What is digital marketing, how does it work, and why is it needed?
A clear understanding of what we are doing and, most importantly, why we are doing it is very important. At least in order not to waste financial resources and time.
Digital marketing is just 1 component of marketing.
Therefore, let's start from the very beginning. For the sake of clarity, there are a lot of different types of marketing, strategies, and so on, and often even the speakers themselves (sellers of strategies, plans, etc.) do not really understand what they are really offering.
It all always starts with goals.
With long-term or short-term, strategic, tactical or operational, general or specific, precise or less precise.
Preferably with well-defined and measurable.
Why?
Because this is the only way to assess how successful you are in achieving them.
After all, it's always about money. How much do you want to earn? This year, next year, in 10 years? So what needs to be done to achieve these goals? How much time and money are you ready to invest this year, next year, or in 10 years?
And here we are already approaching marketing because in order to achieve our goals we will have to sell.
Today, sales are the foundation of everything. Even for non-profits, even charities… If a charity can't explain why I or someone else has to donate something (time, money, goods - whatever) - there will be no donation. Accordingly, there will be no charity.
Marketing is all about sales.
One of the most common definitions is:
Marketing (from English: market), is a targeted activity of a product manufacturer or service provider with the aim of promoting sales.
And sales begin with a strategy — a general description of how sales goals will be achieved:
And the marketing strategy (even a very successful one) needs to be revised over time. It must constantly improve and adapt to the changing market situation. It is very important to write this down and also specify exactly how the results will be evaluated.
In essence, a marketing strategy is a general plan for reaching and communicating with potential consumers of a product/service and turning them into buyers of our product/service.
Marketing strategy is also a great help in making decisions – does a specific event, offer, or opportunity ... correspond to the marketing strategy of the company? If "Yes" - we can reconsider, if "No" - do not waste time.
But working according to a general plan is difficult. It is also difficult to evaluate the results.
It is therefore divided into:
And for each of these strategies, a tactic is defined with very specific, time-limited, and measurable goals - how exactly the strategic goals will be achieved.
And detailed plans for specific events have already been drawn up.
And as soon as time-limited and measurable goals are defined - you can start measuring the effectiveness of each specific event and, if necessary, make adjustments to the action plan or change tactics - to increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Let's start again with the definition.
Digital marketing is the purposeful activity of a product manufacturer or service provider in a digital environment to promote sales.
This is the same marketing, with the difference that everything happens in a digital environment. Depending on which channels are used, what exactly is being done, and how digital marketing can be divided into:
SEO (Search engine optimization) - a set of activities aimed at increasing the number of visitors to the site from natural search results. Technically, SEO is a marketing tool, not a form of marketing.
It is both an art and a science.
The art of creating interesting content for site visitors - the content that is worth sharing and that is worth referring to.
Science - Search, research, evaluate, and find factors that can help referrals to your content appear on the first pages of Google Search and other search engines.
Currently, the most important elements to consider when optimizing a web page are:
Google and other search engines are constantly improving their algorithms, so it is impossible to make accurate predictions.
Read more about website SEO optimization HERE.
It's basically about paid advertising. There are two types of ad placement that differ mainly from what you pay for:
In the case of PPC, you pay for clicks or actual visitors to your site, and for PPI, you pay for views or impressions.
Regardless of the content of the emails you send, they are sent to promote your products and/or services. And this form of digital marketing is even very effective. This is evidenced by the amount of spam we all receive.
Statistics show that visiting the site for the first time, only 1 to 3 percent of site visitors buy something.
And the question arises - what to do with the remaining 97% of visitors? With those who are still watching and comparing - still thinking about whether to buy or not to buy. And if you buy, then where to buy?
Let them just go?
Most likely to not return.
Or try to attract some part so that when they are ready to buy - they already "know" where the highest quality goods are, the best price, the best service, the most competent employees…?
Email marketing is a proven and effective way to "stay in touch" with your site visitors. 89% of the surveyed professionals called email marketing the most effective generator of potential customers.
The concept of email marketing is simple - you send a message and expect a potential customer to:
As usual, the reality is a little more complicated because:
It all takes time. With marketing automation, which allows you to collect and analyze information about consumers, segment audiences, schedule and send email messages, your time consumption will be significantly less.
Remember that today most emails are opened on mobile devices, so it is important that all emails you send are optimized for mobile devices.
SMS marketing is the sending of advertising or business messages using text messages (SMS). These messages are mostly informative:
Viedtālruņi ir kļuvuši par neatņemamu mūsu dzīves sastāvdaļu un īsziņas - par tiešāko un ātrāko saziņas veidu. Tā rezultātā SMS mārketings ir kļuvis par vienu no visefektīvākajiem mārketinga instrumentiem, jo:
But do not abuse the benefits of SMS, because if communication is not mutually beneficial, your text messages will be deleted without even reading them.
Chatbot marketing is a way to promote your products and services through chat robots - computer programs that talk to your site visitors according to a predetermined scenario or through AI.
Chatbots are compatible with messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Snapchat, etc., or you can only activate them on your site.
In essence, chatbots are virtual assistants used to conduct online conversations to:
As you can see, chatbots can automate many processes and save time and money.
But it should be borne in mind that these programs are not of the "set up and forgot" type. They need constant tuning and testing, so you should not rely entirely on chatbots.
Push notification marketing promotes the sale of products and services by sending notifications in the browser (Chrome, Firefox, Opera...) or applications.
Essentially Push Notifications are very similar to SMS/MMS with the difference that you can send Push notifications not only to the phone but also to any device that has one of the most popular Internet browsers or your own application installed.
Or social media marketing. Direct sales promotion is less important here. It is used to a greater extent to increase brand awareness, form opinions, and build relationships between the brand/company and existing/potential customers.
Social media today is one of the most effective free channels where you can:
And, of course, also:
You provide a product or service, its delivery, etc., but the sale is carried out by others who receive a small or large commission for each product/service sold.
This type of marketing is very common for products such as:
As with other forms of digital marketing, content marketing aims to attract potential customers who eventually become buyers.
But content marketing works differently than traditional advertising. Potential buyers are attracted not by the value of a product or service, but by the offer of free content (guides, reviews, opinions, interesting facts, etc.).
Content demonstrating the competence of the company, interest in cooperation…
Content that strengthens/expands knowledge, promotes brand awareness, trust, and visits to your site (their articles are fantastic, I look forward to the next one).
Constant use of content marketing builds and maintains relationships with your potential and existing customers. If your audience trusts your business and sees it as a partner interested in their success. If your site is considered a source of valuable/useful content, the goods or services they need will most likely be purchased from you.
However, content marketing is also a bit more complicated than it looks at first because:
Before you start, be sure to formulate (for yourself) - Why are you doing this?
"Because everyone does it" or "we can do it now for a good price" and so on. - are not correct answers. Well, even if something is offered for free, it will definitely take your time. The time we are always short of…
It is important to understand what each specific action will bring to your business. If there is no clear and reasoned answer to this "Why" - do not waste your time and money.
Don't be afraid to experiment and be sure to analyze the results of your experiments. If the result turned out to be better/worse than your other actions, try to understand why. Try to repeat your most successful actions, if you will succeed - you have a new "weapon" that others may not know about yet.
That is an advantage.
Good luck!
One Response
Thanks for your blog, nice to read. Do not stop.