What the Heck Is Digital Marketing?

 

Digital marketing is the practice of promoting and selling goods and services through the use of websites, apps, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other digital tools.

Digital marketing is typically seen as an extra means for businesses to reach customers and learn about their behavior, and it incorporates many of the same concepts as traditional marketing. Businesses frequently integrate digital and conventional marketing strategies. But there are drawbacks to digital marketing as well. When the internet became widely used in the 1990s, digital marketing began to gain popularity.

History

When the Archie search engine was developed in 1990 as an index for FTP sites, digital marketing officially got underway. Vast amounts of consumer data could already be stored on computers in the 1980s due to their vast storage capacities. Instead of using limited list brokers, businesses began utilizing online strategies like database marketing.

In the first four months after the launch of AT&T's "You Will" campaign in 1994, 44% of all viewers clicked on the ad, making it the first clickable banner ad. Simple HTML websites and the emerging technique of email marketing, which facilitated direct consumer engagement, were the main focus of early digital marketing initiatives.

How Digital Marketing Works?

Companies can employ a variety of media and strategies under the umbrella of marketing to increase their market share and advertise their goods and services to prospective customers. It takes both sales and advertising acumen to succeed. Internally at individual businesses or externally at marketing organizations that may cater to a wide range of clients, professional marketers handle these responsibilities.

Because they had nothing else, businesses used to concentrate on marketing through radio, television, and print. While such choices are still available, digital marketing emerged as a result of the internet, which also provided businesses with an additional means of connecting with customers.

Types of Digital Marketing Channels

Website Marketing

The focal point of a company's digital marketing efforts is frequently its own website. The most successful websites clearly and memorably represent the business and its goods and services. Nowadays, a website needs to be quick to load, responsive, and simple to use.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

With pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, marketers can use sponsored advertisements to reach audiences on news websites and other digital platforms. PPC advertising can be displayed to users who search for phrases associated with their goods or services on Google, Bing, LinkedIn, X (previously Twitter), Pinterest, and Facebook.

These ads have the ability to divide up consumers according to their location, specific hobbies, or demographic traits (such age or gender).

Content Marketing

The objective of content marketing is to reach prospective clients by using interesting written, visual, or video content. A website often publishes that information, which is subsequently advertised via email marketing, social media, SEO, and even pay-per-click advertising. The goal of content marketing is to be less overt than advertising, and the sponsor's product or service may or may not be prominently included.

Email Marketing

One of the most effective digital marketing strategies is still email marketing, even though many consumers wrongly think that emails are spam and treat them as such. Several digital marketers use their other digital marketing tools to collect names for their email lists. Through email marketing, they then aim to turn those leads into customers.

Social Media Marketing

Establishing credibility and increasing brand awareness are the main objectives of a social media marketing campaign. As you delve deeper into social media marketing, you can use it as a direct marketing or sales channel and to generate leads. One type of social media marketing is promoted posts and tweets.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is among the oldest forms of marketing and has been resurrected by the internet era. Businesses and individual "influencers" who use affiliate marketing to promote another brand's products get paid every time a sale is made or a new lead is added to their list. Many well-known companies, including Amazon, have affiliate programs that pay out millions of dollars to affiliates who help sell their products.

Video Marketing

Websites like YouTube are visited by many internet users before making a purchase, learning a new skill, reading a review, or just relaxing. Marketers can utilize Facebook Videos, Instagram, and TikTok, among other platforms, to run a video marketing campaign. When used in conjunction with SEO, content marketing, and more extensive social media marketing campaigns, videos are most effective for businesses.

Text Messaging

Additionally, businesses employ text messaging, commonly referred to as short message services or SMS, to provide information about their newest offerings and special offers. Texting is another tool used by political candidates and nonprofits to advertise and raise money. Nowadays, a lot of advertising efforts allow customers to donate or pay with just a text message.

Digital Marketing Challenges

Marketing professionals face unique hurdles in the digital realm. Digital channels are growing quickly, for instance, and marketers need to stay up to date on them and learn how to use them efficiently. It may also be difficult for marketers to evaluate and effectively utilize the vast amount of data that these platforms allow them to collect.

Most significantly, customers are becoming more and more distracted by digital advertisements, making it harder to get their attention.

The Bottom Line

Due to the different ways that individuals consume media in the twenty-first century, marketers are increasingly, and occasionally exclusively, focusing on digital platforms for their campaigns. In addition to using many of the same strategies as traditional marketing through radio, television, and print, digital marketing also has its own set of tools that marketers must learn to use effectively.