What exactly is Digital Marketing?

Where do you usually go when you have a question about, well, anything? You are not alone if you answered Google. People have been using Google as a verb almost since its inception. Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer used the term in an episode back in 2002, making it the first television show to do so. (As a side note, the character Willow also appropriately described Google as “a search engine.”

The thing about that statement’s simplicity is that it’s not really that simple. There are few opportunities for visibility on a search engine results page (SERP). When people Google an inquiry—that is, type it into the little search bar—a massively complex system crawls, indexes, and ranks websites to present searchers with results.

Search engines also prioritize ads based on audience, payment, location, and… well, you get the picture. What is the connection between all of this and digital marketing? Well, almost everything!

Digital marketing efforts are made to ensure that the right people—internet users who need and want your product or service—are aware of who you are and what you stand for.

This definition of digital marketing is relatively new, having emerged in the early 1990s with the creation of the World Wide Web in 1989 by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee and his team. This is what eventually led to the development of search engines such as Yahoo, Bing, and Google.

Google was founded in 1995 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and it became a corporation in 1998. The search engine was originally called BackRub and began in Page and Brin’s dorm room (we gasped, too). Google now has an estimated 63,000 searches per second, equating to 5.6 billion searches per day.

If we’re talking numbers—and we’re all about numbers here at Metric Marketing—digital marketing is used in social media every day. Today, 71% of American adults use social media, with Facebook and YouTube being the most popular platforms. In terms of global monthly active users, Facebook has 2.8 billion.

When you consider the number of users who are online every day, you realize that digital marketing is not an option; it is a requirement.

What Exactly Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is the development and implementation of marketing strategies that make use of electronic devices and measurement tools to achieve a business goal. Digital marketing is any effort made to market your business online.

Strategic digital marketing, on the other hand, produces the best results. At its core, digital marketing is about cultivating relationships with the right people so that they can progress from audience members to loyal customers, all while marketing online.

What Is the Importance of Digital Marketing?
One of the primary reasons for the importance of digital marketing is that it is measurable.

You can examine key performance indicators with digital marketing (KPIs). A key performance indicator (KPI) for digital marketing is a measurement tool that can be used to track how well or poorly a marketing campaign is performing. You can make informed decisions about your marketing strategy when you can see the results in numerical form.

Digital marketing enables communication with a specific target audience. This allows you to focus your business on the people who have the greatest demand for your product while also tracking how those people respond to your marketing.

In addition to tracking metrics, keep in mind that the global pandemic drove even more people online. E-commerce relies heavily on digital marketing. The United States According to the Census Bureau, e-commerce sales in the United States totaled $204.6 billion in the third quarter of 2021. That equates to 12.4% of total retail sales in the United States.

Even if you are not an e-commerce company, digital marketing is essential for reaching your online customers. You might be surprised at how many of your potential customers are looking for products similar to yours online. They want your ideas and your product. It just depends on whether they are aware of your existence. Digital marketing can help to ensure this.

Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing
The goal of both digital and traditional marketing is the same: to promote your company. Their methods and mediums, however, are vastly different. To begin, we must distinguish between online marketing and traditional marketing.

While digital marketing employs electronic techniques, traditional marketing employs the “old fashioned” off-screen* marketing strategy. We use the term “old-fashioned” lightly—traditional marketing is still very much alive and well today, and it can help your business in tandem with digital marketing. It simply employs methods that predate the internet’s explosion in the 1990s.

*Note: Although television is technically a technology, on-air marketing is still considered traditional marketing.

Traditional marketing includes any printed material, such as:

Traditional marketing can have an impact. Consider your favorite commercial or billboard on your way to work. The thing is, while the billboard may be memorable, switching to digital marketing can have long-term benefits for your business.

And you may discover that the advantages of digital marketing outweigh the costs of traditional methods. This raises the question, “Why digital marketing?”

• Measuring metrics: While billboards and commercials can reach a large number of people, there is no definite way to know how many people are influenced by your traditional marketing methods. With digital marketing, you can track a variety of key performance indicators that will assist you in making informed marketing decisions.
• Reach your target audience: With digital marketing, you can create marketing personas and market directly to your target audience. This means that instead of reaching a broad range of people in a single geographical location, you can reach a specific group of people from a larger geographical area.
• Greater return on investment: While digital marketing can be costly, investing in short-term marketing strategies, such as those found in traditional marketing, is actually more expensive. Digital marketing can generate a higher return on investment over time (ROI).

Both marketing styles can benefit your company. Consider your target audience when deciding how to budget for your company’s marketing. Analyze the benefits and drawbacks of both traditional and digital marketing and decide where to focus your marketing budget.

What Are the Duties of Digital Marketers?
The people behind the screen are known as digital marketers. Digital markets help you digitize your business and market your brand, products, and services to a global audience. Digital marketers ensure that your business is enriched in online spaces by using various software and digital channels. Combination of digital marketers:

Business

• Marketing
• Creativity
• Research
• Science
• Understanding of software and digital spaces

Digital marketers typically work as a team, collaborating to form a multifaceted marketing strategy to bring your business to your target audience by utilizing their diverse skill sets (s). As a result, the answer to the question “What do digital marketers do?” is “Just about every online marketing tactic.” ”

Everything you see on the internet has a purpose. A digital marketer is on the other side of the screen when you read code, see graphics, click on an ad, or open an email.

Various Types of Digital Marketing

To respond to the question, “What is the digital marketing process?”

“We must first examine the various types of digital marketing.” The definition of digital marketing is also an umbrella term, encompassing various digital marketing service areas that all contribute to a larger whole.

When you zoom in on digital marketing, you’ll notice that it consists primarily of techniques used to promote a business. Let’s look at each component of digital marketing to see what a full-service digital marketing service offers in order to answer the question “What does digital marketing entail?” ”

Search Engine Marketing (SEO)

Search engine optimization refers to deliberate efforts to increase your visibility on search engines, resulting in your results ranking higher on SERPs. SEO is a critical component of digital media marketing because a high SEO indicates an established brand, website, and industry authority.

To be ranked higher, you must have an accessible website with credible information to provide a great User Experience (UX). Search engines want to make sure that their users—the people who ask the questions—are presented with the most relevant information for their needs. Crawlers and indexers, tools used by search engines to evaluate websites, will evaluate your:

• Website structure
• Backlinks
• Content quality
• Content
• Your users’ credibility

Increasing your SEO requires extensive research and content marketing. Conducting keyword research to ensure you are providing relevant information to your online audience is part of your digital marketing efforts.

When your company gains online visibility, you can build organic trust with your target audience. The more qualified your audience members who visit your site, the higher your SEO ranking, and so on.

Gaining visibility equates to building trust. Intentional SEO marketing has the ability to bring your brand and website to the attention of people who can become qualified leads. You can and will become a prominent voice in your field. Through SEO, you can outrank your competitors and build an organic (unpaid) relationship with your audience.

Content Promotion

The heart of communication with your audience is content marketing. The content involved matters whenever you present your brand, state an idea, give a description, make a claim, or send an email. The way you communicate with your audience through content can help you establish relationships and trust. When your audience has faith in you, they are more likely to invest time and money in your company.

SEO and content marketing goes together. Content marketing incorporates relevant keywords discovered through keyword research into active pages. Content marketing is more than just throwing keywords in here and there. In order to connect with your audience, your content must be well-written.

A good content marketing strategy will strike a balance between research and human connection. If done correctly, content marketing will connect you to people with purchasing power, establish relationships with them, and nurture those relationships. This is accomplished by communicating your brand’s identity and establishing your mission and values in order to connect with the right people.

Marketing on Social Media

Social media marketing is better positioned than ever to help you personalize your brand. Social media allows you to directly communicate with audience members who are active users on the same platforms as your company.

Social media marketing can be used to promote previously created content while also establishing your online voice. You can take your digital marketing to the next level by utilizing:

• Real-life examples
• Direct communication (DM)
• Text threads about the industry
• Promotion of pre-existing content on your website
• Graphics and videos
• Your system’s network
• Paid social media ads
• and a lot more

A strong social media presence can connect you to your audience in unprecedented ways. Social media marketing is now an essential component of a digital marketing strategy for increasing your online presence and visibility.