Digital Marketing: What & Why?
Philip Kotler has defined marketing as “The science and art of exploring. Creating and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profitâ€. In simple terms marketing is defined as the process of creation and satisfaction of demand for a product, service or an idea. The sole objective of marketing is to generate sales which transforms into revenue thereby generating profits for the company.
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How does digital marketing come into picture?
Digital marketing is not different from traditional marketing. Both are same, the only difference being the medium. Digital marketing is specific to the digital world that is internet. With more and more people making their purchase decisions based on internet searches it is definitely not a medium to be overlooked.
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What is digital?
Digital is a combination of electronic devices and internet. All the marketing activities take place on internet. Products and services are promoted, distributed and sold via internet. It provides users the facility to frame their own experiences and gives marketers the ability to bridge gap, gain feedback, send repetitive messages and develop strong connections.
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Digital Marketing is powerful in two fundamental ways. First, the audience can be segmented very precisely, even down to factors like current location and recent brand interactions which means that messages can (and they should be ) personalized and tailored for a specific set of audience.
Second, the digital sphere is almost completely measurable. Every activity and every click by a customer can be registered. In digital you can always keep a track on how your campaigns are performing, which channels are getting in the most benefits and where should you focus your best efforts.
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Digital Marketing- Yes or No?
Whether or not your business needs digital marketing depends less on the nature of your business but more on where you want to take it in future. A dairy farmer supplying milk to a local milk cooperative, probably having no scope and ambition to grow and diversify business does not digital marketing. Another dairy farmer having his shop in the city and selling milk directly to consumers besides cooperatives aspires to further expand his business, develop and sell milk products not only to the local people but also to people outside his city and one day across the country; will definitely need digital marketing.
The digital marketing will help him create awareness, develop and promote brand, sell products directly, get feedback, target audience and grow business.     Â
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How to define digital marketing strategy?
Once you have a clear sense of your business and its marketing objectives you can define your digital marketing strategy and identify the most suitable digital channels to fulfill it. Any marketing strategy you define should be such that is constantly iterating and evolving. Since the internet allows for almost instantaneous feedback and data collection, digital marketing strategy should always be optimized and made more focused for the target audience. Option to measure and track almost everything: from behavior to actions and action paths is one of the key strengths of digital marketing.
The digital marketing strategy you define should always be in line with your organization’s overall business and brand building objectives. For example if the overall and current objective of business is to generate more sales the digital marketing strategy would be to run targeted ads on different platforms.
 
How to meet objectives?
Tactics are the specific tools or approaches that will help you meet your objectives. At times a strategy may become more complex when trying to achieve a bigger objective. So, multiple tactics work together targeting different segments of the bigger objective. Below given table lists in details what you can achieve with different digital marketing tactic.
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Tactic |
Outcome |
|---|---|
| SEO- It is the technique of optimizing a website so that it ranks higher on the search engine result pages. | Customer Retention and Acquisition- SEO has an important role to play in acquisition, as it ensures that your products and services appear on the first page of the search engine results. The SEO expert strives to rank your website higher than your competitors. This ensures better visibility and higher chances of customer acquisition and retention. |
| Search Advertising- You run ads for which you pay the search engine on pay-per-click basis. | Increased Sales and customer acquisition- Search advertising ensures that you reach all potential customers even if your website has still not come up in the rankings. Search advertising is keyword based thus it always reaches out to the people who are interested in what you are offering. |
| Online Advertising- It covers advertising on different platforms on the internet- Ads on social networks, ads on popular websites, ads in emails, etc | Branding and acquisition- The main objective of online advertising is to raise brand awareness online. This type of advertising is less disruptive as the viewers can chose whether to engage with the ad or not. Online advertising can be targeted to physical locations, past user behaviour, and other demographics. |
| Affiliate Marketing- It is a system whereby word of mouth promotion is encouraged. Both the people involved; the referrer and the referral are given incentive. | Sales and branding- This tactic is highly used to promote e commerce websites. It is a useful tactic to generate more sales and a stronger brand connect as more people are advocating for your brand. |
| Video Marketing- It involves creating video content. The videos can be used for video advertising or can be made to educate and inform people about a particular offering. | Branding, customer retention and value creation- Videos are the most engaging form of content thus they help build a stronger brand and better customer retention. If the message is correctly conveyed it boost’s the brand’s image in the eyes of the general audience. |
| Social Media- the media or the content in the form of text, audio, video, info graphics which can be shared online on different | Branding, value creation and participation- Social media has changed the complete landscape of digital marketing by |
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I understand the importance of digital marketing. Now how to start with it?
Its good if you have decided to start with digital marketing. With so much content on internet, tutorials on youtube, printed books in the market you can learn the art and start it on your own. But it is something which has to be taken up continuously and most diligently as you take care of other aspects of your business. That is where the experts come into picture, if you cannot time out of core activities of your business it is better to hire services of a Digital marketing company. Check out their expert domains, work closely with them, clearly state your objectives and define a strategy which best suits your business.
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Posted on 8th June 2020, by Mudit Mittal
You have a website and you have
something which people are looking for. The question is are your
customers finding you? Only having a good website in place does not
ensure customers dropping in and spending time on your website.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) takes care
of this. SEM if
harnessed effectively, will drive a sustainable pool of targeted traffic to your
website, and will ultimately result in an increase in revenue.
SEM is still growing and evolving at a rapid
pace, not because it is a relatively new concept(It has been there for more
than two decades) but because it is highly dynamic and fluid with more refined
methods and technology coming in each day. This dynamic nature makes the complete domain of internet marketing incredibly challenging and exciting.
An effective SEM strategy begins with website optimization. The process involves making the website suitable for the search engines to crawl and find it. This process is known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO.
SEO is a broad mix of multiple factors
– the quality of the site’s architecture, content on the website, various
channels or ways to reach the website, the influence of the website: SEO is done correctly has to satisfy each one of these aspects.
WHY SEARCH ENGINE
MARKETING IS IMPORTANT -Some important points to note-
During the month of December 2013, in the United States alone, search engines fielded more than 18.3 billion search queries (comScore qSearch). That’s more than two and a half searches for every living person on the planet in a single month!
Optimizing the
Website for Search Engines
This
is where you Search Engine Marketing begins. Matt McGee, an SEO expert who
specializes in advising small businesses (www.smallbusinessem.com), in an
interview once said: “SEO is not rocket science... It’s simple, but it’s not
easy. There’s a difference!... There’s a small set of basic rules that apply to
any web page or web site, whether you’re a small business or not. Your site has
to be crawlable, your content has to be good – and I’d include things like page
titles, keyword use, etc, under the umbrella of “content” – and you need
quality, relevant inbound links. That applies to everyone.”
This was way back in 2006, the early days when SEO and SEM had just begun to gain momentum, the fact is it still holds true and forms the groundwork of website optimization.
When you are trying to optimize your website for search engines, the best place to look out for tips on improving your site’s ranking with the search engines is with the search engines’ own guidelines and resources for your website.
Foundations of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
· Make your site easy to crawl
If you have to attract more search engine traffic to your website you have to make sure that your website is easily crawlable by search engine spiders. Spiders are interested in text, text, and more text. They don’t see the graphics, flashy animations that web designers primarily use to make websites look pretty. In fact, over-reliance on some of these things even hinders spiders, many times preventing some websites from being indexed at all.
· Choose Right Keywords
The starting point for effective SEO is to have correct knowledge what the people who are looking for your products, services or information are typing into the search box. What they are typing is known as keywords or keyword phrases. Finding and using the right keywords in website content is a must for successful SEO.
· Right Keyword at the Right Place
keywords are useful and important but their right placement on a webpage is even more important. Repeated use of keywords is strictly prohibited. Keywords can be ideally placed at the following locations-
• Title tag: Use
the keyword in the title and as close to the beginning as possible.
• H1 header tag:
Use the keyword in the header tag and as much as possible
in the other H
tags.
• Body content: Use
keywords but make sure it makes sense in context. Remember to use synonyms
rather than focusing on one specific version of a keyword. You should aim for
about 350 words of content. But don’t overdo it or it could look like spam to
the search engines.
• Bold: Use <strong> tags around the keyword at least once.
• URL: Try
to use the keyword in your page URL.
• Meta
description: Use it at least once in the meta description of the page, which
should entice users to click through to your site from the SERP.
• Link anchor text: Try to ensure that the keyword is used in the anchor text of the pages linking to you.
While optimizing your website you have to focus on one page at a time. When a search engine presents results to a user, it does not present the whole website, it presents individual pages that, according to its algorithms, best match a user’s query. This means each individual page on your website has to be optimized for specific keywords or phrases. It presents an opportunity to focus on different verticals of your business by promoting each one on a different page. For example on one page you can promote health insurance, on another, you can promote life insurance with respective keywords.
Check in the below-given image, when I searched for health insurance plans, the results came up with the link to the health insurance page of all the companies.
Content-relevant
and page-specific images make websites look much more appealing. As search
engines are improving at recognizing the content of images, It is extremely
important to properly tag and give content for each image for search engines
and visitors. This includes adding an ALT description to all key images and a
caption wherever possible.
Content is the most
important thing on your website, as it is the unique, relevant, and informative content
that sets your website apart. The term content encompasses everything on your
website- the flashy graphics, animation, videos, images, banners, and text. Of all this, the search engine spiders only
see the text. So with regard to SEO; the text is the most important form of
content.
When writing content for your website The first and foremost thing you have to keep in mind is your audience- These are the people whom you want to visit your website.
Your pages have to be search engine
friendly, they have to include keywords but still, you have to make your
content engaging for real, live people. If people visiting your website
don’t spend adequate time on your website and make an inquiry or a purchase all
your efforts will be pointless. Moreover, the search engines also take into
consideration the time spent by visitors on individual pages of your website.
More is the time spent more is the probability of your website moving up in
SERP. So, always develop content that
is more audience-friendly and follows the search engine protocols.
Let’s Sum Up
Having an updated website is an important aspect for every organization or an individual offering some product or service. To make that website count and deliver results, Search Engine Marketing(SEM) is equally important. You have got a website developed and have invested money in it, now unless and until you tell people about it, people are not going to find it and the money invested will not reap you any benefits. But if you spend just a little more and persist with it you are sure to reap huge benefits.
Internet is a highly cluttered space but has attained a level wherein you cannot ignore it – if you are serious about the growth and sustainability of your organization. So, don’t waste time; because every second foregone is taken up by someone else to consolidate his/her position. Hire a professional Digital Marketing Agency today and reach out to more people with higher rankings and more visibility.
“Promoting yourself on the internet is
as important as having a presence on it”
Social Media for sure offers enormous opportunity for
reaching out to new customers, engaging with consumers and building brand
awareness. It is also true that social media has reached a stage where
even your smallest of post can evoke a public response in a matter of minutes.
So, while operating in such an open and dynamic space it is extremely important
to carefully choose what you are doing. For social media the thumb rule goes
as “THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU POST”.
Social Media is public driven, there is no single person or
an organization which governs it. This is the underlying characteristic which
makes it such an exciting proposition for marketers. The pace at which
the information traverses the network and the interconnected nature of the
online community requires the marketers to be always prompt and wary of their
actions.
There is no rule but a word of caution for social media- NURTURE
AND VALUE RELATIONSHIPS. The most important thing to remember here is ; that
people are getting on to social media to interact and exchange information and
content with other like-minded people. They are least interested in the sales pitch
and they will mostly overlook the promotional messages. What they are looking
for is fun, quirky and exciting piece of information, anything which would
immediately interest them.
Remember that social media is a two way communication. You not only send a message, You also invite a response. So, plan you message so as to get the desired response. This might not be as easy doing as it is to write that is why you always need a plan to engage in social media marketing. Be flexible in your approach and work according to the underlying, tried, and tested premise.
|
S |
SPECIFIC |
Be
precise and clear of what has to be done. |
|
M |
MEASURABLE |
A
metrics should be there to measure progress and achievement |
|
A |
ACHIEVABLE |
Objective
should be aligned with the competency and consent of the person working on
it. |
|
R |
REALISTIC |
Objectives
should be possible to attain |
|
T |
TIMED |
Time
period for achievement should always be defined. |
Social Media allows you to engage with an online community
and reach out to an appropriate audience. The outreach of social media is its
greatest benefit if harnessed properly. If users like your content enough they
share it with their own communities. Efforts to control the conversation in
social media are soon found out and backfire horribly. So work on a social
media strategy that is more engaging and more considering. Always
follow the thumb rule and basic rules of engagement, also make sure to always
provide your digital
marketing agency with correct and updated information.
Never forget that in this evolving landscape the customer really is the king
and any attempt to dethrone the king can have dire consequences.
Social Media Marketing for
organizations is crucial and should not be overlooked, but at the same time, it is
also tricky. Effective social media marketing is
less about product promotion and more about customer engagement. You should
never be forcing or pushing your prospects, day in and day out to buy your
products instead work on the art of creating a pool of loyal followers and a huge
fan base.
Use Social Media to talk to the
people rather than push at them and more importantly listen to them. If
you manage to do this effectively, then social media can have an incredibly
positive impact on your organization’s online profile.
How far you go in reaching out and connecting with your prospective customers depends on a lot many factors-your business, your customers, your goals, and your overall digital marketing strategy. But one thing is for sure that there is something in it for everyone.
Understanding Social Media
Social media is a collection of internet-based software and services that allow users to connect, exchange of information, engage in discussions, communicate and participate in any form of social interaction.
Types of Social Media
Social media is present on the internet in varied forms. Each Social media platform has a different primary offering or maybe offering a mix of services. Each and every service offered presents, marketers, with a unique opportunity. To read in detail about the different forms of Social Media check out the article on Types of Social Media
Let’s go through the different forms of social media in brief and identify their offerings for Marketers as well.
Websites such as www.reddit.com, www.stumbleupon.com, www.digg.com fall in this category. The major feature which the social
media submission sites have that here you can share the link of the content you
like. These sites allow other online participants to rate and rank that
content. The more people view and vote positive for a particular piece of
content, the higher it rises in the rankings.
These websites also allow the top-ranked submissions to be displayed on the HOME page of the website, which in turn drives more traffic to these social media submission sites.
What is has for Marketers?
These websites present the opportunity of an open discussion to like-minded people on any topic that one can think of. Discussion groups such as yahoo groups- https://groups.yahoo.com, google groups- https://groups.google.com have been around on the internet for a long time. People from the online community gather here to participate in discussions and express their views.
What it has for Marketers?
Media Sharing websites are gaining in popularity day by day because of the very simple reason that they provide a platform for their users to become popular in the online world.
These websites allow users to post videos, images, and also share and comment on the uploaded content. Websites such as www.youtube.com, www.vimeo.com, www.blip.tv, www.pinterest.com lets members save and share images and videos. These videos and images can be seen by others and immediate reactions such as like, dislike, just love it, etc are available in form of emojis. Instagram and Flickr are other popular sites that allow users to upload, share, comment, and discuss their photographs.
What it has for Marketers?
These websites allow users to review or rate anything they want to. It can be a product, a service, an individual or an organization. With their increasing credibility, these websites have the potential to build or destroy brands. Independent review website such as www.glassdoor.com allows users to rate and write a review for their current or previous companies. www.reviewcenter.com, www.epinions.com are some other standalone reviews and rating websites. These websites are extremely important for Social Media Marketing managers especially to maintain the online reputation of the company.
What’s in it for Marketers?
Social Networking Sites
These websites present marketers with tremendous opportunities because of their large user base. Popular social networking websites such as Facebook(www.facebook.com), Linkedin (www.linkedin.com), Twitter(www.twitter.com) have users in multi-millions. Facebook today has more than 1.3 billion users- which is like having the whole of India on Facebook. And marketers very well know how big a market India is.
What these sites offer to Marketer?
The blog is an acronym for weB LOG. Blogging gives everyone and anyone the freedom to express his/her views, opinions, share experiences or write about anything in detail and the people with similar interests are out there to read and comment on your blogs.
Various web services such as bloggers (www.blogger.com), WordPress (www.wordpress.com) allow users to set up and start their own blogs in a matter of few minutes. The blogs also rank in the search engines based on their popularity. Blogs and Bloggers have tremendous power. Many bloggers have millions of loyal followers.
These bloggers have the potential to influence their followers which can be well harnessed by marketers.
How can Marketers use blogs?
Podcast can be best regarded as an audio form of the blog. Various portals such as www.podcast.com, www.podomatic.com, and www.apple.com/itunes allow uploading and distribution of podcasts for people to download or listen online. People can also subscribe to podcasts of interest.
What Podcasts offer to Marketers?
Microblogging
Microblogging can be thought of as a short message broadcast service that allows people to keep their readers up to date via short text posts. Twitter (www.twitter.com) dominates the space of microblogging services on the internet.
Microblogging has been successful in the sense that collective aggregation of the mini-posts creates a tremendous impact which is much more than the sum total of the individual posts. When your readers receive short but frequent updates they begin to connect with you and develop a bond. This eventually creates a loyal following the power of which can be well harnessed for effective Social Media Marketing.
What’s in it for Marketers
Wikis
Wikis are an online collection of web
pages. What makes Wikis stand out is that these pages are open for anyone to
create, edit, discuss, comment, and mostly contribute to.
This is the underlying premise of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia has been developed.
Develop a strong collaborative community of your customers and people in your organization: wikis is a great platform to encourage constructive and collaborative interaction between the people inside your organization and people outside your organization including the customers. People here write what they know about the organization rather than critically reviewing and rating it. Once your customers start doing this it means that they now feel connected and have developed a bond with the organization. As a marketer encourage your customers to post on Wikis whatever knowledge they have about the organization. As it goes a long way in creating a strong background of the organization in the world of the internet.
Instant Messaging Service
With the advent of instant messaging service on mobile social
media, the revolution has reached an altogether different level. This development is
led by “WhatsApp”. Most of the instant messaging services provide
you with a simple and straightforward interface where you send messages,
pictures, videos, documents instantly to the receiver’s phone. It even allows
you to make video and voice calls anywhere across the globe and at any time.
All this comes at absolutely no cost(At least till date- October 2020)
Even though WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook for a whopping 19 billion USD in February 2014, but it has still continued to operate as a separate entity since then. And also Whatsapp has not yet seen the same marketing-friendly features as Facebook Messanger has. It still has a lot to offer to the ever anxious marketers.
What is has for Marketers?
Establish one to one and personal connections- the instant messaging services are
primarily tied to mobile phones, which are definitely more personal than computers. Use these services to send personalized messages and spread
brand awareness. Apply one to one marketing and work on interpersonal
marketing skills and present your product to the individuals the way they want
it.
WhatsApp business app- WhatsApp has launched a Business App for which they say it is “built with the small business
owner in mind.” This app is free to download, and currently only available for
Android devices. It allows businesses to easily interact with customers by
using tools to automate, sort, and quickly respond to messages.
Highest engagement rate- More than 60 billion messages are sent using WhatsApp each day and to cheer up the marketers approximately 82% of these messages are checked and read. Thus an engagement rate of 82 %. This is one thing that marketers are always looking for so start engaging with your customers on WhatsApp now.
Social Media Marketing has helped businesses grow and
achieve which otherwise, maybe, would not have been possible, at least at this
pace. With the ever-increasing numbers on social media, organizations have
become more and more concerned about ensuring their presence and maintaining a good online reputation.
It's important to reach out to people but in a way that appeals to them. So, for that matter, if hiring an expert is a problem you can always
reach out to a Digital Marketing Agency having
expertise and experience in the domain but don’t miss the opportunity.
“Don’t use social media to impress people, use it to impact people and change lives”
Posted on 01 Nov 2020, by Mudit Mittal
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