Worldwide of business advancement and branding, going digital is all the buzz. So just what is digital marketing and how can we use it to grow our companies?
Digital Marketing Defined
Digital marketing is the advertising and promo of businesses and their brand names through digital media channels. Digital media, at the moment, consists of sites, social networks, radio, tv, mobile and even forms of traditionally non-digital media such as signboards and transit indications. Basically any marketing media that is delivered digitally is considered digital marketing.
This leaves only various kinds of person-to-person (P2P) marketing, print advertising and direct marketing beyond the digital marketing umbrella. Even then, print ads, direct-mail advertising, print directories, billboards and posters are all starting to link to their digital counterparts. With products like URL landing pages, QR codes, web banner advertising, online directory sites and text codes, conventional marketing and advertising generally has a digital marketing connection.
Why the Focus on Digital Media?
The shift to digital media is being driven by marketing agencies, entrepreneur and consumers alike. The ever-increasing demand to show quantifiable outcomes makes going digital a dream for the digital marketing agency. The majority of digital media, consisting of sites, social media and mobile marketing is much easier to track than standard marketing media such as print marketing.
For business owners, numerous types of digital advertising are really low cost. Having a web presence, engaging customers in conversations through social networks and e-mail marketing are low cost options to print advertising and direct-mail advertising. These digital channels are available to companies of any size, and assist to even the playing field for start-ups, small businesses and independent experts seeking brand-new service.
For consumers, the fast pace of life makes digital marketing a must. When consumers are in need of items and services, gone are the days of thumbing through a phone book to discover them. Now, we take out our mobile phones or head to our computers for answers – and we find them fast.
Utilizing Digital Media to Build Your Organisation and Brand name
No matter what size your organisation is – big or small to medium sized service/ enterprise (SMB or SME) – you can successfully market your company through affordable digital channels. The foundation of your marketing efforts will be your website. Invest carefully in your site, and make sure that it does the following:
Effectively represents your service and brand (look, messaging).
Properly speaks to your target audience.
Can be found by searchers on top search engines.
Is up-to-date and quickly accessible.
Offers several channels for customer communication.
Connects to other marketing efforts.
It is suggested that you deal with a professional website design firm that is proficient in web advancement and search engine optimization. Due to the fact that your site is the foundation to and from which all other digital channels will lead, it should be considered among your top business investments.
As soon as you have your website total, the next steps would be to release regular monthly or bi-monthly e-mail projects, and connect with consumers by means of social networks. If you are really on a small budget, these are efforts that can be done internal (by somebody with the appropriate understanding) or for a low cost by an outdoors digital marketing company. Make sure that all of your efforts lead clients back to your site where they can fully engage with your service, product or services, and select the channels through which they call you.
If you’re interested in getting aggressive with search marketing, you can reserve some digital marketing dollars for seo and pay-per-click advertising. Many organisations today rely greatly on being discovered online to acquire brand-new clients. A common misunderstanding among company owner is that simply having a site indicates that consumers will discover it. Not so. Your site needs to be constructed with specific key words and phrases, meta data, page content and linking strategies that will help it reach top search rankings.
Because many key words and phrases have stiff competitors for leading search rankings, you will require to supplement your organic seo efforts with pay-per-click advertising. Getting established with pay-per-click ad campaign can be a little daunting, but with a little time, effort and instruction, that too can be accomplished in-house, or for a reasonable cost through an outdoors digital marketing agency.
Beyond e-mail, social networks marketing and online search engine marketing, you can venture into a host of other digital marketing efforts. Mobile advertising, radio, television, electronic billboards and far more are available as marketing outlets. Whatever digital efforts you select, they should all connect and tie into your structure – your company website. Learn more about integrated digital marketing here.