Digital marketing

Unit 1

Meaning of digital marketing;

The term digital marketing refers to the use of digital channels to market products and services
in order to reach consumers.
This type of marketing involves the use of websites, mobile devices, social media, search
engines, and other similar channels.
Digital marketing became popular with the advent of the internet in the 1990s.

This form of marketing is different from internet marketing, which is exclusively done on
websites.

Features of digital marketing

Digital marketing can be defined simply as a marketing technique through any digital platform.
People, and their lifestyle, entirely changed over the past few decades. Likewise, the
conventional method of shopping also changed. Now, an entrepreneur must reach his/her
customers at the right time to establish business profitably. Making your presence online will
bring huge customers to your business. Hence, you must know why is it important for a business.

1. Flexibility - There are plenty of ways by which you can do digital marketing like email
marketing, social media posts, content marketing, banner ads, etc. Hence, your
responsibility is to choose an appropriate medium of marketing platform. You can also
utilize all the possible mediums to increase your visibility and brand awareness. It also
helps you to analyze through which medium you get better responses and what kind of
campaign is being effective.

2. Affordability - Digital Marketing methods are reasonable compared to other methods of

marketing. Prices may vary based on the technique you implement. Besides, expenses for
advertisements are also comparatively low in digital marketing.

3. Expansion - A majority of people spent a huge amount on online shopping. When

shopping even from far-flung areas is made easy in a few clicks and nominal, people will
choose online shopping. Digital marketing can be applied here to attract customers. You
can promote your products and services through severe paid campaigns. This will help
you to drive more traffic to websites quickly with less effort.

4. Interactivity - It opens up a platform for you to directly interact with the customers. You
can receive reviews, comments, and feedback from the customer and respond to it to gain
the customer's trust. This will also make them feel respected and encourage them to
engage in more business deals with you.
 5. Mobile phones - Almost everybody owns a smartphone in the present day. You can
easily reach your customers via email/text message marketing, banner ads in apps, social
media promotions, etc, and keep them updated about your products, services, and offers.
It is the best way to reach more targeted customers at a given point in time.

6. Multimedia - People tend to engage more with marketing materials that combine
different types of content like photos and videos. It is easier to involve these contents in
digital marketing. Thus, this type of marketing lets you attract more customers to your
site.

7. Tracking - Besides communication, it also lets you track which campaigns lead a
customer to conversion. Thus, it is easy for you to concentrate on the area that is bringing
more traffic to your site and boost your efforts over there. Likewise, you can rework on
the techniques which are not beneficial.

All the above features make it clear that digital marketing can bring
profitable business to you to a large extent.

Difference between digital and traditional form of marketing

Both of these are marketing techniques used by individuals as well as corporations all
around the world. However, there is a huge difference between traditional marketing and
digital marketing. While traditional marketing refers to all the old-fashioned ways of
marketing a product via print media and electronic media, digital marketing is inclusive
of all the avant-garde methods involving technology and digital media.

What is Traditional Marketing?

It refers to the old methods and techniques used in marketing a product, a service, or a brand as a
whole. Traditional marketing involves printed advertisements, promotions, flyers, TV ads,
billboards, radio ads, newspaper ads, magazine promotions, etc.
Companies generally use traditional marketing in the beginning and switch to digital marketing
later. But one must never lose touch with traditional marketing.
It involves four major phases:
Step 1: Interest
Step 2: Awareness
Step 3: Desire
Step 4: Decision
What is Digital Marketing?
It refers to the new methods and techniques used in marketing a product, a service, or a brand as
a whole. Digital marketing refers to the promotion, branding, and selling of products using
online marketing techniques. It involves various digital media services, such as Facebook,
Google, YouTube, Instagram, etc. Nowadays, digital marketing is not limited to major platforms.
The digital ad campaigns run everywhere- while redirecting to a website or a blog, in freemium
apps, gaming platforms, 0TT platforms, etc.
It involves four major phases:
Step 1: Planning
Step 2: Conversation
Step 3: Content
Step 4: Sequels

Difference between Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing

Let us talk about the differences between Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing.

Parameters Traditional Marketing Digital Marketing

Basics It refers to the process of promoting It refers to the process of promoting a product
a product or a service using or a service using modern methods and digital
traditional methods, such as media, such as SEO, SEM, PPC, Adwords,
telephone, television, broadcast, Affiliation, and many more.
print media, banners, sponsorship,
door-to-door campaigns, and many
more.

Cost of Traditional marketing methods cost Digital marketing is mostly cost effective.
Marketing more. This option is not very cost- Sometimes, it is free- for example, Social
effective. Media Marketing.

Branding It is not a good option for branding. It is a more effective method for branding.

Ease of It is easy to learn, practice, The ease of learning digital marketing depends
Learning experiment, and deploy traditional on an individual’s exposure to online content,
marketing techniques. understanding of tools, and experience in the
industry.

Measurement of It is not easy to measure how well It is easy to measure the effectiveness of your
Effectiveness your traditional marketing campaign digital marketing campaign using various
is working among the masses. analytical tools like SEMRush, Google
Analytics, etc.
 Examples Traditional marketing is performed Digital marketing is performed using SEO
using radio ads, TV ads, banner ads, (Search Engine Optimization), SMM (Social
print ads, sponsorships, broadcast, Media Marketing), SEM (Search Engine
radio ads, door-to-door campaigns, Marketing), PPC (Pay Per Click) Ads, Content
and many more. Marketing, Web Designing, Email Marketing,
SMS Marketing, Push Notifications, and many
more.

Content Marketing

The goal of content marketing is to reach potential customers through the use of content.
Content is usually published on a website and then promoted through social media, email
marketing, search engine optimization, or even pay-per-click campaigns. The tools of content
marketing include blogs, ebooks, online courses, info graphics, podcasts, and webinars.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website
traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic (known as
"natural" or "organic" results) rather than direct traffic or paid traffic. Unpaid traffic may
originate from different kinds of searches, including image search, video search, academic
search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines

To win at organic search, you need to understand many complex concepts, including keyword
research, backlinks, and how Google’s algorithms treat page experience and trust signals. Search
engine optimization is one of the most complicated channels you can leverage. But it’s also the
most powerful.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a digital marketing technique used by marketers to promote products and
services. Businesses use email marketing software to connect with their target audience in a
personalized way and boost sales at an affordable cost.

Email marketing is still one of the most effective digital marketing channels. Many people
confuse email marketing with spam email messages, but that’s not what email marketing is all
about. This type of marketing allows companies to get in touch with potential customers and
anyone interested in their brands.
Many digital marketers use all other digital marketing channels to add leads to their email lists
and then, through email marketing, they create customer acquisition funnels to turn those leads
into customers.

Social media marketing

Companies use social media marketing to build brand awareness, improve branding, boost
audience engagement, and nurture relationships.

Social media platforms are a critical digital marketing channel for building customer
relationships because your audience naturally shares their thoughts and feelings. These networks
also facilitate constructive dialogue (sometimes in real-time) between brands and their
customers, or potential customers.

But should you have a presence on Instagram or Pinterest? What about Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn or other niche platforms?

Users have certain expectations when they visit specific social media platforms, and they use
each network differently. For example, they share certain types of media (images, video, etc.), or
post about different topics (i.e., conversations and sharing, imagery-focused, UGC-focused,
video, etc.).

Furthermore, social media platforms attract different demographics. So understand which

networks your audience prefers.

 Social media marketing (SMM) uses social media and social networks—like Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram—to market products and services, engage with existing
customers, and reach new ones.
 The power of social media marketing comes from the unparalleled capacity of social
media in three core marketing areas: connection, interaction, and customer data.

Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is the process of paying third parties, such as bloggers, publishers,
influencers, entrepreneurs, and other website owners, to promote your products. It’s basically a
pay-for-performance marketing program through which you outsource sales promotions to a
network of affiliates.
With affiliate marketing, an affiliate promotes your product to their audience typically through
an affiliate link in a website, blog, email, or on social media. When someone clicks through and
completes a purchase, the affiliate earns a payment from the brand based on an agreed-upon
percentage. No payments are made unless actual transactions are completed. As such, affiliate
marketing has tremendous upside for brands with only a limited downside.

Intent based marketing

Intent based marketing involves marketing a service or product based on a customer’s online
actions that indicate their intent to purchase or consume your products or services.

Intent based marketing is focused on buyer intent. Said differently, what customers are interested
in buying now, what they want, and where they want it.

Search advertising

Search advertising, often called paid search advertising or search engine marketing, is a
marketing technique that involves placing digital advertisements inside search engine
results. Companies that run search advertising campaigns pay a small fee each time someone
clicks on one of their ads.

Paid search advertising (also known as sponsored ads, search marketing, search-engine
marketing, pay-per-click marketing, and cost-per-click marketing) is a technique that displays
ads in search-engine results whenever someone searches for the services or products offered by
the advertiser. In this way, the ad displayed perfectly matches each query.

Search advertising is very effective; it is based on the explicit need of the users, rather than just
on implicit information about what they might be after. This, naturally, increases the likelihood
of clicks and conversion.

Brand based display advertising

Display advertising refers to the process of advertising a product or service through visuals
like images and videos on networks of publisher websites such as the Google Display
Network and Facebook etc.

Display ads are placed on relevant third-party websites in the form of banner, image, and text
ads.
Most successful display advertising campaigns use a clever combination of images, text, gifs,
and videos to stand out on the internet and send their message across to the targeted audience.

What Is Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing is any advertising activity that promotes products and services via mobile
devices, such as tablets and smartphones. It makes use of features of modern mobile
technology, including location services, to tailor marketing campaigns based on an individual's
location.

Mobile marketing may include promotions sent through SMS text messaging, MMS multimedia
messaging, through downloaded apps using push notifications, through in-app or in-game
marketing, through mobile websites, or by using a mobile device to scan QR codes.

 Mobile marketing audiences are grouped by behaviors and not by demographics.

 Marketing faces privacy issues related to data collection.

Community based social media marketing

In simple terms, community marketing seeks to provide a platform to the brand’s audience.
People can communicate with the company and with other followers of the brand. Customers
feel more valued when given a stage to build genuine, human connections.

Community-based marketing is, as it says: marketing tactics that target a community.

Community-based marketing allows brands to engage with their audience actively rather than
simply pushing a message.