What is Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is one of the trending topics in Marketing over the past few years and it’s going to be the key channel for marketing in the coming years. Every business want’s to adopt Digital Marketing, hire Digital Marketing professionals and increase ROI through Digital Marketing.

Also many professionals from Sales, IT and other domains are switching to Digital Marketing as a career!

Here’s how Google Search trends look for Digital Marketing which is increasing year on year!

Digital Marketing Trends

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Total Projected US Digital Ad Spends

Digital Marketing Market Size WorldWide

(Digital Ad spends to reach $130 Billion by 2021 – Source: AppNexus)

So let’s understand in detail, What is Digital Marketing!

Digital Marketing Definition

Digital Marketing is a form of marketing products or services through electronic media or internet!

Before we deep dive into Digital Marketing, let’s understand, advantages of Digital Marketing over Traditional Marketing!

(Traditional Marketing includes newspaper ads, magazine ads, hoarding ads etc)

Advantages of Digital Marketing over Traditional Marketing!

Advantages of Digital Marketing

Precise Targeting: Digital Marketing allows advertisers to target their audience precisely including age, gender, interest, topics, keywords, websites, city, pin code etc. It is very precise compared to traditional media where it’s difficult to target the audience basis the above parameters.

Real Time Optimization: Through Digital Marketing we can optimize (make changes) our advertising campaigns on real time which means if the strategy is not working, we can immediately switch to another strategy, whereas in traditional form of marketing, once our ad is released you can’t make changes to it.

Measurable: Digital Marketing is measurable, we can easily understand how many users our ads have reached to, how many people clicked our ads, how many people got converted from our ad, how much time people are spending on our website, how many pages they are visiting on website, how much is the time lag for conversion and so on, whereas in traditional media, it’s impossible to measure different parameters.

Build Engagement: Digital Marketing helps brands to build engagement with their consumers, it helps to interact with the users on real time basis through social media. Brands can stay connected with consumers on real time and engage them with their brand communication throughout the journey of their businesses.

Personalized Communication: One of the best advantages of Digital Marketing is that you can personalize communication to each and every user on digital, this helps advertisers to communicate with their audience effectively, understanding their requirement and delivering key messages to individual users which further helps in achieving brand objectives.

Cost Effective: Digital Marketing is cost effective, you only pay for clicks or for the no of times you ad has been triggered. You can start with any budget to advertise on Digital, this helps advertisers to test their marketing campaign on digital and further define their marketing strategy. You can reach to a wider audience compared to traditional media with a minimum budget which helps to cut down your overall marketing cost.

Higher ROI: Digital Marketing has a higher ROI compared to traditional media, as the targeting is precise which helps you to reduce showing ads to irrelevant users helping you to achieve your business objective. Through digital you can also track users who have clicked you ad and convert them through different brand communication.

Digital Marketing can be classified under Online Marketing and Offline Marketing channels.

Digital Marketing – Online Marketing Channels:

  1. Search Engine Optimization
  2. Search Engine Marketing 
  3. Social Media Marketing
  4. Pay Per Click Marketing
  5. Display Marketing
  6. Content Marketing
  7. Affiliate Marketing
  8. Email Marketing
  9. Video Marketing
  10. Mobile Marketing

Let’s understand each of them:

1. Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is the process of ranking your website in organic/non-paid search results of search engines.

The ranking of web pages in organic search results, depends on the below factors

  • Content Strategy
  • On Page Optimization
  • Off Page Optimization

2. Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing is the process of increasing visibility of your website through organic and paid search results

In simple words SEM = SEO (Organic) + Paid Search

Below screenshot shows the difference between paid search results and organic (SEO) search results on Google search

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Advanced Google Ads Course

(To know more about Google Search Ads – Refer Article How to Create Google Search Ads)

3. Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing involves usage of social media channels to promote products and services.

Social Media Marketing Channels Includes

Social Media is a powerful channel to reach out to your audience, engage with your audience, interact with your audience etc, helping brands to have one on one conversations with their audience.

4. Pay Per Click Marketing

Pay Per Click is often referred as PPC. Pay Per Click Marketing is a model of online marketing where an advertiser pays per click to the publisher, in this case it does not matter how many times the ad has been triggered. The advertiser will only pay for the no of clicks received on his ads.

For eg: In the below screenshot, all 4 are PPC ads. So if any user clicks on any ad, the respective advertiser is bound to pay per click to Google

Pay Per Click Ads

5. Display Marketing

Display Marketing is marketing of products or services through image ads / banner ads / display ads. Display ads run on PPC model and CPM model.

Ways to run Display Ads!

  • Google Ads / Google AdWords – Running through Google’s ad platform
  • Direct Buy – Directly connecting with the publisher to run the ads
  • Ad Networks – Ad Networks are third party platforms who help to run ads on different publishers Eg: Komli, Tyro, InMobi etc
  • Programmatic Ads – Programmatic Ads are automation of buying and selling of display ads, video ads, rich media ads etc using real time bidding.

So how does one differentiate between Google display ad and Non Google display ad?

Below screenshot shows an ad which has an i marked on the right hand side of the image, this ad is triggered through Google ads

Below is an example of Non Google Display Ads which has no i on the right hand side of the ad.

6. Content Marketing

Content Marketing is about communicating key messages of your product and services in a form of story and building relationship with your target audience, throughout the journey of your business. An effective content marketing strategy is important in order to build relationship and engagement with the audience which further leads to sale.

Different channels for Content Marketing:

  • Blogs
  • Videos
  • Infographics
  • Webinars
  • Podcasts
  • eBooks
  • Whitepapers

7. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is the process of promoting other company’s products and services and earning a commission out of it. Many companies have started affiliate programs which give an opportunity to individuals also to earn money selling their products.

Examples of Affiliate Marketing Businesses

Companies Providing Affiliate Programs

8. Email Marketing

Email Marketing is a direct form of marketing, using email as a channel to deliver messages to the target audience. These email’s could be promotional, updates messages, product info messages etc. Email Marketing is an effective channel of marketing as it’s a one to one marketing. Through email marketing, you can keep the audience engaged and build relationship driving more repeat purchases. Email Marketing is also referred as Drip Marketing.

Different Platforms for Email Marketing

9. Video Marketing 

Video Marketing is marketing your brand, product or services through video. YouTube is the primary channel considered by brands while marketing video. Video Marketing is also done through social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Programmatic Videos etc.

Video Marketing Facts:

(Source: Television Post)

10. Mobile Marketing 

Mobile Marketing is communicating with the audience through mobile devices, tablets, mobile sites, QR codes, push notifications, sms, whatsapp and mobile apps (Google Play, App Store)

Some facts about Mobile Marketing

Mobile Marketing is increasing year on year and advertisers are specifically targeting users through mobile as a device including operating system (android, iOS), type of mobile phone (iphone 7plus, iPhone X) etc, which helps advertisers to target users effectively on mobile and increase ROI through mobile devices.

Digital Marketing – Offline Marketing Channels

  1. TV Marketing
  2. SMS Marketing
  3. Radio Marketing
  4. Billboard Marketing

1. TV Marketing

Due to rise of setup boxes TV Marketing has become digitize, you can advertise different ads in different geographies at the same time zone. The targeting is not that precise and the advertisers rely on BARC data for buying ad spots.  It will take some time to define precise targeting on TV ads.

Lot of advertisers has also moved towards creating digital video ads where in the targeting can be defined effectively and also they are cost effective compared to TV Ads production and media buying.

In coming years will see lot of advertisers advertising video ads on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Publishers with Video inventory.

2. SMS Marketing

SMS is short message service marketing to receive and send messages. SMS marketing is a direct form of marketing wherein brands can re-target users with offers, coupon codes, sale updates etc.

SMS marketing is expected to reduce in future as whats-app has started whats-app for business service wherein brands can directly share whats-app messages to their customers.

Also when the phone number has been marked as do not disturb (DND no) no, in that case users don’t receive promotional messages, so whats-app gets an upper hand for promotional messages.

3. Radio Marketing

Radio is another channel of marketing which advertisers use for communicating their key messages to their target audience but the issue with radio is that, precise targeting is not available and also you can’t actually measure to how many people it has reached.

Radio is useful for brand re-call as 76% consumers listen to FM radio using mobiles. 

Hindustan Unilever also launched Kan Khajura Tesan in Bihar with an innovative missed call campaign wherein users are suppose to give a missed call to the station no, the station then calls back with the FM channel.

4. Bill Board Marketing

Bill Board Marketing channel is advertising through electronic boards eg: Times Square Bill Boards, Super Bowl Commercials etc.

Bill Board marketing is a form of traditional marketing where you can’t define the targeting, you can’t measure how many people actually viewed your ad etc. Bill Board Marketing is used in places where there is huge crowd to attract to.

Conclusion

Digital Marketing is the need to the hour and every business needs to have an effective digital marketing strategy defined for each channel to achieve higher ROI. Many businesses hire agencies and high skilled digital marketers to market their products and services, make sure you define your’s before you start with Digital Marketing!