What is Digital Marketing | Your Complete Guide

Fact: Millions of people shop online. Matter of fact, the number is likely more than a third of the world population, which is estimated to be 2.71 billion. This fact alone shows that being online is a must for any business.

Real world marketing just ain't cutting it. It's like finding where people are and most of them happen to be online. And that's where digital marketing comes in. The term "digital marketing" is just a fancy way of saying, "Hey, I do my marketing online".

For anybody out there who could be interested in finding out how marketing is done online, then you have covered. Just sit tight, and within a twinkle of an eye, We will let you know every detail concerning digital marketing that you need to have at your fingertips. Let's go!

What is Digital Marketing?

Let's break down what digital marketing really means.

Speaking about digital marketing would mean all the ways the company does promote itself in online advertising. This could be anything from how it pops up on Google searches, things it posts in the social media world, what it emails to whom, what ads are placed on the internet, and how it runs its website.

Thus, most businesses these days adopt digital marketing, considering the fact that most people are there—online, that is. The objective would be to reach the products or services to those who may find use in them and therefore be the consumers of your products or services.

This includes everything from your website to your social media pages and everything in between. This includes, among others, online advertising or mailed-out emails or even those electronic brochures.

Digital marketing started off in the 1990s when people started using the internet.

By 2026, experts say businesses across the world will have spent a chunk of $835 billion on digital advertising. That will be clicking on ads and seeing banners on websites.

The Expert Market Research report has estimated, in turn, that the amount of digital marketing has exceeded the amount of $363 billion in the US by 2023. It is a really great amount of money invested in making information online about offers of products and services!

Why You Can't Afford to Ignore It?

Nowadays, some companies take digital marketing seriously, and I always tell them that it's a must-have. In the past, companies used to put a lot of money in billboards, but now everything has gone online.

However, they make more money than traditional media companies combined. Coupled with the fact that every single human is stuck to their phone screens 24/7, advertising on mobile devices is like having little billboards all around you.

Think of it: Almost everyone has a mobile phone, and most do use the internet and social media regularly. There is a growing trend while traditional advertisements in places like newspapers or magazines are declining.

So, if you want people to notice your business, you gotta be where they are - online.

It is not only for large companies but even the smallest stores; they all should take advantage of digital marketing. According to a survey by Digital.com 43% of people more often than not check online before paying a visit to the store physically.

Mobile phone use is huge, and it's only getting bigger.

Check out these numbers:

• There are 5.44 billion people using mobile phones worldwide.
• About 5.16 billion people use the internet.
• And there are 4.76 billion people on social media.

That's a lot of people! Plus, the number of devices connected to the internet keeps going up, while old-school print ads are becoming less popular. Basically, the numbers speak for themselves.

One of the things that, on the other hand, makes digital marketing really cool is the fact that it comes with a lot of data. Out of this, one can know what interests people, and they can even do their marketing in line with their interests.

Apart from that, you are in a position to reach many people via social media platforms, which happen to be far cheaper compared to TV adverts and other traditional means.

Digital marketing can be the perfect way through which you will be in touch with many people, even those that might have gone dormant but still have a great interest in your brand.

From there, it is easy to monitor the progress of your campaigns so that you get to know whether a method you apply is working or not.

So, here's the deal: most likely, your competition is into digital marketing, so you wouldn't want to be left behind, right? Digital marketing presents you with a great chance to make yourself and your business profile.

Types of Digital Marketing

Just as digital media has many different possible uses, digital marketing has many different parts. A few examples of the many possible methods of digital marketing are going to be represented here.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) forms a very crucial part of the process of digital marketing. This is basically the process by which improvements are done to your website to appear on the best front in the results when searched.

Here is how this might be done:

On-site SEO: This is practically where all the words and information of your website are located to be found when people look for things on the net. It must even have the right words matching what the people are searching for.

Off-page SEO: It includes all the techniques not directly applicable to the site but to the external world, generally other sites. Here comes into play the number of links with reputation from other sites for the results of a search.

Technical SEO: It organizes your website in such a way that search engines, for example, Google, will understand it. This can be such things as making your images load fast and your site easy to scroll through.

All these things together can help your website get more visitors from search engines.

For a practical example to know about SEO you can take a see this video for your perfect guidance.

2. Content Marketing

Here’s a famous saying "Marketing is not just about what you sell, but the stories you share."

That’s what content marketing is all about.

If you use engaging and informative content, you'll be able in a position to win the trust of people, it shows that you're an expert in your particular era and this thing will arouse interest of those people.

These may come as blogs, videos, emails, or whatever format best suits the message that needs to be expressed.

Content marketing is not about trying to sell something, but in turn, it imparts teaching, entertaining, or helping with problems. It creates relations between a brand and its audience, whereby they encourage increased propensity to buy from them.

Content marketing also helps SEO, as search engines demand fresh and new content.
According to a study, 75% of people feel that content marketing is either trustworthy to them, or they know a brand because of content marketing.
But here’s the catch: content marketing takes time and is a long-term plan.

According to my research, the company that is applying content marketing is HubSpot. They do that through blogging, video, and podcasting to talk to their people. They also give away free stuff, like templates and e-books, to keep them interested.

3. Social Media Marketing

It is always about using the social media platform to get people aware of your brand and content. With social media, it will be able to reach out to more people who are yet to know about your business, hence visit the website and possibly become customers.

It's okay; social media can be overwhelming. Don't worry if you're not a regular on all these platforms; few of us are. There are tools to help you—like HubSpot. It will aid in the management of several social accounts in one place. You'll be in a position to schedule various posts on numerous platforms and even get to analyze how the post is fairing.

Here are some tools that you can use for social media marketing:

• HubSpot

• Buffer

• Hootsuite

• Sprout Social

• Canva

• SocialBee

• Later

• SocialPilot

• Agorapulse

• CoSchedule

One even uses Snapchat and Pinterest. Endangered Species: Can be marketed on plenty of social media platforms too, like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Social media marketing can work wonders because it gets people involved. Social would top the list of digital marketing services seeking to reach consumers, with 96% of consumers using it. Even many businesses selling to other businesses have caught on to the potential. In fact, the Content Marketing Institute found 61% of B2B content marketers are using social media more this year.

In other words, most marketers try really hard to make something go viral on social media. I mean, they want tons of people to share with their friends. Sometimes popular social media stars work with them, or they join the trend of a large number of people talking about this or that. The goal is to make something that people want to share with others on social media.

4. Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay Per Click (PPC) is a way to bring people to your website by paying each time someone clicks on your ad.

Among the most popular is Google Ads PPC. This allows you to pay to have your website come up at the top of the Google search results when people look up certain keywords.

You can also use PPC on Facebook. In other words, you can pay for your videos, images, or slideshows to be advertised in the newsfeeds of people who can be potential customers of your business.

From a PPC campaign, you set goals of what you want people to do once they click your ad. These are termed conversions and could be things like the person buying something, the person signing up for a newsletter, or calling your office.

Whatever your objectives, you can monitor campaign performance with the selected tools of digital marketing.

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing is quite simple: sending people emails filled with offers in the hope that they simply click on them. But that's not all there is to it.

First, make sure people actually want your emails. That means they have signed up to get them and know what to expect. Always give them an easy way to unsubscribe if they want, and it should be clear.

You want people to see your emails as helpful, not just ads.

Email marketing works really well - in fact, 89% of pros say it's their best way to get new leads. It works best, especially when you use other digital marketing tricks, like automation. This also enables an entrepreneur to time sending emails to respective individuals.

Here are a few tips for great email marketing:

• Send different emails to different groups of people

• Make sure your emails look good on phones

• Stick to a schedule

• Test out different ideas to see what works best

6. Affiliate Marketing

This is, therefore, a marketing approach in which one earns money through promoting the products or services belonging to others on your website. Affiliate marketing can take place in several ways:

1. You can host video ads on your YouTube channel as part of the YouTube Partner Program.
2. You can share affiliate links on your social media profiles.

This is part of a newer trend called influencer marketing. If you are working with a good influencer, it can significantly boost your affiliate marketing efforts. Finding the right influencers can enhance your digital campaign tremendously.

Benefits You Need to Know

Reach:

Your scope of reach is enhanced through digital marketing compared to traditional methods. You have access to the entire world while using the Internet, where you can reach people.

Cost-effective:

Most of the time, it is way cheaper than traditional marketing. You can achieve thousands and thousands of people from social media or email without spending big bunches of money.

Targeting:

Digital marketing has the tendency to make sure that one focuses on particular groups of people who may be interested in one's product or service. By doing so, channelled marketing is easy.

Measurable results:

It makes it possible to measure how far your marketing campaigns are fairing in real-time. This helps one make a decision on what really works for them and what does not, and thus changes would be effected where necessary.

Engagement:

With the digital platform, it is easy for an interactive two-way communication process between a company and its audience to be realized. Interaction with customers may come from social media, emails, and comments that create a proper relationship, hence loyalty.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Digital Marketing

If digital marketing gives you benefits then there'll be drawbacks too. Here's a breakdown:

Advantages	Disadvantages
Wide Reach: Can be used to reach a broad audience both locally and internationally.	Competition: Many businesses use digital marketing, hence the competition level is very high.
Targeted Advertising: It allows for the targeting of a certain demographic division only.	Special Technical Skills Required: It requires some knowledge of using digital tools and platforms.
Cost-effective: In most instances, it's much cheaper compared to traditional marketing methods.	Dependence on Technology: The platform highly depends on the growing technologies; it is therefore subject to changes.
Easy to measure results: It is easy to measure, track, and analyze the performance of the campaign.	Security Concerns: This may create data security and privacy issues.
Engagement: They refer to opportunities where customers could interactively be engaged.	Overwhelm: Numerous adverts in the digital space have been known to overwhelm users with sheer volumes of ads.

Inbound Marketing vs Digital Marketing

Let's break it down:

"Inbound Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: What's the Difference?

Inbound marketing is all about using online tools to bring in, engage with, and make customers happy.

Digital marketing, on the other hand, covers all types of online marketing, whether it's inbound or outbound.

As digital marketing is much more of an umbrella term used to generalize everything found online, inbound marketing is the strategy used in the huge concept. Even though you are reaching hundreds, thousands, or millions of people through your online marketing, most of them were not your target audience in the first place.

Just think of the ads that you see on websites sometimes. The primary focus of digital outbound tactics is to put a marketing message in front of as many people online as possible, even though most of them are not your targeted customers.

"But inbound marketing pulls people in by providing stuff that is useful and helpful to them. It is somewhat like having a blog on your site, answering questions your customers have." This simplifies the comparison between inbound and digital marketing for easy understanding.

How You Can Become a Digital Marketer?

Here's a simplified guide on how you can become a digital marketer:

Learn at least the basics. Begin from the very first: what is digital marketing? There are a lot of free sources on the Internet which might help: articles, videos, tutorials.

Courses:

You could also attend some courses on very particular topics or workshops online, right in the area of digital marketing, like SEO, social media marketing, or email marketing.

Practice:

Use your knowledge for good effect in creating an online website, blog, or social media profiles for you. Try to experiment with the strategies and see what brings the best results.

Get Certified:

Most of these certifications in the field of digital marketing are given by the giants in the field, from Google to HubSpot and Facebook. Certification adds to the trust that an individual is qualified in the field of digital marketing.

Stay updated:

Be keen on the digital marketing trends, tools, and tips, as they are shifting. Look at some tips from industry blogs, webinars, online seminars, and online communities.

Networking:

Use social media, discuss with others in person by joining networking events, and also online by being active on the discussion forums in your area of expertise to be able to meet and network with other digital marketers and professionals in the field.

By following this you'll grow and learn with each passing day as a digital marketer. Networking with people can sometimes also bring in opportunities for partnerships in business or career growth. If you follow these footsteps further and will be dedicated to learning and growth in this particular line, then surely the doors of success in digital marketing shall be opened up for you.