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What is digital marketing, how to use it for your business?

Some people who had never heard about digital marketing (like me before I studied a digital marketing degree) are probably unaware that digital marketing has existed for a long time, even long before the Covid pandemic. 

So, what is digital marketing?

Digital marketing also refers to online marketing. It uses online channels such as social media, search engines, websites, podcasts, etc, to promote a product or a service.

 

There are many types of digital marketing; for example, Search engine optimisation: SEO increases a company’s visibility in Google search results and drives traffic to its website, improving sales conversion rate and ROI. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is a part of Search Engine Management(SEM),  and so is Pay Per Click(PPC). 

 

The difference between SEO and PPC is that SEO drives organic traffic. But Pay Per Click drive traffic using paid ads.

Companies often use both SEO and PPC to drive traffic to their business because the nature of SEO organic traffic can take a long time to see the results; however, PPC can deliver the results in a very short time. 

There are three types of SEO:

1. Technical SEO:

How to make a website crawlable by Google search engine; this is where technical SEO comes in; optimising a website to be indexed and crawled by Google search engine is the foundation of SEO success.

2. On-Page SEO:

This is all about the content, optimising the content to a higher level of quality, including relevant and authoritative information for people to read.

Optimise compelling title and accurate meta description that answers Google search engine queries. And the information structure is well-designed to deliver a high-quality user experience. 

3. Off-Page SEO:

Optimize the website with link building and improve website ranking and authority to other trusted and more authoritative websites.   

Social media marketing

Use social media platforms to promote a product or service, engage with target customers, and build relationships with them. 

 

Find out which platform your target customers spend most of their time on. Once you know where your customers are, you can put your marketing effort into that platform to build a community.

 

Of course, to build your brand awareness

 

Social media platforms are great tools to build brand awareness and manage customer relationships.

For example, suppose your target customers are middle-class professionals aged from 30 to 50 years old, well-educated, and with annual income above 35000 euros. You should consider using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Why should you use social media marketing?

Social media marketing is essential for any business. No matter what product or service you are offering, marketing your business on social media platforms will help you to achieve your business goals.

 

There is a massive online market no one can afford to ignore if you want a successful business. Your business needs to be online because your target customers are online.

 

Your business must be visible online when customers search for a product or a service.

 

Your business needs to be on social media platforms because your target customers are on social media platforms.

 

A recent data report from global social media statistics shows that social media users worldwide reached 4.80 billion on April 2023.

59.9% of the worldwide population, plus an estimated 150 million new users, joined social media between April 2022 and April 2023. 

Email marketing

Use of sending emails to promote products or services. Email marketing is the most directive and effective marketing tool in digital marketing.  

Businesses can use email marketing to build a trusting relationship with their customers and keep them engaged, generate leads for the company, and increase sales.

Pros: 

Help businesses build trust and positive relationships with target customers.

Driving traffic to your website, social media platforms, or blogs.

Create email messages tailored to each customer’s buying journey stage.

Personalise email messages to target customers.

Cons: 

Emails ended up in the customer’s spam or junk mail folder.

The email contains a large size of video or image, slow to load or open the email.

The email opening rate is unstable. 

Content marketing

Content marketing is a strategy that focuses on creating content to attract and build a long-term relationship with your target customers, ultimately bringing profit to your brand.

For example, Blogs, newsletters, white papers, social media posts, emails, images and videos.

Importance of content marketing to business success:

  • Generates leads for your business.
  • Build a sustainable relationship with your customers.
  • Improve customers’ loyalty to your brand.
  • Increase your sales and ROI.

A brand creates valuable, relevant, high-quality content that drives traffic to its business, builds a trusting relationship with its target customers, and establishes authority in search engines.

Consistent is vital when it comes to content marketing. You need to constantly nurture your target customers and maintain their attention towards your business so that they are more likely to choose you when they are ready to buy.

Why should you use content marketing for your business?

Here is the data you should know. According to Content Marketing Statistics 2023, over 90% of companies use content marketing in their marketing effort, whether social media posts, blog posts, websites, etc. 

You can use many tools to create content, for instance, Visme. An all-in-one content creation tool created for non-designers. 

If you want to find out more about Visme and why it is called an all-in-one content creation tool, check out my Visme review post. It will tell you all about what you can actually do on Visme

You can create almost any type of content on Visme, images, infographics, presentations, social media posts, and videos. 

Video is one of the most popular content and continues for years to come. 

Video usage continues to thrive in its popularity in 2023. Here is a video usage survey 2023 result.

This video marketing statistic 2023 shows you the future trend, and it gives you an insight into whether you should or should not invest in video marketing in your business.

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is a collaborative relationship between a brand and an influencer.

This influencer is usually knowledgeable and influential in the business niche. It acts as a trusted promoter and advocator for a brand on various social channels, such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

  • An influencer does not have to be a celebrity or have millions of followers. The influencer marketing hub benchmark report 2023 shows companies’ preferences in choosing an influencer.
  • 39% of companies would work with Nano-influencers with 1K to 10K followers.
  • 30% of companies would work with micro-influencers with 10K to 100K followers.
  • 19% of companies would work with macro-influencers with 100K to IM followers.
  • Only 12% of companies would work with mega/celebrity influencers.

What are the benefits of influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is an effective marketing strategy for a brand to achieve goals, for example:

  • Increasing brand awareness
  • Reaching out to target customers
  • Increasing sales conversions

Harvard Business Review identified seven factors of influencer marketing strategy that help a brand increase its ROI.

What they found indicates influencer marketing will continue to be one of the most effective marketing strategies in 2023.

Data from the Influencer marketing hub benchmark report 2023 predicts influencer marketing will grow to 21.1 billion dollars in 2023.

This means companies will continue investing in influencer marketing to grow their business, despite the increasing macroeconomic downturn and global inflation.

Companies are cutting back other expenses but are strongly willing to use influencers to increase sales.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing promotes other people’s products or services and earns a small commission from each sale. That is pretty much it.

Many bloggers, YouTubers, and podcasters use affiliate marketing to boost their income, and they often share one or more affiliate links on their channels.

How is affiliate marketing work?

A company usually generates an affiliate program and shows a unique advertisement link.

When the customer clicks the link and purchases the product or service, the person who owns the unique link gets paid a commission.

How to get started on affiliate marketing in 3 steps:

Step 1: Choosing the right niche is the first step and is also the most important step.

Choose a niche you are passionate about or know about and would like to share with others.

Choose a platform that works for your niche and start from small rather than big.

Many new startups chose Amazon, or you could choose a profitable programme in your niche.

Create content for your affiliate programme. Popular contents for affiliate programmes include product reviews, tutorials, eBooks and blogs.

Step 2: Drive traffic to your affiliate site.

I listed below three tactics driving traffic to your affiliate programme that won’t cost you an arm or leg:

  1. social media channels are free to build your audience.
  2. SEO keywords are free to rank your site.
  3. Email marketing is free to get personalised connections with your audience.
Step 3: Track and monitor your affiliate revenue.

You can track your KPIs on your affiliate programme, analyse what worked and what didn’t, which product makes the most revenue and which channel brings the most conversion to your affiliate programme.

Leverage your success and learn from your mistakes; do not give up. 

Conclusion

Digital marketing continues to expand in 2023, and an estimated digital advertising and marketing market will reach 786.2 billion dollars by 2027.  

This blog gives you a brief overview of digital marketing, and there are many resources to learn digital marketing skills to help your business grows.

My blog is one of the free digital marketing resources.

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If you have any topic you want to discuss, please leave a comment to me, I would love to hear from you.

I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Thank you for reading my blog, and I will see you next time.

Let me ask you a question before I let you go, have you used digital marketing strategies in your business?