Digital marketing is the segment of online marketing, which uses modern internet and web based technologies like mobile phones, desktop computers and other electronic media and platforms to advertise goods and services to end users. It is one of the most effective methods of online marketing because it is cost efficient and reaches a bigger audience than more conventional marketing methods like print, television and radio advertising. Moreover, it gives customers more control on how they want to receive and use their advertising materials like emails, messages, and SMSes. This article will provide you with the basic knowledge on digital marketing and how you can make your business known in the digital world.
There are various platforms that are being used by marketers to promote their products or services through the Internet. The most popular among them are social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), video websites (YouTube, Vimeo), email marketing campaigns, search engine marketing platforms and pay per click management tools. Each of these platforms have their own purpose and different ways of delivering messages to the audience. Marketers therefore need to learn each of these platforms and implement the best for their respective business types. For instance, if they want to target mobile phone users, they will use Google Mobile Search, YouTube and Vimeo.
On the other hand, traditional advertising campaigns are also using digital channels. Examples of traditional media include television, radio and print ads. They also come in different forms, like pay per click campaigns, search engine campaigns, website and product promotion and so on. Digital marketers however, use more advanced strategies to make their businesses known and generate greater traffic to their websites. These strategies include direct responses, content marketing, and email marketing campaigns, video marketing, instant message marketing, blogging, and viral marketing.
Another digital marketing strategy that is being widely used is creatives. Creatives are short promotional videos or podcasts that explain the benefits of a product, promote a service or just inform the buyer about an offer. The creatives can appear in various forms, such as an audio file, an image or a written article. Digital marketers commonly use social media platforms and pay per click channels to reach potential clients.
This strategy is being employed by traditional marketing strategists too. However, digital marketers often focus on reaching a wider target audience by creating multiple streams of content. They do this by creating video blogs, podcasting, writing articles and sending emails. In traditional marketing campaigns, marketers create one ad and push it all through various channels to reach target audience. However, with creatives, marketers create several ads to reach different segments of their target audience.
Aside from that, digital marketing also includes the use of social media platforms and pay per click channels to advertise campaigns. Social media platforms include Twitter and Facebook. Pay per click channels include Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. Digital marketers use these tools to direct users to the right ads on their websites.
