Digital marketing is more than just a buzzword, it provides businesses with real benefits. Digital advertising and performance marketing help people scale their businesses based on real-time data, making it one of the most valuable tools at your disposal.
But don’t just take our word for it, here’s everything you need to know about online marketing and how it can help you reach your target audience.
Digital marketing refers to any marketing tactics that utilize the internet. Digital advertising definitely reigns supreme in the 21st century and is constantly evolving along with the technology it’s based upon. As a result, businesses need to stay ahead of the digital marketing curve by researching trends, exploring new platforms, taking advantage of all their latest platform offerings, and being creative so as to set themselves apart from competitors.
If you’re not yet taking advantage of everything that digital marketing has to offer, you’re missing out on a whole host of benefits that traditional marketing doesn’t offer, including but not limited to:
If your business is just starting out, then digital marketing is a great way for you to build brand awareness and boost engagement. This advantage of digital marketing is an incredibly important yet challenging aspect of building customer loyalty since consumers are unlikely to purchase from random brands that they know nothing about. The more that people see and know about your business with help from digital marketing tactics, the more likely they are to trust it and eventually decide to patronize it.
Once you’ve established awareness for your brand using paid search and other digital marketing channels, you can adjust your digital marketing strategy to gain new leads. Again, digital marketing efforts are often slow and methodical, taking into account that it takes time for potential customers to make online sales and build brand loyalty. However, gaining new leads is an important step in this process after which you can use incentives and promotions to actually get conversions.
Speaking of conversions, a huge benefit of digital advertising is that it can help you boost your conversion rates. A conversion occurs when a consumer completes a desired action, whether it’s visiting your website, downloading your mobile application, or actually making a purchase. To boost conversation rates, you can try using promo codes, compelling messaging, personalization, and direct responses.
Digital marketing is unique in terms of its ability to reach a target audience. This is because digital platforms often gather and analyze tons of web analytics about their users which businesses can then access through their marketing campaigns. And when businesses are able to target the right people with the right content, they’re going to experience better results with higher conversion rates.
Everyone knows that it’s more expensive to gain a new customer than to keep an existing one. As a result, digital marketing’s capacity for relationship building proves to be extremely beneficial for businesses. With digital marketing, businesses can keep in touch with their customers and provide them with customized product offerings, special discounts, and loyalty programs.
Digital marketing also provides businesses with helpful insights and powerful analytics that they can then use to improve their digital marketing strategies. With digital marketing, it’s easy to track the performance of a marketing campaign in real-time. It’s also possible to make any necessary adjustments to get a campaign back on track to avoid wasting money on an ineffective campaign.
At the end of the day, digital marketing provides businesses with a cost-effective approach to marketing that they can use to boost their overall return on ad spend (ROAS). Most digital marketing campaigns involve setting small budgets in contrast to other forms of marketing that may require initial investments of thousands of dollars. Furthermore, most forms of digital marketing essentially offer guaranteed results since you pay per click rather than per view.
Digital marketing is a general term that encompasses many different approaches, all of which are key to a diverse and effective digital marketing strategy. Here are some of the different types of digital marketing that you should consider incorporating into your business’s digital marketing strategy.
The goal of search engine optimization or SEO is to boost your organic ranking on search engines without directly paying for advertisements. Instead, this approach involves working the search engine’s algorithm by optimizing your website, incorporating keywords, and including links.
Paid search advertising involves paying to rank higher on search engines and, therefore, is considered to be a form of inorganic advertising. However, that doesn’t mean that paid search advertising can’t be effective. Paid search advertising is actually ideal because you only pay when someone actually clicks on your content rather than when someone views your content.
Social media marketing involves paying to promote your content on various social media platforms. In 2022, social media marketing is definitely one of the most popular and effective forms of marketing, with 91% of American businesses incorporating this method of marketing into their overall marketing strategies. Although 83.4% of internet-connected people use social media, different platforms tend to cater to different groups of people, and therefore, should be used by different types of businesses.
Display advertising involves placing video, image, or text elements onto a third-party website to drive clicks. Display advertising can be used on social media platforms, search engines, and other websites.
The most effective type of display ad is known as a “remarketing” ad wherein someone who has previously visited a business’ website or clicked on a business’ marketing content is retargeted with content from that same business.
Content marketing involves creating and sharing content that’s relevant to your industry and subtly promotes your business. Some common examples of content marketing include things like blogs, newsletters, videos, social media posts, emails, and reports. Content marketing is designed to be informative and can be used to establish a business’ authority in a given industry.
Email and SMS marketing involve contacting customers directly through both email and text messages. Email marketing has been prominent for years whereas SMS marketing is a newer development. Both of these marketing techniques provide businesses with an effective way to stay in contact with existing customers. However, businesses do need to receive consent in the form of “opting-in” before they contact anyone via email or text message.
Last but certainly not least, influencer marketing is a form of marketing that’s gained a ton of popularity and prominence in recent years. Influencer marketing allows businesses to partner with “influencers” who have established and loyal followings in a specific area, whether it be fashion, food, travel, design, parenting, etc.
Businesses can either pay influencers directly for their services or provide them with free products, depending on their popularity. And while extremely popular influencers with millions of followers might seem like the obvious choice, micro-influencers with smaller but more dedicated followings can also be extremely effective.
Your digital marketing strategy should involve more than just a single platform. For the best results, you need to embrace an omnichannel approach that incorporates a combination of these different platforms:
Google is the world’s largest search engine that processes over 8.5 billion searches per day. Furthermore, Google holds a whopping 90% of the search engine market. Just as you likely conduct several Google searches throughout the day, odds are that your customers are doing the same — actively searching for information on products like yours and looking to make a purchase.
As you now know, there are two different ways to show up on Google: SEO and paid advertising. SEO is more of a long-term strategy whereas paid advertising can get you instant results. For the best results on Google, you should utilize both methods.
Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform with 2.9 billion monthly active users across the world. Out of these monthly active users, 1.84 billion are considered daily active users who access the platform every day. These daily users spend about 33 minutes per day on the app.
Facebook has proved to be an incredibly valuable tool for businesses big and small. Businesses are able to create their own pages where they can interact with followers. Businesses can also pay to promote their content on Facebook. Both of these options are quite popular, with 86% of US marketers using the platform for advertising purposes.
Instagram is a photo-sharing and short-form video social media platform that’s owned by Facebook and boasts over one billion users. As a result, it’s estimated that 83% of Instagram users also use Facebook. However, it’s important to note that Instagram’s platform is preferred by a younger demographic, as 71% of its monthly active users are under the age of 35.
Advertising on Instagram has evolved a lot throughout the years as the platform has continued to add new features including Instagram Stories, Instagram Shopping, and Instagram TV (IGTV). Instagram is also a great platform for influencer marketing with thousands of accounts having well over one million followers.
YouTube is a video-sharing and streaming platform that’s owned by Google with over two billion active users that stream nearly five billion videos every day. Furthermore, new videos are constantly added to YouTube at a rate of 500 hours per minute, 30,000 hours per hour, and 720,000 hours per day.
Advertising on YouTube is pretty straightforward and there are a few different formats to choose from. Video ads fit in with the overall nature of the platform and appear before, during, and after videos. There are also display ads that show up either within or next to the video. Finally, you can pay to boost your video’s ranking on the platform based on your chosen keywords.
TikTok is a relatively new social media platform that’s known for short-form videos in contrast to YouTube’s long-form videos. Previously, TikTok videos came with a maximum of 60 seconds but the platform has since extended the time frame to three minutes. However, short videos still reign supreme on this platform, with the sweet spot being between 15 and 30 seconds.
TikTok is extremely popular with the younger demographic, specifically Millennials and Gen Z. TikTok now has over one billion users, with a majority of them between the ages of 10 and 29. TikTok is also known for its influencing capabilities, making it a great place to build partnerships with popular accounts and personalities.
Snapchat has over 500 million monthly active users and is known for its temporary “snaps” and chats that expire after a set period of time. Snapchat is also known for its “lenses” that transform users’ appearances and can be highly entertaining. Like TikTok, Snapchat is particularly popular and prominent with younger age groups, as nearly half of all Snapchat users are between the ages of 15 and 25.
Businesses can place advertisements between organic snaps on the platform. They can also sponsor filters and lenses for a more interactive and engaging approach to advertising that fits perfectly with this creative social media platform. Since Snapchat has a smaller user base compared to other platforms, it’s often underutilized by many businesses. As a result, you may be able to advertise on Snapchat at more affordable rates due to less competition.
While digital marketing does provide a whole host of potential benefits, these benefits are never guaranteed. In order to truly reap the benefits of everything that digital marketing has to offer, you need to develop an effective and tailored digital marketing strategy. Here are ten tips to help you achieve just that.
A huge strength of digital marketing is its targeting capabilities, however, you can only take advantage of these targeting capabilities if you know who to target. If you’re unsure, you can start by taking a look at the demographics of your current customer base. Another approach involves developing a customer persona with more intricate characteristics and details upon which you can base your targeting.
Keywords are another important component of digital marketing, especially when it comes to paid search ads and SEO. It’s essential to know your keywords, their volume, and their competitiveness. Think about the terms that your potential customers use when searching for your products and select the best ones to work on in terms of SEO and bid on in terms of paid search.
Speaking of competition, you need to know all about your competition in the digital marketing world since everyone’s competing for the same keywords, clicks, and users. Conduct a competitor analysis to identify your biggest competitors, determine their strengths and weaknesses, and come up with an effective strategy of your own based on the information you find.
Investing in digital marketing is useless without also investing in your website. You could have the most effective digital marketing campaign in the world, but a poorly designed website could easily scare potential conversions away. So make sure that your website is clear, professional, informative, and mobile-friendly.
While you may think that you can simply choose one or two of the digital marketing methods and platforms listed above, the best approach to digital marketing really involves incorporating a number of different platforms into an omnichannel approach. That way, you can take full advantage of the unique features and strengths of each platform while catering to a wide number of potential customers.
You can reach different audiences and target specific groups. Plus, you can experiment with different types of paid media (videos, photos, etc.) and see which yields the best results for your business.
Clearly, a lot of work goes into digital marketing if you want to reap all the benefits. As a business owner, handling all of this work on your own can prove to be incredibly overwhelming. Instead of handling it all on your own with less than stellar results, you should consider working with digital marketing experts like those at MuteSix.
MuteSix is a performance marketing agency dedicated to creating value for DTC brands using breakthrough creative, targeted media buying, and data-driven results in every step of the funnel. MuteSix is well-versed in every aspect of digital marketing from social media marketing to SMS marketing and everything in between. MuteSix even has its own in-house creative studio, StudioSix, that offers broadcast-level productions for highly effective digital marketing.
Digital marketing can be extremely beneficial, but only if you do it right. Get it right the first time by partnering with MuteSix. Reach out to our omnichannel paid media (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.) data, and creative experts for a complimentary consultation.
Sources:
Top 10 Benefits of Digital Marketing for Small Business | Business2Community
Most Used Social Media 2021 | Statista
Digital Marketing Guide: Six Tips For Maximizing Efforts And Driving Growth In 2021 | Forbes