
What are the advantages of digital marketing? (with examples)
Digital marketing benefits businesses of all sizes.
Unlike television or print advertising, it allows truly personalized marketing.
The main advantage of digital marketing is that it is possible to reach a targeted audience in a cost-effective and measurable way.
Other benefits of digital marketing include increasing brand loyalty and increasing online sales.
The benefits of digital marketing include:
- The possibility of targeting a global marketa website allows you to find new markets and trade globally for just a small investment.
- Much lower marketing costsa well-planned and effectively targeted digital marketing campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods.
- Trackable and measurable resultsmeasuring your digital marketing actions using web analytics and other online measurement tools facilitates the effectiveness of your campaign. You can get detailed information about how customers use your website or respond to your advertising. Analytics can be set up to show you exactly how much money you’re making with each digital tactic.
- Ultra-personalizationif your customer database is linked to your website, every time someone visits the site, you can greet them with targeted offers.
The more they buy from you, the more you can refine your customer profile and sell to them effectively. - Simple development of your brand image by using social media and managing it carefully, you can build customer loyalty and create a worthy brand reputation.
- Improved conversion rates, if you have a website, your customers are just a few clicks away from completing a purchase. Unlike other media that require people to get up and make a phone call or visit a store, digital marketing can be transparent and immediate.
Together, all of these aspects of digital marketing have the potential to significantly increase sales.
Digital Marketing: examples and tactics
Marketers these days have a clear picture of how each digital marketing campaign helps achieve their goals.
Depending on the objective, whether it is an objective of awareness, of obtaining customers, the digital marketer will use different channels.
The digital marketer will then have to put in place different strategies.
A content marketer, for example, can create a series of blog posts that serve to generate downloads from a new white paper the company recently created.
Therefore, the company will collect personal data on targeted people and thus send them automation emails, for example, in order to convert into customers.
Along the same lines, the company’s community manager could help promote these blog articles through boosted or non-boosted posts on social networks.
Here is a brief overview of the most common marketing acquisition channels.
Natural referencing (SEO)
It is the process of optimizing your website to “rank” higher in search engine results pages, thereby increasing the amount of organic traffic (or free) that your website receives.
SEA – Search Engine Advertising or CPC – Cost per Click
SEA is a method of driving traffic to your website by paying a publisher like Google to show your website in search results.
CPC, very close to SEA, is a paid digital marketing technique which consists of distributing your website by paying for each click received.
One of the most common platforms is Google AdWords, which allows you to pay for top placements on Google’s search engine results pages at a “per click” price for the links you place.
Other channels where you can use CPC:
- Facebook Paid Ads
- Twitter Ads
- Linkedin ads
- Other search engines like Bing, Yahoo, etc.
Content marketing or content marketing
This term refers to the creation and promotion of content with the aim of increasing brand awareness, increasing traffic to a site, amplifying the generation of leads and customers.
Channels that can play a role in your content marketing strategy include:
- blog posts
- Ebooks and white papers
- Infographics
Content marketing is a digital marketing technique that stems directly from inbound marketing.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing promotes your brand and content on social media to increase brand awareness, drive traffic and generate leads for your business. Channels you can use in social media marketing include:
- Snapchat
- Google+
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a performance-driven action. YOU receive a commission for promoting the products or someone else’s services on your website. While some (rare) models pay per click, most commission you on a % of sales made or on a lump sum per qualified quote sent.
To find partners, do not hesitate to consult our comparison of best affiliate platforms.
Affiliate marketing channels include:
- Social networks
- Website
- etc…
Native Advertising
Native advertising refers to advertisements that are primarily content-driven and presented on a platform with other non-paid content and in the same format.
BuzzFeed sponsored posts are a good example, but many people also consider social media advertising to be native, Facebook News Feed advertising and Instagram advertising, for example.
Marketing automation
Marketing automation refers to the automation of your basic marketing actions.
Many marketing departments can automate repetitive tasks that they would otherwise do manually, such as:
- Sending newsletters
- Post on social networks
- Update contact lists
- Lead nurturing
- Monitoring and reporting of marketing campaigns
Email marketing
Businesses use email marketing as a means of communicating with their audience.
Email marketing is often used to promote content, promotions, and events, as well as to direct people to the company’s website.
The types of emails you can send in an email marketing campaign include:
- The newsletter
- Transactional emails confirming content download
- Welcome emails
- Email automation to nurture prospects
online public relations
Online PR is the practice of securing online coverage with posts in online journals, blogs, and other content-driven websites.
It’s a bit like traditional PR, but online.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing aims to attract customers through relevant and useful content and add value at every stage of your customer’s buying journey.
With inbound marketing, potential customers find you through channels such as blogs, search engines, and social media.
Unlike outbound marketing, inbound marketing naturally attracts the attention of potential customers.
By creating content designed to address the problems and needs of your ideal customers, you attract qualified prospects (leads) and build trust and credibility of your company.
What does a digital marketer do?
Digital marketers are responsible for promote brand awareness and of generate leads (or also called leads) through all digital channels, free and paid, that are available to the company.
These channels include social media, company website, search engine ranking, email, display ads, content marketing, etc.
The digital marketer typically focuses on one or more different Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each channel so that they can properly measure business performance on each one.
Digital marketing is exercised today through many marketing roles.
In small businesses, a versatile digital marketer can offer many of the digital marketing tactics described above at the same time.
In larger companies, these tactics are handled by multiple marketers who each focus on one or two of the brand’s digital channels.