Who the heck knows what Digital Marketing is?
Digital marketing refers to business marketing efforts that use the internet to reach their target demographic instead of using traditional marketing strategies like billboards, television ads, and promotional mail. In the process of conducting digital marketing, a business might leverage websites, search engines, blogs, social media, video, email and similar channels to reach customers. Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing is an evolving and dynamic process. Customers can’t interact with business through a billboard or print ad, but digital marketing provides two-way communication between your business and its targeted clientele.
Like any other type of marketing, digital marketing is a way to connect with and influence your potential customers.
But why should I care and what will Digital Marketing do for my business?
Internet usage has more than doubled over the past ten years and this shift massively affects how people purchase products and interact with businesses. With this screen time at an all-time high, digital marketing efforts are more likely to reach your potential customers by meeting them where they spend most of their time.
What digital marketing does for a company depends on the goal of each type of content, including increasing brand awareness, boosting web traffic, increasing overall leads and, a favorite, increasing revenue. Successful digital marketing strategies generally involve a combination of methods, including online advertising, search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media management and content creation.
What crazy Digital Marketing tools will my business need?
You may not realize how many Digital Marketing tools you have at your disposal.
- Your company website
- Branded assets like your logo
- Video content like product demos or presentations
- Photography like product and company photos
- Blog posts
- Product descriptions
- Reviews
- Social media pages
As you can probably imagine, this is just a sampling of all the options available but most digital marketing efforts will fall into one of these categories. Digital marketers are constantly coming up with innovative new ways to reach customers online so the opportunities will keep growing.
Walk Before You Run
While it may seem tempting to set up profiles and get started on as many platforms at once (quietly assuring yourself you’ve got the time and energy for this), you’re really just setting yourself up for failure. If you can’t be consistent on all platforms and all their quirky personalities, you risk damaging your reputation before you really get off the ground. Any marketing campaign, traditional or digital, without a plan and specific goals is like buying a plane ticket to take you halfway to Ireland and likely to get stranded in the ocean.
But does Digital Marketing even work?
Digital marketing is excellent for any business trying to succeed in an increasingly digital world. At Social Animals Marketing, we use it to help grow anything from restaurants to gyms, mom-and-pop shops to larger entities like ISP providers. That’s the magic of advertising online. If you know the demographics you want to target, using digital marketing tools, you can reach just about anyone, no matter where they are.
Many companies use automation software to cover their marketing needs, and that isn’t wrong, but the digital marketing world is constantly evolving. Which is why considering outsourcing your online marketing efforts or paying for an in-house team is one area where spending a little money can definitely improve the return on investment in a big way.
Want help with your digital marketing strategy? Get in touch with Social Animals Marketing!