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Internet usage is growing fast and if you think it is already grown you’re wrong about this. All the youngsters and millennials might be using the internet today but adults are still behind. A study from Pew research shows that 5% increase in adult’s internet usage in the last three years. So, Internet usage is still growing and creating opportunities for online business owners and digital marketing careers.
So, let me ask you a question. How much time you guys spend time on the internet on a daily basis?
Most of the youngsters and millennials might say 5-6 hours more or less, but according to statista.com all over the world, one person spends an average of 144 minutes which is around 2.5 hours on the internet daily. Which is 2 minutes more than the last year, so clearly internet usage is growing and so does the opportunities in digital marketing.
What is Marketing?
In simple terms marketing is promoting your brand, product or service to the right audience, at the right time and at the right place. So, in traditional marketing we place ads on print media like a newspaper where people spend their time, we put hoardings near red lights, near metro stations, or in stadiums. So that people can see your brand, product or service that you are offering. Clearly marketing is done where people can see you and where the people spend most of their time or should I say free time.
For example, if you’re going to the office in your car and stopped for the red light to go green, what you do at that time? You’ll probably look here and there and if some put a hoarding near the red light you’ll see at least one time. And someday if you want to buy something like that brand will surely strike in your mind. So, marketing works like that.
In the present time, you need to meet the people where they spend most of the time i.e., the Internet.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital Marketing is a technique that involves usage of digital mediums such as the internet or wireless technologies for creating awareness, consideration purchase and loyalty for a particular brand, product or service. Or in other words, any type of marketing that exists online is called Digital Marketing.
When I say digital mediums it includes: Search Engine (Like Google), Social Media Platforms, Email and Websites. It helps the business to reach its potential customers. Digital Marketing is the best and effective way to promote your brand, product or service. Traditional marketing still works but for most businesses, digital marketing is the best approach to take in this modern and developing world.
Why Digital Marketing?
As we already discussed above how people are spending more and more time on the internet, and marketing is done where people are spending their time more. Let’s take an example of a local restaurant in your locality, traditionally local restaurants print pamphlets and send it through newspapers or hire a guy to distribute them to each household in the locality or sometimes the mouth of word works(for most businesses in food industry mouth of the word still works).
So, here’s the catch, if you’ll hire a guy and pays him to distribute but who’ll take the guarantee that he’ll distribute to each house in your locality? Plus you have to print the flyers or pamphlets that will cost you something. And how you’ll decide how many households are in your area and how many you should print.
So it’s quite a task. And if we talk about distribution through the newspaper then you have to pay the newspaper guy, but not everyone reads the same newspaper so you’ve to contact every newspaper vendor in the locality. So, the cost will be more.
On the other hand, if you’ll go for a digital marketing medium then you can do it in a fast and cost-effective manner. You just need to run advertisements on any social media platform select the location or radius in which you deliver select the interests of the people mostly related to food or home delivery, and set a budget for daily. I guarantee you it will cost you way less than the traditional marketing technique.
Difference between Traditional and Digital Marketing
| `Traditional Marketing | Digital Marketing |
| It Involves presence on print ads, outdoor ads, newspaper ads etc. | It Involves presence on websites, email, social media, search engines etc. |
| Lacks Specific targeting of prospects | Can Specifically target people based on location, age, Interests etc. |
| Static-People can’t interact, it’s a one-way message | Dynamic-people can interact, modify, respond & share it |
| Its costlier-You pay to reach out to people who might not be prospects at all | Its cost effective-You only pay when the audience actually views or interacts |
| Reach is local. Only digger brands can afford global reach | Wide reach almost anyone presents anywhere in the world can be reached at standard budgets |
| Direct Results are not measurable | Results are easily measurable as clicks, impressions, visits and sales |
What is the Benefit of Using Digital Marketing for a Company?
Nowadays, almost every business has a website, if they don’t they at least have a social media presence. Competition to get clients is getting harder every day, all the business wants more clients. But the question is how you’ll get it? A simple solution gets into digital marketing. As I mentioned the difference between traditional and digital marketing above, one can clearly understand how useful it can be for your business.
Through Digital Marketing you can specifically target your clients by location, interest, age, gender, and many more, depending on the platform you’re using. Social Media is one of the best platforms to create awareness about your product, brand or service. You can easily target customers through social media. You can advertise to a wide range of audiences for a very small price. On the other hand, if you use traditional marketing over digital marketing you’ve to spend a lot of money and it can’t even target the right audience for your product.
In Digital Marketing you can calculate the ROI of the ad spend, and you can get other details also, that you cannot measure in traditional marketing. You don’t know the ad is responsible for sale in traditional marketing
Do I Need a Big Budget for Digital Marketing?
It totally depends on what technique you’re using. If you’re focusing on inbound marketing techniques like Social Media, SEO or Content Marketing then it will cost you almost nothing depending on you have a website already. And if you want to use outbound marketing techniques like social media ads, Google ads, or emails then it will cost you a little bit but not like in traditional marketing, and it also depends on how much you can spend monthly.
Types of Digital Marketing
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
- Social Media Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Inbound Marketing
- Sponsored Content
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
The process of ranking your web pages high and optimizing your pages in the search engine when a user search for a keyword is known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO. SEO can benefit you in inbound marketing, it will drive more traffic to your website or blog which will benefit your business and good thing is that you can do it for free if you’re dedicated to your project. There are two types of SEO:
On-Page SEO: The changes you make within your website that will help your Search engine rankings is called On-Page SEO.
Off-Page SEO: The change you make outside your website that helps your search engine rankings is called Off-Page SEO.
Social Media Marketing
The process of promoting your brand, product or service through social media platforms that benefits your business is called Social Media Marketing. Some of the popular platforms include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Content Marketing
Content Marketing is promoting your content on different platforms and using different formats (EBook, Infographics) so that it can help you to generate organic leads, create brand awareness and increase your traffic to the website.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay Per Click or Cost Per Click is an advertising term that we use mostly using search engine advertisements. We make advertisements and run it on search engines when someone clicks on your ad it will charge you the money for each click, but you can decide the PPC cost according to your budget and the competition in that particular keyword. One of the most common PPC platforms is Google Adwords. The same can be used in social media platforms also like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing depends on the performance, in this you receive a commission for selling or promoting someone else product or services. This is the best way to earn money easily all you need is a good amount of traffic or good connections so that people can buy the product.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing is the best way to retarget customers or for customer retention. The best example is Amazon; Amazon uses email marketing to retain customers on a daily basis. They use offers like a daily offer for you, an exclusive offer for you or some product considerations for you.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing is where you attract customers through blogs, social media, and search results. You can use other mediums too to create the best experience for the users.
Sponsored Content
In Sponsored Content, you pay some other business or company to create content and for your business and promote it. This is the best way of indirect marketing. You can hire an influencer as well. Influencers are really connected with their audience and can generate a good amount of leads for your business as well.
So that is all for this article soon I’ll be explaining each aspect of digital marketing so stay connected and do share the content if you like it. And in the meantime do subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest updates.