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What is Digital
Marketing Today?

Everybody heard about digital marketing. But not many people can give a definition of it. Even fewer could tell something about digital marketing strategy. Let’s change the situation!

  • Rondesignlab Team

Digital Marketing is…

…any form of marketing that exists online or involves electronic devices.

This is an extensive, but very interesting and useful topic. Especially this topic will be useful to those who are going to promote their products via the Internet. Of course, now almost everyone does it. The idea is to put online sales to the fore and increase profits.

So what device will you choose to promote your product?

 

The first step in digital
marketing…

…should be simple and straightforward. No need to invent complex patterns. No need to complicate. The reality is actually much simpler than it seems.

So, for the beginning, you should define how much do you need to make. Then ask yourself a question: ‘who are you marketing to?’. It will help you to realize what is your target audience. And after that be honest with yourself, because you should count how much you need to spend for reaching your goal.

 

What would you choose:
purpose or means?

Follow the simple formulas, because they cannot be confused. ‘All ingenious is simple’, as Leonardo da Vinci said. But the same phrase is attributed to Albert Einstein and Napoleon Bonaparte. However, what’s the difference. What is more important, purpose or means? These guys are world-famous. Therefore, it doesn’t matter which of them said this phrase. It also doesn’t matter which of the methods of digital marketing you use, as long as it leads you to success.

 

Digital marketing as a term…

…was popularized almost two decades ago. But frankly speaking, digital marketing exists much longer than we think.

Have you ever heard about ‘public transmission of wireless signals’? It sounds too abstract, isn’t it? Actually, this is just another name for Morse signals. It was demonstrated in 1896. The same year those types of wireless signals were transmitted across open water. It took only a decade for the well-known radio to reach the general public, and radio advertisement became the first example of digital marketing. That is why digital marketing as a method exists way longer than its term.

 

Two groups of digital marketing

Let’s have a look at what is digital marketing today.

We can divide modern digital marketing into two groups: online and offline. Each of them is very important and worth the time to draw attention to it.

 

Online marketing

 

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Do you want your website to rank higher on the search results pages? Then this method (SEO) of digital marketing is for you! The higher your site is on the search results pages, the more traffic you will get. The more people see your website, the more customers you will have.

SEO is also divided into two types: ON Page and OFF Page. In the first case, the goal is website content. The second case, the goal is all that happens outside the site, any mention of it, comments, reviews, etc. Remembering to gain inbound links for specific pages or articles, because it can be beyond price.

Helpful advice. Don’t accept similar websites exclusively as competitors. Look for all the benefits for yourself. The number of links to your website affects your ranking in the search results list. Digital marketing is a neighborhood for entrepreneurs, but not enemies. 

Did you know that the speed of loading your website can reduce sales if the speed is too low? This is the reality. SEO specialists will help you to increase the speed of loading pages. They know how to optimize your CSS code and search engines will read it better. How to choose the right size of pictures, how to compression them, how to structure your code, which meta tags you should use and which should not — SEO specialist will help you with all of this.

 

Content marketing

Content marketing is different from copywriting. As we all know, copywriting deals with writing texts. Content marketing isn’t only about writing texts, but it is also raising brand awareness. Content marketing is a strategy that has already led more than a hundred companies to success. For instance, the success of Lego is a brilliant use of content marketing! They recently released a film created from their blocks. There is a deluxe advertising company, half an hour long.

Competently using content marketing, you can well establish yourself in the market. First, you should take care of a consistent image, which, of course, depends on your target audience. You need to choose the style of texts, vocabulary, and tone. If you follow a good content strategy, then you will surely turn the user into a regular customer.

Also, don’t forget about an infographic. It is becoming more and more popular. Use it on your website because users like it. The user doesn’t always want to read long texts, even if this text is a perfect example of content marketing. Sometimes the user just wants to look at the beautiful statistics, and study its data. Make sure that the infographics on your website look beautiful. This will be an advantage for your website.

 

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Don’t forget about promoting your brand on social networks. Social media is very popular, so promotion in there is very important. That is why work with social networks is a part of digital marketing. A large number of users is a chance to increase the traffic to your website.

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest — here are just some of the most popular of them. Choose these social networks that will work for your business, and make at least one post a day to get together your audience. In fact, prevalent social networks are much more than in this line. But which ones are right for you depends on your content, target audience and goals. Anyway, social media marketing is one of the most efficient ways of digital marketing. 

 

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)

Pay-per-click is one of the digital marketing ways of driving traffic to your website. You should pay the publisher for each click that led to your website. It looks organic, just as a simple advertisement with an active link to your page. Probably, the most popular way of using PPC is Google Ads also called ‘paid search advertising’. Also, you can do it on Facebook, Twitter Ads campaign, sponsored messages on LinkedIn, Yahoo, Bing, etc.

 

Affiliate marketing

Do you want to receive a commission for promoting someone else’s product? Simply put, you can advertise someone else’s service or product on your website. For this purpose, you can use   YouTube Partner Program. This type of digital marketing is a great way to make money to advertise your own product or service. But for this program, you should already have your own audience or constant traffic.

 

Email marketing

Email marketing is a part of digital marketing and a great way to communicate with your audience. Promote your events or discounts this way. Also, you can send your followers an email with tips, new loyalty programs, Happy Birthday letters, or so.

 

Don’t be afraid to communicate with your target audience. Just make sure your emails have something valuable for them. No one likes spam, but if you send your customers really useful information, they will be grateful.

 

Offline marketing

 

Enhanced offline marketing

Obviously, advertising in a newspaper is different from advertising in a glossy magazine. By the same principle, enhanced online marketing is different from offline marketing. One of the differences is in the word ‘enhanced’.

Have you seen billboards on deserted roads? This is a great example of ordinary offline marketing. But what about shining billboards, like those that hang in the center of every big city? One glance is enough to understand the difference. Of course, this is a part of a digital marketing strategy.

Marketers claim that the billboards on the roads are dead. They are no longer as popular as they used to be. The reason is that passengers staring at their phones, and not on the road anymore. Telephones entertain people better than billboards. Therefore, its effectiveness has fallen sharply. Every year the cost of advertising will go down. But efficiency too. Sooner or later, billboards on the roads will disappear altogether. There will be only bright billboards on the main streets, but their cost will be incredible.

For example, renting a billboard in Times Square per year will cost from 1,000,000 to 4,000,000 dollars. Of course, this amount suggests that Times Square is valued much more than any other place on the planet.

 

Digital product demos

Does your company have product demos?

The demo is very useful. Everybody likes to get goods for free. That is why this kind of digital marketing works brilliantly. Demos allow a potential buyer to learn a lot of information about your product. It develops the desire to buy this product or service. The buyer has a feeling that the product is already his, and therefore he doesn’t want to part with it. That is why the demo is a great idea.

Game makers distributed demo versions of their games in magazines. They did it on CDs. It was a crazy step for a world without the Internet at any turn. These CDs were very popular. If you had one, you were really lucky.

But the demo products are not only CDs with free games. It is also the computers that are in stores. Yes, the very computers that everyone can touch. And mobile phones that lie on the open showcase. All this pursues the same goal — to attract the buyer and sell him your product. Don’t spare money for demo products. This is a very important part of a profitable digital marketing strategy. 

 

Radio marketing

As mentioned before, the radio was created a century ago. And it is still popular. The average listener listens to the radio about 2 hours a day. Not so few for things that are over 100 years old.

By the way, 85% of the population of America still listen to the radio more or less regularly. And about half of US citizens listen to the radio at least once a month. Looks like life in America impossible without radio.

About a century ago, at the very beginning of the radio, the prototype of the first advertisement was the broadcasting of the opera. People listened to opera in real-time and then went to buy tickets. Even 100 years ago it was clear what a huge potential digital marketing has, despite the fact that this term didn’t exist yet. And now we have a good-working digital marketing strategy, that helps people to promote their products.

It took a long time before Internet radio has appeared. Nevertheless, the listener now has the ability to rewind broadcasting. People can listen to it whenever they want, without any schedule. The radio made a lot of musicians famous. The radio is a really fast way to share news and other information. And, of course, the radio is one of the greatest tools of digital marketing.

 

TV marketing

TV ads have long been in the top of digital marketing tools. But times change, and sometimes for the better, don’t they? So, what happens to TV? The Internet gave us YouTube. Now people watch TV less often. But is this the only reason why advertising on TV isn’t as effective as before?

 

No, the reason is somewhere on another dimension. Look at targeting advertising on the Internet. What is the difference? This type of advertising is more useful, unlike advertising on TV. Targeting advertising shows us stuff we like, the products we want to buy or things we have recently been interested in. Advertising on TV simply shows us the goods, regardless of whether they are interesting to us or not. Therefore, video advertising on TV is less effective because it works by the formula: quantity, not quality.

Nevertheless, you should not give up TV, as one of the tools of digital marketing. Even if TV isn’t so popular as it was before, the number of people who still watch it is large. So, advertising on TV still makes sense. You probably heard that people don’t believe advertisements anymore. But on the other hand, everyone likes a good advertisement, that is why festivals of advertising are held around the world.

Summing up, we can say that sometimes it’s more important not what is advertised, but how it is advertised. Therefore, pay attention to the quality of your advertising. All in all, digital marketing helps you not only sell your products or services but also it makes your brand recognizable. Well-organized digital marketing strategy is what you need to get success. 

 

Phone marketing

Call centers are still relevant. This is also one of the tools of digital marketing. The call center is usually engaged in cold and hot calls.

Hot calls are when the person you call knows about your company and he is prepared to talk. Perhaps he even expects you to call him. Probably he already wants to buy something from you.

Cold calls are calls to people who don’t know anything about your business. Then you need to interest them. To tell about the company, about your products and services you provide. You need to create a positive experience for the clients. They must feel confidence in you. They must trust you. That’s what a good cold call means. Of course, at best, it will end up selling your goods to the customer by phone.

Phone marketing obviously is a part of digital marketing but it isn’t the easiest way to advertise your goods. It takes time to organize this huge process. People who will call your potential customers usually use special scripts for their phone conversations. You need to write the scripts for such conversations based on the understanding of the interests of your customers and knowledge of your product.

Average marketers call about 50-60 people per day. According to statistics they need 17-20 calls to find a buyer. It means each marketer can find about 3 buyers a day. And it is still a good result for this method of digital marketing. Of course, it depends on many factors. One of the very important points is exactly what you sell. If your products expensive maybe 3 buyers a day from one marketer is enough. But if you sell something cheap you can find more buyers. Frankly speaking, everything depends on you and your digital marketing strategy.

 

Text message marketing

Marketing via texting is one of the digital marketing tools you can use to promote your services. It doesn’t matter if your customers online or offline if you send them an SMS message they probably read it. Use special applications or websites for this purpose. It will help you make this process easier.

A lot of people can learn about your goods from simple text messages. But they always have a limited number of characters. So, it would be great if you find a copywriter to create fresh, well-written, good-sounded texts for this target. When you send people messages as advertising, you shape their perception of your company.

It is very important which words you choose in order to convey your message to future buyers. It is equally important at what time you send your message. It all depends on the target audience, the cost of the goods, the specifics of your product or service, etc.

Text message marketing is a part of digital marketing and a great way to share your discount program, special deals, etc. Also, you can use text messages as reminders. People like it when the company cares about them. 3 minutes on average! Only 3 minutes is the time people need to open your message after you sent it to them. More than 90% of marketing messages are opened. It doesn’t sound bad, isn’t it? Spend some time to figure out how does it work, to increase your income.

Of course, all these methods require some spending. So, just remember, today you spend money on promotion, tomorrow you will get them back with a large bonus. 

 

QR codes

Whatever you want to do to promote your products or services, avoid QR codes. Avoid it, because QR codes are pretty dead. Back in 2012, people know nothing about QR codes, despite it already exists for a couple of years. Nowadays people know about it, but still, don’t use. But what is wrong with this thing? Why people don’t want to learn how to use QR codes?

The answer is pretty simple. To learn how to use QR codes you should download a specific app to your mobile phone. You can’t scan these codes just with your camera. But you can with the app. Usually, these apps have a lot of advertisements on it. And it seems like you have to watch an advertisement to watch one more advertisement again. It is too complicated. That is why people don’t like to use it.

Anyway, the history of digital marketing has some examples of bad use of QR codes. And one of the most common mistakes is to put QR code into TV advertisements. In this way, people even have no opportunity to scan it. They just don’t have enough time.

Some big brands use it as a part of a big advertisement at the gangway. But people couldn’t come close enough to these QR codes. They just couldn’t scan it. All in all, QR codes difficult to distinguish from each other. They all look very much the same. That is why you never know you already scanned this code or not. Who needs an advertisement that confuses? That is why you need to avoid QR code when we talk about digital marketing.

 

B2C and B2B

Since we are talking about sales and promotion, you should pay attention to their types. B2C stands for business to customer. B2B stands for business to business.

 

The basic laws of sales are the same, but there are still many small differences. And there is one of these differences. When selling B2C client spends money mostly to get pleasure. But when selling B2B client spends money to earn more. Of course, you can use one of these channels or both to get more money and more pleasure. But whichever channel you choose, make sure you learned enough about these methods.

 

Conclusion

The best way to choose isn’t to choose at all. Don’t focus your attention only on one point of this long list of digital marketing tools. Use multiple items at once. This will help you to avoid failure if one of them doesn’t work or works, but not as effectively as you would like. Also, don’t forget to diversify your lead generation beyond social media, if you want to turn them into a sale, of course.

Digital marketing is growing rapidly. Stay up to date with new methods and technologies. And always remember, if you have a good product, but nobody knows about it, it is the same as you don’t have any products at all. Repeat this phrase at the end of every week. It helps to remember the reason why marketing is so important these days. Perhaps it was always important. And as in the case of digital marketing, it could have existed even before it was named.

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