Online marketing initiatives that show up on a computer, phone, tablet, or other device are sometimes referred to as digital marketing. It can appear in a variety of ways, such as social media postings, display adverts, online videos, search engine marketing, and sponsored social media ads. Digital marketing is sometimes contrasted with “traditional marketing” methods like direct mail, billboards, and magazine ads. Oddly, traditional marketing is typically associated with television at mailchimp.com
When looking at mobile internet users, these numbers are considerably greater. Of all Americans, 89% use the internet at least once a day, and 31% use it nearly nonstop. It’s crucial for marketers to make the most of the digital era by developing a brand, offering excellent customer service that attracts more potential clients, and more, all while utilizing a digital strategy and an online advertising presence at mailchimp.com
Digital marketing: what is it?
The promotion of companies to interact with potential consumers online and through other digital media is known as online, or digital, marketing. This covers text and multimedia messaging as well as social media, web-based, email, and other marketing channels.
Digital marketing is, in essence, any marketing campaign that uses digital communication.
Digital marketing as opposed to inbound marketing
For good reason, inbound and digital marketing are frequently misunderstood. Email and web content are just two of the many techniques that are used in digital marketing, much like inbound marketing. Through the buyer’s journey, both are meant to draw in prospects and convert them into paying customers. However, the two strategies have distinct perspectives on how the tool and the objective relate to one another at mailchimp.com
Digital marketing takes into account the potential conversion rates of specific technologies or digital platforms. A brand may employ several platforms in its digital marketing strategy, or it may concentrate all of its efforts on one. For instance, a business can neglect other digital marketing channels in favor of producing content primarily for social media sites and email marketing campaigns.
What makes digital marketing so crucial?
Any kind of marketing can support the growth of your company. But because digital platforms are so easily available, digital marketing has grown in significance. As a matter of fact, there were 5 billion internet users worldwide in April 2022.
There are numerous ways to leverage digital marketing strategies to connect with your target audience, including text messaging and social networking. Furthermore, digital marketing is an affordable marketing strategy for small firms due to its low upfront costs.
Comparing B2C and B2B digital marketing
Both B2B and B2C businesses can benefit from digital marketing techniques, but there are some key differences in best practices between the two. This is a more detailed look at the application of digital marketing in B2B and B2C marketing plans.
lengthier decision-making processes and, thus, lengthier sales funnels are typical of B2B clients. For these clients, relationship-building tactics are more effective, while B2C clients are more receptive to immediate offers and communications.
Competent B2B digital marketers give rationale and evidence, which is typically the foundation of B2B purchases. B2C content tends to be emotionally charged and centered around uplifting the customer’s mood after completing a purchase.
Digital marketing types
Within the field of digital marketing, there are as many subspecialties as there are methods for communicating through digital media. These represent some of the most important kinds of digital marketing strategies.
optimization for search engines
Technically speaking, search engine optimization, or SEO, is a technique for marketing rather than a kind of marketing unto itself.”The art and science of making web pages attractive to search engines” is how The Balance defines it.
The most crucial aspect of SEO is the “art and science” component. In order to attain the best potential rating on a search engine results page (SERP), SEO necessitates extensive research and careful consideration of numerous contributing elements, making it a science.
These days, when optimizing a web page for search engines, the following factors are crucial to take into account:
- Content quality
- User engagement level
- Adaptability to mobile devices
- Quantity and quality of incoming links
To be on the first page of a search engine’s result page is the ultimate goal. This guarantees that consumers looking for a certain brand-related query may quickly locate your goods or services. Even though there are several search engines, Google is frequently the focus of digital marketers due to its dominance in the global search engine market.
There is no set formula or reliable guideline for ranking well in search engines when it comes to SEO. Since Google and other search engines update their algorithms frequently, precise forecasts are unfeasible. All you can do is keep a careful eye on how your page is performing and modify your plan as necessary.
marketing with content
The caliber of your content is, as previously stated, a crucial element of an optimized page. Because of this, SEO plays a significant role in content marketing, a tactic that involves providing valuable and pertinent information to a specific audience.
The aim of content marketing, like any other marketing technique, is to draw in leads who eventually become clients. But in contrast to conventional advertising, it does it in a new way. Rather than luring potential customers with the promise of value from a good or service, it provides value at no cost in the form of articles like these:
- blog entries
- Electronic books
- Newsletters
- Transcripts in audio or video
- Whitepapers
- Infographics
Numerous statistics demonstrate the importance of content marketing:
- 84% of customers want businesses to create useful and interesting content.
- 62% of businesses with at least 5,000 workers create content every day.
- 92% of marketers think that content is a valuable asset for their business.
Even while content marketing works well, it might be challenging. Writers for content marketing must be able to draw readers in, encourage them to share the content, and encourage them to engage with the company further all while ranking highly in search engine results. Strong connections can be formed throughout the pipeline when the material is pertinent.
Understanding your audience is crucial to producing interesting, highly relevant content. In the end, who are you hoping to reach with your content marketing campaigns? You can choose the kind of content you’ll produce after you have a better understanding of your audience. For your content marketing, you can utilize a variety of content formats, such as blog posts, videos, printable worksheets, and more.
It’s wise to adhere to content marketing best practices while producing any kind of content. This entails producing grammatically sound, error-free, comprehensible, pertinent, and engaging material. Additionally, your material should direct visitors to the next step of the sales funnel, which may be a signup page or a free consultation with a sales representative mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/digital-marketing/
marketing on social media
Using social media to engage people in online debate is known as social media marketing. Social media marketing is a useful tool for showcasing your company’s culture, values, goods, and services. It can be beneficial to concentrate on social media marketing because billions of people use these platforms for social interaction.
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the most widely used digital channels for social media marketing, with LinkedIn and YouTube following closely behind. Which social media sites are best for your company ultimately relies on your target market and goals. For instance, since industry professionals are active on LinkedIn, it’s a smart idea to target your audience there if you’re looking to generate new leads for your FinTech firm. Conversely, if your business is a B2C catering to younger consumers, it can be more advantageous for you to conduct Instagram social media advertisements.
Built-in engagement analytics from social media marketing are quite helpful in determining how well you’re connecting with your audience. Which kinds of interactions—like the quantity of shares, comments, or clicks to your website overall—mean the most to you is up to you.
It’s possible that your social media marketing plan may not even aim for direct purchases. Instead of pressuring consumers to make an immediate purchase, many firms utilize social media marketing to engage in conversation with their audience. This is particularly prevalent with firms that cater to older markets or provide goods and services that aren’t suitable for impulsive purchases. It all relies on the social media marketing objectives of your business.
Adhering to best practices is essential for developing a social media marketing strategy that works. The following are some of the most crucial best practices for social media marketing:
- Create engrossing and superior content.
- Respond to inquiries and remarks in a way that is professional.
- Establish a posting schedule for social media.
- Post when appropriate
- Employ social media managers to assist with your promotional endeavors.
- Recognize your target market and the social media platforms where they spend the most time.
See how Mailchimp stacks up against other free social media management solutions to find out more about how it can support your social media strategy at mailchimp.com
Pay-per-click advertising
In pay-per-click, or PPC, marketing, you are charged a certain amount each time a user clicks on one of your online advertisements. Therefore, you just pay for the ads that people connect with rather than having to spend a fixed sum to run targeted ads on internet marketing channels on a regular basis. It’s a little more intricate how and when people see your advertisement mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/digital-marketing/
Search engine advertising is one of the most popular PPC models, and since Google is the most widely used search engine, a lot of companies utilize Google Ads for this kind of advertising. A search engine fills a slot on a search engine results page, or SERP, with what is effectively an instantaneous auction. Each available ad is given a priority by an algorithm that takes into account several parameters, such as:
- Advertising caliber
- Relevance of keywords
- The quality of the landing page
- Amount of the bid
When someone searches for a certain topic, PPC adverts are then displayed at the top of search engine result pages based on the previously mentioned variables at mailchimp.com
After clicking on an advertisement, viewers are expected to do one or more target actions in each PPC campaign. Conversions are what these acts are called, and they can be either transactional or non-transactional. A purchase is a conversion, but so is subscribing to a newsletter or making a call from your home office.
You may monitor the conversions you set as your target using the digital marketing platforms of your choice to assess how well your campaign is performing mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/digital-marketing/
Partner advertising
One digital marketing strategy that allows someone to profit by advertising another person’s business is affiliate marketing. The procedure is the same whether you are the promoter or the company that collaborates with the promoter mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/digital-marketing/
It operates on a revenue-sharing basis. As an affiliate, you will receive a commission each time a customer buys the product you have recommended. Every sale the affiliate assists you in making is what you, the merchant, pay the affiliate for.
Some affiliate marketers decide to write reviews of just one company’s items, possibly for a blog or other outside website. Some people maintain connections with several retailers.
Creating a connection with the other party is the first step, whether you want to be an affiliate or locate one. You have two options: either launch or join a single-retailer program, or use online platforms made specifically to link affiliates and stores.
There are numerous ways to attract potential promoters to your program if you’re a merchant and decide to deal directly with affiliates. You’ll have to give those affiliates the resources they require in order for them to be successful. This covers pre-made content and marketing tools, as well as rewards for excellent performance.
indigenous marketing
Subtle digital marketing is what native advertising is. It wants to look less obviously like advertising by blending in with the information around it.
The creation of native advertising was a response to the skepticism of modern consumers toward advertisements. Given that the advertisement’s creator receives payment for its airing, a lot of viewers will assume the advertisement is prejudiced and choose to ignore it.
A native advertisement circumvents this prejudice by downplaying the “ad” element and providing content or amusement before getting promotional mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/digital-marketing/
It is imperative that you carefully label all of your native adverts. Use signs such as “sponsored” or “promoted”; if they are hidden, readers may find themselves spending a lot of time interacting with the content before realizing it’s advertising.
Customers will feel better about your content and brand when they know exactly what they’re getting. Although they are designed to be less intrusive than traditional advertisements, native ads are not meant to be misleading.
Influencer advertising
Influencer marketing, like affiliate marketing, is based on partnering with a well-known person (a celebrity, business titan, or content producer, for example) in exchange for publicity. These influencers will frequently recommend your goods or services to their followers across a variety of social media platforms.
Influencer marketing is a great way for businesses, both B2B and B2C, to connect with new customers. But since they are effectively representing your company, it’s critical to collaborate with trustworthy influencers. The confidence that customers have in your company might be damaged by the incorrect influencer mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/digital-marketing/
Automation of marketing
Software is used in marketing automation to drive digital marketing initiatives, increasing the effectiveness and relevancy of advertising. Instead of concentrating on laborious and time-consuming procedures, you can now concentrate on developing the strategy that will guide your digital marketing initiatives.
Even though it could appear like a luxury product your company doesn’t need, marketing automation can greatly increase audience engagement.
Based on statistical data:
- Personalization appeals to 90% of US consumers as “very” or “somewhat” appealing.
- 81% of customers want the brands they interact with to have a deeper understanding of them.
- Although 60% of businesses find it difficult, 77% of businesses think that real-time customisation is valuable.
Businesses may meet customer expectations for personalization by implementing marketing automation. It enables brands to:
- Gather and examine customer data
- Create specialized advertising campaigns.
- Deliver and publish digital marketing content to the appropriate audiences at the appropriate times.
Numerous marketing automation solutions base their decisions about whether and how to follow up on a prospect’s engagement—or lack thereof—with a specific message. With this degree of real-time personalization, you can efficiently develop a unique marketing plan for every client without needing to spend extra time on it.
You may communicate with your audience through transactional emails, date-based automations, behavior-based automations, and more with Mailchimp’s marketing automation capabilities.
Email promotion
Email marketing works on a straightforward principle: you send a sales message and hope that your potential customer clicks on it. The implementation is far more intricate, though. You must first confirm that recipients of your emails wish to receive them. Having an opt-in list that accomplishes the following is necessary.
- personalizes the information in the body and subject line
- Clearly states the type of emails the subscriber will receive.
- An unsubscribe option that is clearly visible in the email signature
- incorporates promotional and transactional emails
You want potential customers to view your campaign as more than just a sales tool—rather, as a valuable service.
Email marketing is a tried-and-true method on its own; according to 89% of professionals questioned, it is the best way to generate leads.
If you use additional digital marketing strategies, like marketing automation, which enables you to better target and schedule your emails based on the demands of your customers, it can be much more effective.
Here are some pointers to help you create effective email marketing campaigns if you’re thinking about using email marketing:
- Divide up your audience so that the appropriate people receive relevant campaigns.
- Make sure emails display well on smartphones.
- Make a schedule for your campaign.
- Conduct A/B experiments.
marketing on mobile
With the help of mobile marketing, you can interact with your target market via their mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones. This can be done through alerts from mobile apps, social media posts, SMS and MMS messages, and more at mailchimp.com
Ensuring that all content is mobile-friendly is imperative. Since 85% of Americans own a smartphone, producing content for computer and mobile screens can greatly enhance your marketing efforts. This is according to the Pew Research Center.
The advantages of internet marketing
The fact that digital marketing can reach such a large audience has contributed to its rise in popularity. It does, however, provide a host of additional benefits that can strengthen your marketing initiatives. These are just a handful of the advantages of internet marketing.
a wide geographical scope
If you haven’t set a geographical restriction on your advertisement, anyone can view it when you post it online. This makes it simple to expand the market reach of your company and establish connections with more people through various digital channels.
Economy of cost
In addition to reaching a larger audience than traditional marketing, digital marketing is also less expensive. Television commercials, newspaper ads, and other traditional marketing opportunities can have significant overhead costs. Additionally, they give you less control over whether or not the messages intended for your target audiences are seen at all at mailchimp.com
As long as your blog is up and running, you can use digital marketing to create just one piece of content that drives traffic to it. A scheduled email marketing campaign that targets specific customer lists can be easily created, and if the schedule or content needs to be changed, it’s simple to do so.
All things considered, digital marketing offers you far greater flexibility and client interaction for your advertising investment.
Results that can be measured
You must ascertain the number of consumers your marketing strategy draws in addition to the total amount of revenue it generates in order to determine its effectiveness. However, how can one achieve that using a non-digital marketing approach?
The conventional approach of inquiring about each customer’s method of finding us is always available.”
Sadly, not all industries can benefit from that. Many businesses are unable to speak with customers one-on-one, and surveys may not always yield full responses.
Digital marketing software and platforms automatically track the quantity of desired conversions that you get, whether that means email open rates, home page visits, or direct purchases. This makes results monitoring with digital marketing easy.
Simpler customization
In contrast to offline marketing, digital marketing enables you to collect customer data in a way that’s much more precise and specific.
Assuming you are a financial services provider, you would like to send out special offers to online users who have viewed your products. Since you know that tailoring the offer to the individual’s interests will increase response rates, you prepare two campaigns: one for young families who have viewed your life insurance products, and another for millennial entrepreneurs who have looked at your retirement plans.
Without automated tracking, how would you collect all that data? How many phone records would you need to search through? How many customer profiles would you need to compile? How would you determine who has and hasn’t read the brochure you sent out?
You already have access to all of this information with digital marketing.
Increased interaction with clients
Real-time communication with your customers is made possible by digital marketing; moreover, it allows them to communicate with you at mailchimp.com
Consider your social media strategy. While it’s wonderful that your target audience is seeing your most recent post, it’s even more satisfying when they are commenting on it or sharing it, as this generates more buzz about your offering and increases your visibility each time a new member of the community joins the discussion.
Customers gain from interaction as well because it makes them feel like active participants in your brand’s narrative, which can foster a strong sense of brand loyalty.
Simple and practical conversions
With traditional advertisements, the most immediate result you can hope for is a phone call shortly after someone views your ad. But how often does someone have the time to reach out to a company while they’re doing the dishes, driving down the highway, or updating records at work? In contrast, digital marketing allows your customers to take action immediately after viewing your ad or content.
Even though they might not buy anything right away, they can click on a link or bookmark a blog post and proceed straight through the sales funnel with digital marketing. This allows you to stay in contact with them and give you the opportunity to engage with them further.
How to formulate a strategy for digital marketing
The following steps can help you create an effective digital marketing strategy to increase brand awareness, engagement, and sales. Getting started with digital marketing can be challenging for many small businesses and novice marketers.
Establish SMART objectives.
Any marketing strategy must have goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely (SMART). While you may have a long list of goals, concentrate on the ones that will advance your strategy rather than cause it to stall.
Determine who your audience is.
Your target audience is the group of people you want your campaign to reach based on similar attributes, such as age, gender, demographic, or purchasing behavior. Knowing your target audience well will help you choose which digital marketing channels to use and what information to include in your campaigns. Determining your target audience is the first step in creating any marketing campaign.
Make a financial plan.
Think about your SMART goals and the digital channel you’re planning to utilize to set a budget. This will ensure that you’re spending your money wisely towards your goals rather than splurging on digital marketing channels that might not offer the intended outcomes.
Choose the channels you want to use for digital marketing.
You can leverage a wide range of digital marketing platforms, such as PPC ads and content marketing, depending on your objectives, target audience, and financial constraints.
Streamline your advertising campaigns.
In order to create even better campaigns in the future, make sure to analyze the campaign’s data after it has concluded. You can obtain this data in an easily readable dashboard with the aid of digital technologies and software. Mailchimp’s digital marketing analytics reports will assist you in keeping track of all your marketing campaigns in one convenient location.
Growth is produced by digital marketing at mailchimp.com
The more you embrace the possibilities of digital marketing, the more you’ll be able to realize the growth potential of your company. Digital marketing should be one of the main focuses of almost any business’s overall marketing strategy. Nothing else offers the level of personalization that digital data can provide. There has never been a way to stay in such consistent contact with your customers.
