Introduction to Digital Marketing

SYLLABUS

Introduction to Digital Marketing:  Overview of  digital  marketing, Evolution of digital marketing, Importance and benefits of digital marketing, Digital marketing channels and platforms.

Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning: Developing a digital marketing strategy, Setting goals and objectives, Budgeting and resource allocation Campaign  planning  and  execution,  Monitoring  and  adjusting  digital marketing campaigns

Introduction  to  Digital  Marketing: 

Overview of digital marketing,

Digital marketing is the use of digital technologies and platforms to promote products and services, as well as to connect with potential customers. It is an incredibly versatile and powerful tool that can be used in various ways to reach people worldwide. Digital marketing utilizes multiple digital technologies to deliver promotional messages, such as mobile phones, computers, and other digital media and platforms. It can be used for B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer) marketing, depending on the goal and objectives of the campaign. Digital marketing offers unique advantages such as greater reach, improved targeting, personalized messaging, and better ROI (Return on Investment). It also allows businesses to stay up-to-date with marketing trends and technologies. With the right strategies and tactics, companies can leverage (support) digital marketing to increase their visibility and reach a larger audience.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is the act of promoting products and services through digital channels, such as social media, SEO, email, and mobile. It is a form of marketing that helps businesses to reach their target audiences, build relationships, and boost sales through digital channels. Digital marketing utilizes a combination of tools such as analytics, social media, content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), email marketing, mobile marketing, and more to create an effective digital presence. (SEO focuses on optimizing content to rank higher on search engine result pages through organic methods, such as by using targeted keywords. SEM, on the other hand, uses paid advertisements and ctr (Clickthrough rate) in order to increase visibility among potential customers.)

Digital marketing is a powerful way for businesses to reach their target customers and engage with them in meaningful ways. It enables businesses to create personalised messages for their customers, increasing the likelihood of message recall and purchase intent. Additionally, businesses can leverage (grouth, support) digital channels to track customer behavior and identify areas of opportunity. By using digital analytics and other data-driven techniques, marketers can better understand their customers’ needs and preferences and tailor their offerings accordingly. Digital marketing also gives businesses access to a larger audience than traditional marketing channels due to its ability to reach people across the globe.

From creating engaging content to delivering targeted ads with precision, digital marketing is an essential tool for driving business growth and success. It offers businesses the opportunity to reach a large audience in efficient ways while providing customers with personalized messages that build long-lasting relationships.

Evolution of Digital Marketing

1 Search Engines

Archie, (Archie is a tool for indexing FTP archives, allowing users to more easily identify specific files. It is considered the first Internet search engine.) the first search engine, debuted(perform in public for the first time.) in the early 1990s. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, quickly followed. The first clickable web-ad banners were introduced in 1994. The first identifiable social media site was launched in 1997, with 3.5 million users. In the 1990s, a slew (larger number) of websites still in use was found, including Google and Yahoo's web search, both of which debuted in 1998.

The World Wide Web was launched in 1991, but it didn’t make much of an impact until the first really popular browser, Netscape, made its way into the market in 1994. More people began to use the web, and as this happened, search engines such as Google also made appearances between the 1990s and early 2000s.

Search engines work by crawling (Crawling is the process of finding new or updated pages to add to Google)

  web pages and storing them for later retrieval based on keywords used in search terms. This has brought rise to what is known as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), the practice of promoting websites and blogs by increasing their visibility through strategies such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and paid advertising.

2 The Millennial Generation

A massive economic bubble (An economic bubble occurs any time that the price of a goods rises far above the item's real value. Bubbles are typically attributed to a change in investor behavior) grew in the new millennium. However, the bubble's peak and burst between 2000 and 2002 harmed many businesses. Many new sites were launched in the 2000s as the economy recovered from the boom, including the beginnings of LinkedIn in 2002, Myspace and WordPress in 2003, and Facebook in 2004. In the early 2000s, mobile text messaging marketing became increasingly popular.

3 Mobile-First Marketing

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP- AMP is a web component framework that you can use to easily create user-first websites, stories, emails, and ads)

) project has made it necessary to ensure SEO-optimization for mobile sites. This initiative is aimed towards improving loading times of pages on devices such as smart phone and tablets. It also focuses on other factors such as User Experience (UX).

This is particularly significant due to recent stats regarding mobile usage. In 2019, 52.2 percent of all web traffic came from mobile phones, compared to 16.2 percent in 2013. However, it’s worth noting that this only includes data for mobile phones, and not tablets.

Increasing mobile usage, as well as the AMP initiative, has made it essential to ensure that marketing campaigns are not only accessible on larger devices, but can be viewed without noticeable visual or performance differences on smaller screens, too.

The latter half of the decade saw increased marketing and sales, with Amazon's e-commerce sales surpassing $10 billion. Over the next few years, mobile app culture expanded with the introduction of Whatsapp, Instagram, and Snapchat to the digital world. (1 million rupees is equal to 10 lakhs, 1 billion =1000 million, 1 billion is equal to 100 crores)

4 The Social Media Revolution

Today, 65% of an individual's spend time on a mobile device, digital media. The digital advertising industry is now valued at around $200 billion, with Google Ad Words accounting for 96% of the company's revenue. With an estimated 3.1 billion online users, social networking has led the digital marketing revolution. The rise of bloggers and Instagram has resulted in a $1 billion industry for influencers,(Influencer marketing is a type of marketing that uses influencers to promote a brand to a larger market.) which are anticipated to grow. Digital marketing is expected to grow in the coming years, with many new developments and changes in this exciting industry.

The World Wide Web was initially meant to be a collaborative space ( involving two or more parties working together.)  for sharing information. You can probably agree that it has become much more than that. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and many more have made it possible not just to exchange information, but also to connect with other people.

This also enables businesses to reach global audiences. To do this, brands can utilize paid ads targeted towards general or specific audiences, work with influencers who market products to followers, and more.

Facebook, for example, was launched in 2004 and attained a user base of one million by the end of that year. In 2007, it launched its first self-service advertising platform as well as business pages, further increasing overall ad revenue to $700 million. More platforms have followed suit, providing a base for brands to reach their audiences.

5 Consumer Data and Targeted Campaigns

Another major milestone in the history of digital marketing is the reliance on data for creating targeted marketing campaigns. Customer Relationship Management (CRM), for example, is a business process that enables brands to develop long-term relationships with their customers through data-driven marketing(Data-driven marketing is a process used by marketers to gain insights and identify trends about consumers and how they behave — what they buy, the effectiveness of ads, and how they.browse)activities.CRM tools CRM Examples HubSpot, Salesflare, EngageBay, Dynamics, Salesforce, Zoho, BIG Contacts, Pipedrive) 

let you work iteratively based on data from performance analytics. This can make it easier to predict customers’ purchasing habits, further define target audiences, and increase overall customer satisfaction.

The ability to make predictions about customer behavior is particularly significant because marketing strategies keep evolving as a result of technology and other factors. Using CRM techniques such as regression and statistical analysis can make it possible to identify any changes in consumer habits.

This also makes it possible to create better business impact models for accurately measuring marketing performance.

6 Voice Search and Interactive Content

One important goal for brands is increasing engagement with customers and fostering a sense of community and loyalty. This has given rise to high-quality and interactive content such as games, fun social media contests, immersive app experiences, and more. These not only attract audiences but provide a way to sustain their attention over the long-term.

On the other hand, voice search is now one of the most important marketing trends, providing a new way to conduct searches as well as promote businesses. It can also attract more traffic as its results generally have a high chance of being extremely relevant at first attempt. 

Some Facts on Digital Marketing

Digital marketing has become a popular way of reaching out to potential customers, as it is efficient, cost-effective and provides more control over the targeting of advertisements.

Digital marketing channels such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), social media marketing (SMM) and email marketing are used to create and deliver marketing messages, as well as measure the success of campaigns.

Some key facts on digital marketing include the following:

Compared to $491.70 billion in 2021, the amount spent on digital advertising in 2022 increased by 16.2%. Organic search is the most popular form of digital media, accounting for 34% of all online traffic. Companies are expected to invest an average of 9% of their total marketing budget in digital channels. Mobile advertising will account for over half of all digital ad spending this year.

Email campaigns have an average return on investment (ROI) of $44 for every dollar spent.

Video content is growing faster than any other type of online content, with 87% of marketers using video content in their campaigns. Digital marketing campaigns can be tracked, measured, and optimized at any time, allowing marketers to adjust strategies as needed.

Importance of digital marketing

Why digital marketing is important for business

Digital marketing, also called online marketing, is the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers using the internet and other forms of digital communication.

Digital marketing is one of the most important aspects of marketing in today's market.

It allows businesses to connect with customers and potential customers through various online channels, email, social media, and web-based advertising, but also text and multimedia messages as a marketing channel, search engines, and websites..

Digital market helps you to attract customers new and old and drive future sales.

Good for brand growth and awareness

Digital marketing can provide businesses with a significant advantage over their competitors.

Digital marketing levels the playing field and allows you to compete with bigger brands in your sector that otherwise wouldn’t be achievable. 

The internet is home to a huge source of potential customers, so by marketing your brand using the above techniques we discussed, you’re able to target a lot more people than you would normally.

Using these different digital marketing channels, your brand will grow and become more widely recognised, helping to raise awareness about what you do and the products or services you sell.

Benefits of digital marketing

1 Targets online customers

As of January 2023, there were 5.16 billion internet users worldwide, which mean there are quite literally billions of people out there that may be interested in your brand. 

Your customers are online waiting to discover your brand and a good digital marketing strategy will be able to tap into this potential. The more exposure your brand receives, the more likely you’ll attract new customers.

The majority of people now use the internet to find out about businesses, so you’d be crazy to not have an online presence and be involved in the conversation. If people can’t find your business online, then the chances are that they’ll choose a competitor and you‘ll lose a potential customer.

2 Global reach

The first advantage of digital marketing is global access. Traditional marketing is geographically limited, and developing an international marketing campaign can be difficult, costly, and time-consuming. However, because digital marketing takes place on the internet, the reach you may attain with it is enormous. With an internet store, even a tiny local business owner may reach a world.
Traditional marketing strategies like billboards, TV ads, and cold sales calls (Cold calling is a form of sales solicitation from businesses to customers who've never interacted with the salesperson making the call. It generally refers to phone-based conversations (hence cold calling) but technically covers in-person door-to-door interactions, too.) are limited by geography. But with digital marketing, businesses can access a global audience across locations and time zones. Instead of limiting your reach to people in your community, you can target potential customers in your state, country, and even globally.

Traditional marketing tactics could cost a fortune for companies to promote themselves across multiple different markets. Digital media strategies like social media, content marketing, and email marketing make it easy for businesses to reach potential customers around the world. With a larger pool of potential customers, you can easily scale up your efforts to build your brand and increase sales.

3 Affordable/ Cost efficiency

Digital marketing is a lot more cost-effective than traditional marketing methods, which is ideal for businesses that have limited funds and resources. You also have complete control over how you spend your money, targeting certain marketing streams depending on your needs. For example, using Google Ads or commissioning some time with a videographer. 

It also allows you to be flexible with your money, pivoting to different marketing strategies when required. This reduces the risk of wasting precious finances and ensures money gets allocated effectively.

Most digital marketing strategies have a low startup cost. For example, search engine optimization (SEO), social media, and content marketing are some of the most effective ways to promote your business online, and they cost nothing but your time and talent.

Even on the paid marketing front, digital channels don’t usually have minimum budget requirements for social media ad buys or search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns. Whatever your budget, you can create a campaign that’s perfectly targeted to your potential customers and set a spending limit so you don’t spend more than your budget allows.

4 Measurable

Not only is digital marketing more affordable than offline marketing tactics — it’s also highly measurable. Traditional channels like print, TV, and radio ads can be effective, but it’s very challenging to track who responds to your messages.

With digital marketing, you can track nearly every touch point users have with your brand. Whether it’s social media views, ad clicks, email opens, or organic page views, every aspect of digital marketing is highly track able. It’s much easier to prove the return on investment (ROI) of your digital marketing efforts as a result, which helps you better understand the results you’re generating and where to keep investing.

With digital marketing, you’ll have access to a huge source of data and metrics, whether that’s impressions, views, time on a page, click rate, and so on. This means you can see accurate data in real-time.

This is invaluable when it comes to evaluating how well your brand’s digital marketing strategy is performing and allows you to reallocate time and money to other areas if a particular campaign is underperforming. 

Not only will you be able to learn from your mistakes, but you’ll also be able to see how and why a campaign has been successful – using this knowledge to help move the business forward in the future.

5 Faster and more efficient 

Implementing digital marketing strategies can also be a lot quicker and more efficient, as you’ll be able to start the process immediately. 

Even if money or resources are a little tight, there are still things you can do to get the ball rolling and help improve your brand’s online presence, such as increasing social media post frequency and implementing some basic SEO on your website.

Some of the traditional marketing techniques can also be incredibly time-consuming, whereas digital marketing helps to free up precious time and reallocate it accordingly.

6 Good return on investment

Digital marketing allows you to track day-to-day campaign performance, ensuring you know what channels are performing and which are struggling. This helps you to optimise campaign budgets for high return on investment (ROI). 

It is widely recognized that businesses that invest in online advertisements and marketing have a better ROI. Here are some statistics to support this from Website Builder Expert:

Email marketing has the best average ROI at 3,600%

SEO marketing has an average ROI ratio of 22:1, equating to 2,200%

Marketers who regularly calculate their ROI are 1.6 times more likely to secure budget increases for their marketing activities.

Put simply, the more customers that view your brand online, the higher your conversion rate is likely to be. Digital marketing is all about trying to convert your leads into customers.

7 Reaches out to mobile users

There are approximately 6.84 billion smart phones in the world, with 4.76 billion people using social media globally. A well-crafted digital marketing strategy is your best chance of reaching this massive audience and failure to do so will mean you’re missing out on a huge amount of customer potential.

As a society, we are glued to our mobile phones, relying on them to communicate shop, manage finances, and more importantly, search the internet for brands that resonate (consumers on a deeper level) with us. You need to ensure your website is compatible with mobiles and the user journey is well-suited for Smart phone users. 

8 Allows you to stand out from your competitors 

Trust us when we say that your competitors are already using effective digital marketing tools to further their business. So, if you’re not doing it yet, then it’s essential that you make a start now. 

There are countless reasons why digital marketing is important for businesses, but staying ahead of the competition is certainly one of the best.

It’s always work checking in with your competitors to see what they are doing and assessing how you can do things better. Ultimately, you want to have a better digital marketing strategy that drives more traffic to your brand and attracts a larger share of customers.

9 Effective targeting

With traditional marketing, you have little control over who sees your content. Even if you pay for a targeted ad in a niche magazine, you can’t guarantee that everyone reading that magazine is your ideal customer.

However, digital marketing allows you to pinpoint the best audience for your messages using online audience and targeting information. You can also collect data from your digital campaigns to see which content works best for certain types of customers. If you’re still learning about your customers’ preferences, these insights can help you refine your campaigns over time.

10 Increased engagements

Traditional marketing methods only allow for one-way interactions. Your business can communicate a message to your audience — but there’s no clear pathway for the audience to respond or take action directly. This puts a barrier between your brand and the people you’re trying to reach, which can reduce engagement.

Digital marketing presents you with the opportunity to have real conversations with your customers. Whether through email, SMS, social media, or blog comments, you can get feedback from your customers every step of the way. This gives you more opportunities to delight customers,( the pleasure or joy a customer experiences when interacting with your brand, product or service) answer questions, and fine-tune your campaigns based on their input. It doesn’t hurt that these conversations also provide you with more customer touch points, which can increase conversions and sales.

11 Flexibility

Digital marketing gives you the flexibility to choose from different channels and strategies. It’s also flexible enough that you can adjust your approach over time as you learn more about what works for your audience and business.

Digital marketing channels and platforms.

Digital marketing channels and platforms

What are digital marketing channels and platforms?

Digital marketing channels and platforms are use to reach your target audiences online and promote products and services. They might include social media, search engines or websites. Digital marketing channels give you the opportunity to sell products, building trust and credibility, and generating sales, build brand awareness and position yourself within a given industry.

What are digital channels?

A digital channel can be defined as an interface connected to the world wide web through wich communication can be made. If you are looking for something, a search engine is a digital channel. If you are directly communicating with someone, email is your digital channel

 

What is a Platform?

The most basic definition of a platform is a technology that allows other businesses to connect and build on top of it. Platforms enable smaller companies to build, innovate, and grow faster while empowering the companies that run them by strengthening their stickiness and giving consumers more reasons to stick with their offering. Over the past fifteen or so years, we’ve seen companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon mature beyond their original product offerings to create digital platforms that support thousands of businesses and products across the globe.

What is the difference between a digital platform and a digital channel?

Platforms are the foundation on which you can build your brand presence, such as the web, phone apps, social media, and gadgets.

In general, think of platforms as virtual “locations” (A place that is not located in any single physical location; a network location without geographic boundaries.) where consumers can engage with a brand's digital presence (whether that's a website, a mobile app, a social media page, or something else).

Channels serve as a more direct means of communication and include email, advertising, search engines, chatbots, phone, and more

While channels are digital communication mediums that are often associated with a given platform.

1) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization, as the name suggests, is about making your website page rank higher on internet search engines like Google, Bing, etc. Suppose a user does an online search on ‘How to bake a cake.’ If the web page of your recipe is among the top results, the user is more likely to click on it.

Boosting the SEO of your page will not only enhance its online visibility and also improve its traffic and activity. It is an SEO best practice to include relevant keywords and manage links in your content to appear in the unpaid ‘organic’ search lists. Also, you can also take help from online tools like Google Keyword Planner, Bing Webmaster, Moz, Keywordtool.io, etc. Link Building tools such as Ahrefs, BuzzStream, GroupHigh can help you build backlinks & analyze the competitors’ backlinks. 

2) Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay Per Click can prove to be one of the most effective internet marketing channels if utilized correctly. The goal of PPC is to turn latent users into engaged prospects and further convert them as buyers. For example, clicking on an online display ad can lead prospective clients to another page whose content gives more information about it.

If they remain hooked throughout the experience, they can end up making a purchase. PPC ads are usually shown as sponsored stories, product listings, or video ads on websites and social media platforms. Most of the time, these online promotions are based on profile interests and search terms.

3) Email Marketing

Email offers a much more personal way of connecting with your targeted customers. It is a type of internet marketing that can truly make you stand out. You can offer exclusive ‘insider’ content, special discounts, and customized content to your email subscribers to make them feel special. The attractive bargains may also prompt non-subscribers to sign up for updates.

By implementing the advanced techniques of email marketing, you don’t just help in driving more sales and conversions but also develop a sense of loyalty. This is one of those online marketing channels that lets you match your spending to individual clients and know where they stand in their purchasing cycle. However, your well-crafted and targeted email campaign could also end up in the spam folder. So, make sure that your program does not disregard spam laws. 

4) Social Media Marketing

Social media is one of the most powerful internet marketing channels today. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc. provide a space for dynamic two-way communication. Internet users spend most of their time in these online spaces. So, brands cannot miss the opportunity to grab more eyeballs and effectively need to promote their brands.

Users see promoted content based on their profile, interests, likes, and the content they share. The “everything to everyone” approach no longer works. Moreover, social media makes it possible for organizations to connect with prospects, answer their queries, and enter conversations! 

5) Video Advertising

Video advertising is one of the most entertaining and interactive online marketing channels. It includes online display ads that have a video within them. Such ads are also played before, during, or after a video stream. After watching the ad, the viewer usually sees a call to action to purchase that product or service or know more about it. With television advertising, there is no way to do such a thing! 

6) Network Marketing

Network marketing is an offshoot of the social media marketing that makes use of the associations and groups existing all over the internet. It is all about identifying a pool of influencers, wholesalers, or professionals who can tell your targeted audience about your business.

You have to find a way to assemble such groups and keep them updated and engaged throughout your digital campaign. And your product may become the next web sensation with a positive word of mouth from them!

7) Contextual Marketing

Contextual marketing is not just a form of advertising but also a brand image-building exercise. Here, the marketer intends to advance the business without being a stickler about the medium used. Companies can engage in this type of online marketing through guest blogging and purchasing blog reviews. The first step is identifying a platform with a significant overlapping audience and high ranking pages. Follow this by promoting your content on the site to optimize your online presence.

8) Affiliate Marketing

Online sellers can get other dealers to sell their products and services. This is called affiliate marketing, wherein one business offers another’s products as an add-on or deal package along with its own. The guidelines and prerequisites may be different for every seller. Affiliate marketing is quite similar to a commissioned sales job. 

9) Content Marketing

Content marketing is a way of aligning the content of your online advertising campaign in a way that it achieves all the key goals. These may include: 

Sharing: Is it getting exposure? Is it on its way to becoming ‘viral’ on the internet? 

Discussions: Is the campaign entering conversations? Is it getting people to talk? 

Leads: Is your online advertising bringing any issues to light? Are your efforts making your prospects recognize their needs? 

Sales: Are you making any sales as a result of your online campaign? 

A successful digital marketing campaign should be able to answer at least one of the above questions! 

10) Websites

Your website is a must-have tool for your business as it provides you with a dedicated platform where you can educate audiences about your brand, products, and services. This requires a solid understanding of your target audience and an effective content marketing strategy.

Whatever the size of your company, when you create a website, it can give your business the online presence it needs to communicate and/or sell to prospects. In fact, another study showed that 69% of Americans have purchased an item online. Whether your business is concerned with e-commerce or it’s something that’s more service-oriented, be it B2C or B2B, you should definitely invest in a website. To reduce costs, you can build the website using WordPress, and the good news is there are many free WordPress themes available.

11)  Email

There are several reasons why it’s so hard to dislodge email as a channel that delivers medium to high ROI for your business, but the one thing you can’t take away from email is its versatility. Although email may not be the newest technology available, it allows you to apply the latest trends in content marketing, such as personalization and automation, without hurting your marketing budget.

12)  Organic Search (SEO)

Did you know that over 63,000 Google search queries are performed every second? Just imagine how many people are searching on the internet! Given that people use search engines for research, shopping, and entertainment, the opportunities for businesses are huge!

When prospects or customers look for products or services, they’ll tend to go with whoever ranks higher. Standing out from the competition at this stage means that you’ll be capturing new opportunities organically, driving a consistent flow of leads down your sales funnel.

13)  Paid Search (SEM)

On the surface, it might seem inconceivable that paid search (also called SEM) will have the potential to give you ROI. After all, you’re paying for each click you get, unlike SEO, where people find you organically (and technically for free).

The advantage of using paid search is that your ads are shown above organic search results, making them more visible to users. Even if you have to pay for every time a user clicks on your ad, there’s still a lot of value—monetary and otherwise—that can be had from paid search. Being above organic results means you’re still capturing that engaged searcher before they even have a chance to see their other options (your competitors).

For every $1 you spend on Google Ads, you can earn an average of $2 in return. That’s 100% ROI right in the bag. Conversely, not utilizing the paid ads channel can lead to 50% less revenue.

14)  Display Ads

Display ads allow you to use images, audio, and video to communicate your advertising message better. These are shown on websites, email platforms, social media, and many other digital channels that offer ad placements, usually in the form of a banner.

Compared to search ads, display ads generally have lower cost-per-click since there’s more advertising space available across the web than on a search engine. The core difference is that you don’t target keywords. Display advertising success depends on how well you can match your ad to the host website’s audience to drive conversions.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. How does digital marketing work?

As a digital marketer, it is your responsibility to make this marketing concept work to your advantage. To do that, you must remember that for different types of business, digital marketing will work differently. Moreover, the outcome of your digital campaign will be determined by how well you formulate and execute your strategy. However, if you see that digital marketing is not showing any positive results, then it’s probably not suited to your business or your strategy or execution of it has not been right.

To put things into perspective, digital marketing works when you combine different verticals like SEO, Social Media Marketing, PPC, Email marketing and many other digital marketing techniques to target your potential audience. The goal is to convert them into paying customers.

2. How can you decide on which digital marketing channels to use for your business?

Digital marketing has a variety of channels to promote your products and services. You have the option of using one or more such channels depending on the marketing initiatives and strategies for your business.
Your channels are the only mediums in digital platforms that you can use to communicate and engage with your target audience. Digital marketing techniques and strategies are completely different ballgames. With a digital marketing approach in place, you can concentrate on your overall objectives, monitor your targets and boost your digital marketing outcomes.

3. How can you start a career in digital marketing?

While you can embark on your digital marketing career without any formal qualifications, there will come a time where you will need to specialise in a digital sub-domain and get an appropriate professional certification or degree. Furthermore, a professional qualification from a well-known institute adds weightage to your resume too.

 

Digital marketing strategy and planning

What is strategy and planning in digital marketing?

Digital Marketing Strategy

Experts define digital marketing strategy as using online resources to reach the target customer.

Identifying where, why, and how a company makes a profit is one of the building blocks of a digital marketing strategy. It helps formulate a marketing plan that aligns with the business goals and customer requirements.

A brand has to evaluate owned, paid, and earned media while formulating a digital marketing strategy. While owned media consists of the organization’s communication channels, earned media and paid media are external communication channels.

Digital Marketing Plan

A digital marketing strategy is a plan for using online channels to establish an internet presence and achieve specific marketing objectives. These channels can include organic search, social media, paid ads, and other web-based mediums such as your website.

A digital marketing plan defines the goals you will accomplish in a given time frame and how you will measure your efforts. When creating a digital marketing plan, it is important to remember that marketing is still about communicating the benefits of your product or service in a way that resonates with customers.

Developing a digital marketing Strategy

Step 1: Identify Target Audience and Build Personas

A digital marketing strategy will only be as good as the target audience behind it. After all, they’re the ones who purchase your brand’s products and services. When identifying a target personas, (the particular type of character) consider the following items:

Demographics: After identifying where to sell your products/services, determine if any key geographic areas may outperform others. Other demographic categories are age, parental status, household income, and more. (Demographics-statistics that describe populations and their characteristics)

Interests: What kinds of hobbies does your ideal persona have? This information can help shape content for the customer.

Behaviors: How (and where) do these users consume content on the internet? Are they impulse shoppers? (a sudden desire to do something) What social platforms do they frequent?

Pain points: What problems are users trying to solve? This is the key area to focus on. By providing your target audience with a solution to their pain points and speaking to them in a way they understand, you’ll likely win a customer for life.

Step 2: Conduct Competitor Landscape Analysis

It’s important to understand the digital landscape before diving into digital channels.

Some of the key components of conducting a competitor analysis include:

Which competitors are bidding on relevant keywords you’d like to target?

How are competitors messaging their target audience?

Which channels are competitors advertising on?

How do competitors rank organically compared to you?

How much are competitors’ monthly digital ad budgets?

Third-party tools like Semrush, SpyFu, Google Keyword Planner, and Google Trends can help answer many of these questions.

Note that with any third-party tool’s data, the information provided cannot be guaranteed 100% accurate and should be used as a guide, not as an absolute.

Step 3: Determine Necessary Digital Marketing Channels

Once you’ve figured out who your target audience is and where they hang out online, it’s time to determine the key digital marketing channels.

Ideally, a mix of channels will be chosen as it’s not best practice to choose one or two and put all your eggs in one basket.

The key is to diversify the digital channels and meet your customers where they’re online at any given point in time.

These channels will likely include any of the above in the digital strategy examples section.

 

Each channel identified should include its own set of KPIs. (Key Performance Indicators) These are set by the marketers and greater business teams.

Be sure not to set the same KPIs and measurement goals for each channel, as they all serve different purposes.

Creating realistic measurement goals ensures that awareness channels are measured against awareness KPIs, such as brand lift instead of direct conversions.

As with any digital channel, it’s important to understand how they can be measured. This step should include identifying a proper measurement platform, such as Google Analytics or another tool, to ensure that marketing dollars and channels can be measured.

Step 4: Create Content and Unique Value Proposition Plan

Once the digital channels have been identified, it’s time to plan your content for each channel.

The key is creating a consistent messaging framework that can be reused and reworked in each channel. That way, you’re not starting from scratch each time.

For example, if you want to introduce your brand on YouTube or the Google Display Network, the content should not be focused on a direct conversion or a “Buy Now” CTA. (Call to action (marketing)) That’s simply asking for too much on an initial brand awareness touch point.

On the other hand, for someone well on their search journey and looking for specific products and services, that could be a time to introduce discounts and special offers.

Lastly, make sure that what you’re providing your customers is unique and differentiated in the market. Conducting a competitor analysis first will help identify what’s currently being offered in the market.

Even if your product or service is similar to your competitors, it’s important to find a way to differentiate your brand.

Step 5: Execute and Optimize Digital Marketing Strategy

Once you’ve defined steps 1-4, it’s time to launch your digital marketing strategy. However, the work is not done yet. Your digital marketing strategy should be ongoing and fluid based on performance and the changing market landscape.

Digital marketing channels and campaigns should be continuously monitored and analyzed to ensure that marketing budgets and resources are utilized most effectively.

This should include daily, weekly, and monthly checkpoints in each channel. Monthly reports and quarterly business reviews (QBRs) should be conducted to provide opportunities to shift and pivot strategy based on findings.

Setting goals and objectives

First consider what you want to achieve, and then commit to it. Set SMART (specific, measureable, attainable, relevant and time-bound) goals that motivate you and write them down to make them feel tangible. Then plan the steps you must take to realize your goal, and cross off each one as you work through them.

Setting goals and objectives

What are the objectives and goals of digital marketing?

The top digital marketing objectives businesses strive to achieve are increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, and boosting sales and revenue.

What is the difference between goals and objectives?

What is a goal vs. objective? A goal is an achievable outcome that is generally broad and longer term while an objective is shorter term and defines measurable actions to achieve an overall goal. 

Digital Marketing Objectives

The specific objectives of online marketing can vary based on the organisation’s goals and target audience, but some common objectives include:

Increasing brand awareness: Online marketing helps to create and enhance brand visibility among the target audience. This is achieved through various digital channels such as social media, content marketing, and display advertising.

Driving website traffic: Online marketing aims to attract relevant and quality traffic to a company’s website. This is crucial for generating leads, increasing sales, and achieving other conversion-related objectives.

Generating leads: One of the primary objectives of online marketing is to capture potential customers’ contact information and convert them into leads. This involves using lead magnets, opt-in forms, and other strategies to collect customer data.

Boosting sales and revenue: Online marketing plays a significant role in increasing revenue and driving sales. Businesses can improve their overall sales by reaching the right audience with the right message at the right time.

Engaging with the target audience: Online marketing facilitates two-way communication between businesses and customers. It allows companies to engage with their audience through social media, email marketing, and other interactive channels.

Building customer loyalty and retention: Retaining existing customers is often more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. Online marketing strategies can help build long-term customer relationships, encouraging repeat business and brand loyalty.

Improving customer support: Online marketing can provide better customer support and address customer queries and concerns. Social media, chatbots, and email support are some ways to enhance customer service.

Conducting market research: It provides valuable data and insights about customer behaviour, trends, and preferences. This data can be used for refineing marketing strategies and market research.

Competitor analysis: Through online marketing, businesses can perform a SWOT analysis to monitor their competitors’ activities, assess their strengths and weaknesses, and adjust their strategies accordingly.

Measuring and analysing results: A significant advantage of online marketing is tracking and measuring the effectiveness of various campaigns and channels. This data-driven approach allows for constant optimisation and improvement.

Goals of Digital Marketing

Increasing brand awareness

Driving website traffic

Generating leads

Boosting sales and revenue

Improving customer engagement

Enhancing customer loyalty and retention

Expanding market reach

Measuring and analysing campaign performance

Optimising marketing strategies based on data insights, and maintaining a competitive edge in the Digital landscape are the goals of digital marketing. 

Businesses seek to interact with their target audience

Develop deep relationships, and eventually accomplish their goals in the dynamic and ever-evolving digital space by using a variety of online channels and strategies like SEO, content marketing, social media, email campaigns, and more.

What are the steps for setting goals and objectives?

Here are the seven steps:

Decide what your goals/objectives are.

Write down your goal.

Set a deadline.

List all activities needed to achieve the goal.

Organize your goals into a plan by priority and sequence.

Take action immediately.

Use every day to do something toward achieving your goal.

Examples of Digital Marketing Objectives 

Understanding digital marketing goals examples can help businesses strategies and achieve their desired outcomes in the ever-evolving online landscape.

Increase Website Traffic: 

Goal: To attract more visitors to the website. 

Example: Implementing SEO strategies to improve organic search rankings and running targeted PPC campaigns to drive traffic.

Generate Leads: 

Goal: To capture potential customers’ information for further nurturing. 

Example: Offering a downloadable ebook or whitepaper in exchange for email sign-ups.

Boost Sales and Revenue: 

Goal: To increase the number of sales and overall revenue. 

Example: Running limited-time promotions or discounts to encourage immediate purchases.

Enhance Brand Awareness: 

Goal: To increase recognition and visibility of the brand. 

Example: Launching a social media campaign featuring user-generated content with branded hashtags.

Improve Customer Engagement: 

Goal: To interact and build relationships with customers. 

Example: Conducting interactive live Q&A sessions or hosting online contests.

Drive Social Media Following: 

Goal: To grow the brand’s presence on social media platforms. 

Example: Running a social media giveaway to attract new followers and engage existing ones.

Increase Online Conversions: 

Goal: To optimise the website and marketing channels for better conversion rates. 

Example: A/B testing different website layouts or CTA buttons to identify the most effective ones.

Expand Market Reach: 

Goal: To enter new markets and reach untapped customer segments. 

Example: Creating localised content and advertising campaigns for specific regions.

Improve Customer Retention and Loyalty: 

Goal: To encourage repeat business and build brand loyalty. 

Example: Sending personalised email offers or exclusive promotions to existing customers.

Monitor and Analyse Data: 

Goal: To track and measure the success of digital marketing efforts. 

Example: Using analytics tools to assess website traffic, conversion rates, and user behaviour to inform future strategies.

Check out our free courses to get an edge over the competition.

Budgeting and resource allocation

What is budget allocation?

Budget allocation is the process of designating specific amounts of money to each department within a company. How much money each group receives depends on: Company priorities. Revenue projections.

What is resource allocation in digital marketing

Resource allocation is the process of assigning and managing assets in a manner that supports an organization's strategic planning goals. Resource allocation includes managing tangible assets such as hardware to make the best use of softer assets such as human capital.

Marketing budget allocation should be around 10-15% of your expected course revenue, with a hefty 70% of this dedicated to digital marketing. Focus on building an online presence through educational content marketing, social media, webinars, SEO, and some PPC advertising for immediate visibility.

6 Steps to Create a Digital Marketing Budget

Digital marketing budget allocation is no small feat. It must be more strategic than wishful — and more data-backed than gut instinct-based. Moreover, it should align back to business objectives.

Here are six steps to ensure you’re on the right path.  

1. Determine Your Marketing Budget 

Before you allocate a budget for the digital side, calculate your overall marketing budget. The more competitive your industry is, the higher your budget will be. Some industries require a large marketing budget by default due to the higher cost per lead and click. Examples include businesses in higher education, finance services, transportation and logistics, healthcare, legal services and a host of B2C categories. 

2. Decide on Goals 

What do you want your marketing plan to accomplish? For example, do you want to build more credibility or generate more leads? 

Your goals will ultimately decide how much you spend on different channels. For example, you could consider using SEO and content marketing tactics if your goal is to maximize organic visibility and build authority on a topic. SEO is usually less expensive than running paid campaigns and is built up over time. 

But if you want faster results, you may want to consider running paid ad campaigns. The ad spend costs can add up in this case. Similarly, if you want to improve customer loyalty or boost sales, you might take the email marketing route. 

3. Get Historical Data 

How well did your digital marketing campaigns perform last quarter or year? That could set the tone for your budget moving forward. 

Take strategies that worked, and leave the ineffective ones behind. Did your Meta ad campaign bring in more leads? Adopt it for the future. 

Were the results from content marketing efforts unremarkable? It might be time to reassess. 

4. Select the Channels

Let’s say you’ve chosen to use social media and email as two main marketing channels. Here’s what a social media budget typically entails: 

Content generation (hiring writers and designers, buying tools, etc.)

Ad spend 

Market research 

For email marketing, you’d have to spend money on curate an email list (select, organize). Then there are email marketing tools’ subscription costs and the money you’d spend on copywriters and designers. 

Similarly, you could select other channels like SEO, influencer marketing, SEM, retail media networks, and digital audio advertising (podcasts). Their expenses will also be unique, depending on their components. 

5. Account for Production Costs 

For your marketing strategies to be successful, the production should be top-notch. Here are some production costs you’ll have to add to your budget: 

Market research 

Salaries (in-house teams) 

Outsourcing costs (agencies or freelancers) 

Software subscriptions 

Tools 

A/B testing 

6. Factor In Additional Costs 

It’s better to be prepared than to be caught off guard. Make sure you have a clear idea of the possible additional costs. These could include: 

Contract cancellation fees 

Legal consultations 

Tech support services 

Content/dDesign revisions 

Legal consultations 

Finally, compile the costs into a comprehensive budget and put your marketing efforts in motion. 

 Campaign planning and execution

What is campaign planning in digital marketing?

A campaign plan is a short-term integrated communications plan to generate leads or sales. Its purpose is to engage audiences, it typically has a content marketing focus and an integrated media schedule.

What is campaign execution in marketing?

Execution makes all the necessary elements of marketing work to bring strategy to life. For example, tradeshows,( trade fair-a large event at which several companies show and try to sell their products and services in one place) advertising, public relations, social media contribution and a blog can coordinate to generate leads.

What is digital marketing execution?

Digital marketing campaigns are the execution of the strategy and tactics. The marketing tactics used to execute these campaigns often vary by channel, audience, and other factors. An effective digital marketing campaign will reflect a substantially similar message across multiple channels

How do you plan and execute digital marketing?

6 steps to execute a successful marketing campaign

Your marketing campaign should fit well into your overall marketing project plan. But it all boils down to how well you execute your marketing campaigns. Otherwise, the marketing project plan will fall apart. Here are six steps that can help you carry out a successful marketing campaign.

1) Thoroughly research your target audience

The Sales force State of the Connected Customer report reveals that 73% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations. But the sad truth is that some companies don’t take the time to truly understand their customers.

There are several simple ways to learn more about your target audience:

·      Website visitor surveys

·      Customer surveys

·      Customer interviews

·      Chat transcripts

·      Review mining

·      Competitor research

·      Talking to your sales team

Ideally, it’s best to incorporate all of these tactics for a thorough research strategy. But if you can’t, at least do a combination of website visitor surveys, customer surveys, customer interviews, and talks with your sales team. This is how you’ll better understand your target audience — and identify where teams across the company don’t understand customer’s needs and expectations.

2) Build an audience segmentation strategy

An audience segmentation strategy helps you group potential and existing customers based on common interests and defining characteristics. It goes beyond grouping customers based on where they live and involves using your customer research to group customers based on their pain points, the solutions they seek, and their stage in the buyer journey.

It’s the foundation of any good marketing strategy because it helps you:

·      Content marketing team better understand how to create content based on each segment’s needs

·      Paid ads team know which ad campaigns would be best for each audience segment

·      Conversion copywriter create landing pages that appeal to the pains that motivate each audience segment

·      Social media marketing team understand how to build brand awareness in a targeted way for each audience segment

·      Email marketing team create email automations that resonate with each group of customers and lead them closer to a sale

But how do you know that the audience segments you’ve chosen are the best for your brand?

Make sure your segments meet the following criteria:

·      Measurable based on their size and potential ROI

·      Accessible based on how easy it is to reach your target customers within each segment and whether those target customers can afford your product

·      Substantial in terms of being able to actually purchase your product (not just being interested it)

·      Actionable based on meeting the target audience’s expectations

3) Create campaign goals & milestones that align with your budget

Knowing your target audience and how it should be segmented paves a clear path for outlining your goals, campaign budget, and campaign milestones. Let’s start with campaign goals. Marketers who set goals for their campaigns are nearly four times more likely to be successful than those who don’t set goals. Campaign success and goal setting work in tandem.

Your campaign goals depend on what you’re trying to achieve over a period of time and how that aligns with the business's overall goals. Let’s say you’re working at a startup that needs to increase brand visibility to reach potential customers. You and your team have decided to host a webinar at the end of the first quarter. The goal is to have at least 500 attendees.

One milestone that could help you achieve the goal is getting a 10% webinar signup rate from paid ads for the period. The next step would be to figure out the budget. You’ll need to know how much the paid ads will cost for the period, the subscription fee for the webinar hosting platform, and the guest speaker’s fee (if there is one). You can only move forward with your plans if the budget lines up.

Organizing your campaign goals and milestones is much easier with the right tools — ones that allow your team to collaborate easily and clearly see how close they are to goal completion. 

Teamwork.com provides this essential part of your marketing tech stack to help your team stay on target, and on budget. Sign up with Teamwork.com to get started today.

4) Decide on your marketing channels

Marketing channels are the media you’ll use to get your message to your target customer.

There are nine popular marketing channels:

·      SEO and content marketing

·      Email marketing

·      Pay-per-click advertising

·      Social media marketing

·      Email marketing

·      Video marketing

·      Public relations

·      Affiliate marketing

·      Influencer marketing

Only big brands with huge marketing budgets can use all nine channels. You don’t need to spread yourself thin trying to cover all of them, but a multi-channel campaign can still be beneficial to your brand. Choose the best combination of channels that will help you reach your audience at each stage of the customer journey based on your customer research and campaign goals.

5) Execute your campaign

The four steps outlined above help you create a plan for your marketing campaign. But it’s the execution of the plan that determines its success.

There are many moving parts to consider such as:

·      Who will be in charge of each task?

·      What will the campaign workflow look like?

·      How will you know when each task is completed so that you know you’re getting closer to the goal?

·      Who is the point person who oversees the entire campaign?

·      What will the project schedule be so that each task can be completed in the correct order?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These questions boil down to one thing — organization. Research shows that organized marketers are 674% more likely to report success. But organization doesn’t come through numerous spreadsheets and Google Docs files. Marketing campaign management software acts as a central hub for organizing your campaign’s project schedule and workflow so that you and your team can successfully complete tasks.

6) Monitor your KPIs to understand campaign progress and success

Your campaign KPIs (key performance indicator) relate to the goals and milestones you outlined in step three. KPIs help break down your goals into various subtasks that are easy to track. They also help keep your team motivated as they see how their work contributes to overall goal achievement.

Let’s say your goal is to get a 56% conversion rate by the end of the first quarter. You break that goal down into these measurable KPIs: (key performance indicator)

·      Conversion copywriter completes eight customer interviews

·      Conversion copywriter uses the customer interview data to write the copy for three different landing pages (one for each customer segment)

·      Web designer creates each landing page

·      Marketing manager walks through the website with the conversion copywriter and web designer to design at least two variations of each landing page, ensure the CTA is clear, and ensure that there are no technical glitches

·      Paid ads expert creates a series of PPC and social media ads for each landing page

·      Marketing manager monitors the success of the campaign by the number of conversions from each paid ad

·      Data informs the variation of each landing page that should be used going forward

The key here is to ensure that your KPIs are realistic and attainable. If they aren’t, your team will feel overwhelmed and will quickly lose their motivation.

Popular marketing campaign management tools

Once you’ve created a plan for your marketing campaign, you’re ready to use campaign management tools to take it to the next level.

Example

Teamwork.com

Teamwork.com is a project management tool that allows you to manage multiple marketing campaigns with ease. It acts as the single source of truth for day-to-day project management and has helped teams increase productivity by over 40%.

Key Features

·      Workload planner that allows you to see each team member’s work capacity at a glance

·      Forecasting and planning resources for future time periods through a resource scheduler

·      Milestones that make it easier to monitor progress towards goal completion

·      Time logging so you know how long team members take to complete tasks and improve your billing processes

·      CRM (Customer relationship management) that helps you close deals faster and make client handoff more efficient

·      Various team collaboration features that help with communication and keeping everyone on track

 Monitoring and adjusting digital marketing campaigns

What is campaign monitoring in digital marketing?

It allows marketers to monitor how their campaigns perform and gain valuable insights. For example, it can include information such as how many people clicked on a particular ad. Also, it can tell you how many people visited a website as a result of this ad and how much money you spent on the campaign.

Campaign monitoring involves tracking and analyzing metrics to evaluate the performance for improvements. When it comes to monitoring, a few key performance indicators like CTR (click-through rates), conversion rates, and engagement levels help organizations to evaluate their marketing strategies

What is adjustment explain briefly?

Adjustment is defined as a process wherein one builds variations in the behavior to achieve harmony (harmony) with oneself, others or the environment with an aim to maintain the state of balance between the individual and the environment.

How to Measure and Analyze Your Digital Marketing Campaigns?

Set specific goals and KPIs: (key performance indicator)

Setting goals and KPIs is a great way to measure success and identify what you can do better. Setting strong, simple goals and tracking and measuring them correctly can determine how you're performing and whether you need an adjustment.

Use analytics tools:

Analytics tools are designed to help you make decisions or, at the very least, streamline your company's decision-making processes by collecting, visualising, and communicating your data.

Monitor social media metrics:

Social media metrics is the data used to assess the impact of social media activity on marketing campaigns and a company's revenue. These metrics help to assess how well you are accomplishing your goals in the social space and provide insight to where you can modify your campaign.

One of the most common ways is to add up your total likes, comments, shares, and saves, and divide the total by your number of followers. Then multiply by 100 to get a percentage. You can also use our free engagement rate calculator to measure your engagement rate by post, account, or campaign.

A/B testing:

A/B testing (also known as split testing or bucket testing) is a methodology for comparing two versions of a webpage or app against each other to determine which one performs better.

Continuously analyze and optimize:

Continuous optimization is the practice of analyzing your experiments, assessing how they perform, and identifying what to do next.

Use Attribution Models.

An attribution model is the rule, or set of rules, that determines how credit for sales and conversions is assigned to touch points in conversion paths. For example, the Last Interaction model in Analytics assigns 100% credit to the final touch points (i.e., clicks) that immediately precede sales or conversions.

Attribution modeling is what many marketers use to help determine the comparative value of a marketing or advertising channel. Understanding the value of these channels and the type of benefit they bring to a campaign helps determine budget spends, traffic sources and how to optimize campaigns

Analyze Social Media Metrics.

Social media analytics is the collection and analysis of performance data that helps you measure the success of your social media strategy. It includes tracking...