Digital marketing has been around for quite some time now, but there are still people who don’t have a complete idea about it or don’t value it enough and for them, this piece has been put together, which elucidates everything that is of important to know about digital marketing.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is often understood as just marketing on digital channels including which is inclusive of online channels. It is however way more than that as it subsumes within itself an exhaustive list of roles, careers, and industries. It entails attracting target audiences with the help of many tools and techniques that are available in abundance in this discipline.
What is the need for Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing has become the need of the hour for developers as people are more dependent on the Internet than they ever have been in the past for most of their needs and that includes online shopping. The Internet has completely changed the shopping preferences of the people and this can be gauged by the rapid growth of eCommerce around the world. Even for people who go to a brick-and-mortar store to make the final purchase, they are likely to search the internet extensively for information, which has a huge influence on what they eventually end up buying and from where. The same extends to services where reviews and positive ‘word-of-mouth’ see some service providers getting more business than the others.
How does Digital Marketing Work?
Digital marketing works in the same way as the traditional marketing ways, the only difference being in the channels that they operate in. Digital marketing is all about marketing on digital channels and is a lot more measurable and effective when compared to the traditional methods of marketing. Digital marketing campaigns for clients run by digital marketing services in India as well as around the world, aim at increasing the clients’ engagement with target audiences on different platforms through the following ways:-
- Posting content that is engaging, relevant and informative for the target audiences.
- A robust presence across all social media platforms to engage on a deeper level with the audience as subscribers and followers and friends
- Optimizing your content according to the best SEO practices to substantially increase your visibility and attract more traffic towards your website
- Availing services which guarantee paid traffic coming to your website
There are many other tricks, tools, and techniques in digital marketing that continue to evolve every passing day, allowing developers a lot more avenues to advertise
their products and services in a far more effective and measurable manner.
What are the major branches of Digital Marketing?
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION(SEO) : Arguably the most important branch of digital marketing is SEO. It entails optimizing the content and overall set-up of the website to increase its ability to rank higher on SERPs. The website is optimized by companies providing digital marketing services in India for their clients for a particular set of keywords, which is as much at the heart of SEO as SEO in turn, is at the heart of Digital Marketing. It is aimed at improving your ranks on a search engine result page, on either the first page or top three, and in the ideal scenario-the top rank, because that is how the overwhelming majority of online shoppers, looks at or responds to while shopping for products and services.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING (SMM) : It entails marketing on various social media platforms and generating website traffic from the same. Marketers can only attract people from where they are already present and since most people use the Internet for social networking, it effectively makes social media marketing a very important branch of digital marketing. Some of the most popular social networking sites of our times such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Twitter have active users in the hundreds of millions and even billions (Facebook), which is exactly where most marketers focus of their attention at.
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM) : Remember all the ‘sponsored results’ that you see on the top or side of a SERP? That’s search engine marketing at work! It entails pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, where you have to pay every time your link has been clicked. A lot of online businesses resort to this, as any the amount invested proves to be absolute value-for-money since the listings are bound to get a lot of hits.
CONTENT MARKETING: ‘Content is King’ is a saying that has been repeated and reiterated Ad Infinitum in different walks of life but it hasn’t been more relevant before than it is today. Especially in times of information overload, the content which does better than the others has been crafted better than the others. Marketers aim to create content that informs and educates along with very smartly furthering their agendas of smartly-disguised promotions. It is a pillar of SEO as we know and experience today. Google being the biggest search engine of our times, (on which all marketers yearn for a better ranking) is crystal clear on it’s stand that quality-content will always be ranked better than the others, and that’s where all developers should aim at. Read more to know: How to Develop a Killer Content Strategy for a Startup with No Budget
EMAIL MARKETING: Email is still as relevant as it was decades ago and the same can be expected to continue in the future as it remains the quickest and safest way to communicate for personal and professional reasons. The majority of the internet users are heavily dependent on their emails which presents an opportunity for many shrewd marketers. It is a little less responsive than other branches in digital marketing, but when executed well, it can be very rewarding as long it remains trustworthy, engaging and relevant.
What is are the benefits of Digital Marketing?
Over and above the obvious objective of bringing in more sales and improving rankings on search engine results, there’s a lot more to Digital marketing and for developers who execute their digital marketing campaigns commendably well. Below are some of the other benefits provided by digital marketing, for developers whore smart and opportune enough to harness the full potential of this gift which continues to give.
Boosts Brand Awareness – By getting the website more exposure and visibility, digital marketing increases brand awareness of a certain website. This is further helped by engaging with the audiences by posting engaging and informative content.
Competitive leverage – The internet may be booming with many businesses having a robust online presence of their own, but it is more about the need and less about the choice. Not having an online presence, when more than half of the world is moving ‘online’ is a disastrous idea that is bound to bring any business to the brink of irrelevancy. On the other hand, businesses with a robust online presence can significantly add to their customer base and get more customers, business and referrals through the Internet.
Extremely Effective – Digital marketing had not been the most preferred way to market for developers and developers alike, had it not been so effective. It is the chosen way forward for both the bigger and smaller players, as it has significantly leveled the playing field of all players. It is effective, result-driven and very easy to measure.
