Digital marketing is also often referred to as online marketing, and involves the promotion of brands by using the Internet, mobile devices, social media, search engines and other digital channels to reach consumers.
Digital marketing is also often referred to as online marketing, and involves the promotion of brands by using the Internet, mobile devices, social media, search engines and other digital channels to reach consumers.
With the help of these digital tools, digital marketing is the way for companies to endorse and promote their goods, services and brands. Today’s consumers rely heavily on digital resources and use them extensively to search and compare products and services.
The development of digital marketing in the 1990s and 2000s changed the way companies and brands market themselves. Digital marketing campaigns are much more common nowadays, as digital platforms are woven into our lives and people are using digital devices more and more frequently.
Digital marketing covers everything that involves using digital tools for marketing purposes. Some popular and well-known tools are outlined below.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and plays an important role in the online world. It helps to widen the reach among potential customers by making the position of a brand or company appear higher in the search engine. It is estimated that more than 4 billion searches are done on Google each and every day, and this is growing year on year. With more than 90%, Google is the biggest player, followed by Yahoo! and Bing.
Search engine marketing, like SEO, is a fundamental part of a sound online marketing strategy. SEO is an effective way to generate organic traffic at the top of the funnel. Search engine advertising is effective in generating traffic at the bottom of the funnel. The search engine result page is also called SERP.
Content marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on creating and sharing content for a specific type of online audience.
Content marketing is commonly used by companies to attract the attention of consumers, generate leads, expand their customer base and boost both brand awareness and brand credibility.
Additionally, content marketing attracts and builds up customer loyalty and provides valuable information to consumers that in turn increases their willingness to buy products from that company.
Influencers are people on social media who have built up a reputation for their online presence and their knowledge on specific issues and other areas of expertise. They regularly post messages and content about a particular topic on social media and generate large groups of enthusiastic followers.
Brands and companies see the value of this, especially since they can use influencers to persuade their customers to buy certain products and services. As such, the use of influencers in online marketing strategy is a form of social media marketing.
As previously mentioned, the use of social media in marketing is a powerful way for companies to reach their potential customers.
Customers are able to interact with their favourite brands through social media. Social media marketing includes publishing content, advertisements and other resources to motivate their audience.
The term digital marketing refers to any digital means that is used for promoting a marketing message. It is not limited to the use of online resources such as the Internet, and is therefore an umbrella term that encompasses a multitude of marketing techniques.
The main characteristic of online marketing, which is not true in the case of digital marketing, is that it does require an Internet connection.
Digital marketing and, therefore, online marketing, works differently for B2B (business-to-business) than for B2C (business-to-consumer). The difference is in the overall strategy, but also in the audience and how communication with the customer takes place. B2B primarily focuses on the needs and challenges of companies, or rather, the people in companies.
Hereby, a company becomes a customer of another company. One example of B2B is a co-working office building in the centre of Amsterdam. This company rents out office space to teams and employees of other companies.
B2B marketing content tends to be more informative and straightforward than marketing content in B2C. This is because B2B focuses on business purchase decisions and is more geared towards revenue impact. Return on Investment (ROI) is extremely important in B2B marketing and rarely a factor in the purchase decisions of consumers.
The articles linked to this tag deal with the various methods, theories and tactics for leveraging different digital marketing initiatives.
