As the world has shifted from traditional buying to online purchasing, traditional marketing has also seen a massive shift from the older ways to digital advertising and marketing. Marketing has come a long way from traditional marketing based on billboards and newspaper ads. Even though traditional methods are still in use, the focus has shifted drastically toward digital marketing methods.
The best thing about digital marketing is the use of social media and the fact that it is measurable. Understanding how social media marketing works is a great advantage when using digital marketing to scale and advertise a business. Using digital marketing has enabled businesses to generate more leads, reach beyond geographical limitations, and as a result enjoy greater-than-ever-before profits. Not only that, digital marketing achieves multiple objectives of the business in a single shot. Like, as maximizing profits while building a stronger relationship with the customers, and so on.
In this article we see how exactly is digital marketing defined and how does it work? We will also cover the tools and tricks that are used to ensure the best use of this tool in helping the business move forward.
Let us go ahead and see what digital marketing actually is.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is defined as using online and digital platforms to connect with current and potential customers. The primary goal of digital marketing is not only higher sales but also several other objectives are achieved through digital marketing. Like, building a trustable relationship with the audience, and introducing new products, responding to queries, and building a strong two-way communication platform – all of these are equally essential to any business just like increasing sales. The businesses using digital marketing are not only the larger ones, even the smallest of businesses still rely on digital marketing to scale their businesses and connect with the audience.
Now it is time to move on to explore how exactly digital marketing works.
How does digital marketing work?
As digital marketing uses different mediums that are digital as well as online to achieve business goals, it uses a bunch of different techniques and strategies to ensure all the business goals are met. Let us have a look at them
Search engine optimization [SEO]
Search engine optimization or SEO, as it is popularly known is using search engines to drive traffic to a business’s website. This is done by optimizing the website in line with the requirements of the search engines which enables them to crawl the website easily and rank it accordingly. It is reported that more than 90% of the people who are about to make a purchase decision Google their query first. Whether it is a dress or a tech device, the first thing that everyone does, to find the best one on the planet, is to Google. The whole point of Search engine optimization in 2023 is to ensure that a business’s website pops up on the first page. Ideally, the first three spots are where the consumers mostly make their purchase decisions. If a business is lagging behind in getting its search optimization right, there are higher chances of them missing out on big opportunities for higher sales and growth.
Search engine optimization is no easy game, it requires expertise, time, and patience for the search engine optimization strategy to work and make its mark. Slowly and gradually a website makes its way upward on the ranking pages of search engines and then the true results of SEO are seen. Just like around the world, SEO services in Pakistan are now highly sought after and experts providing SEO services are high in demand too.
Pay-per-click advertising
This kind of advertising is the business paying for the number of clicks by users on the advertised ad. Among all methods of digital marketing, this is the quickest and easiest way to bring in traffic to the website, even though the traffic is not organic. It is also used when search engine optimization is in the pipeline to get quicker results.
Result yielding website
A business’s website is its exclusive outlet on the internet, it is only fair to make the customer’s experience of visiting the website stellar and unparalleled. It is the website that becomes the first impression of the business and helps consumers make the final purchase decisions. A website is also often called the biggest online asset of a business. The whole point is to make the website experience so amazing that the consumers spend more time on the website which also helps in better search engine rankings of the website. The website should be highly functional as well as easy to navigate. Another key point is to make the website mobile-friendly.
High-quality content
Trust us, nobody is going to connect to a brand or a business unless the business has something valuable, informative, or entertaining to offer to the users. Content is king, as it is widely and famously said, is highly true. It is the content placed strategically in the marketing campaigns and websites that attracts and brings in customers to the brand. High-quality content is the foundation of building a good customer base. The content is marketed through social media posts, podcasts, infographics, blogs, testimonials, website content, videos, animations, and so on.
Social media marketing
Digital marketing is also often mistaken for social media marketing. This however is not the true case. The result yielding power of social media for digital marketing is unparalleled. How much exposure a business can get through social media marketing is unfathomable. The limits are beyond comprehension. The best part of social media marketing is the targeted marketing that is done keeping the consumers’ data in mind when devising social media campaigns. The data is also used for running paid ads on social media which enables businesses to direct the correct ads to the correct audience. This means no waste of time, resources, or whatsoever. Statistics show that an average of 4 hours of a person’s time is spent on social media every day. Social media marketing is also used to build a stronger connection with the audience by commenting, creating polls, contests, giveaways, and so on.
Affiliate marketing
Other than the traditional affiliate marketing that uses blogs and websites of individuals for the promotion of a business or products of a business, affiliate marketing has also come a long way. Nowadays influencers and vloggers are used [and paid] to promote a business’s products and services. Vloggers and influencers from specific niches are used to promote specific products for the business. And the results are remarkable! The audience takes the word-of-mouth of the influencers and vloggers they follow pretty seriously.
Email marketing
Another oldest way of digital marketing is traditional email marketing. This works wonders for those businesses that have people subscribed to their newsletters or updates. Often it is used as a prime tool for communication with the customers, however, it is rare that it is the cause of generating more leads for the business.
Last few words…
In order to reap the most benefits from digital marketing, a clear understanding of each and every strategy and tool is a must. This enables the business to decide which strategies will work best for specific business goals.
