what is the digital marketing? A guide to marketing in today’s digital world

In the world of business development and branding, digitization is all the rage. So what is digital marketing and how can we use it to grow our businesses?

Definition of digital marketing

Digital marketing is the advertising and promotion of companies and their brands through digital media channels. Digital media, right now, includes websites, social media, radio, television, mobile devices, and even traditionally non-digital forms of media such as billboards and road signs. Essentially, any marketing medium that is delivered electronically is considered digital marketing.

This leaves only various forms of person-to-person (P2P) marketing, print advertising, and direct marketing outside of the digital marketing umbrella. Even then, print ads, direct mail, print directories, billboards, and posters are beginning to connect with their digital counterparts. With things like URL landing pages, QR codes, web banner ads, online directories, and text codes, traditional marketing and advertising almost always have a connection to digital marketing.

Why the focus on digital media?

The shift to digital media is being driven by marketing agencies, business owners, and consumers alike. The ever-increasing demand to show measurable results makes going digital a dream for the digital marketing agency. Most digital media, including websites, social media, and mobile advertising, are much easier to track than traditional marketing mediums like print advertising.

For business owners, many forms of digital advertising come at a very low cost. Having a web presence, engaging customers in conversations through social media, and email marketing are all low-cost alternatives to print advertising and direct mail. These digital channels are available to businesses of any size and help level the playing field for startups, small businesses, and independent consultants looking for new business.

For consumers, the fast pace of life makes digital advertising a must. When consumers need goods and services, the days of flipping through a phone book to find them are over. Now, we pull out our mobile devices or turn to our computers for answers, and we find them quickly.

Using digital media to build your business and brand

Regardless of the size of your business, be it large or small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs or SMEs), you can effectively market your business through low-cost digital channels. The foundation of your marketing efforts will be your website. Invest wisely in your website and make sure it does the following:

• Adequately represents your business and brand (appearance, messages)
• Speaks appropriately to your target audience
• Can be found by search engines on major search engines
• It is up to date and easily navigable.
• Provides multiple channels for customer communication.
• It connects with other marketing efforts.

It is recommended that you work with a professional web design company that is an expert in web development and search engine optimization. Because your website is the foundation to and from which all other digital channels will be directed, it should be considered one of your main business investments.

Once you have your website complete, the next steps would be to launch regular monthly or bi-monthly email campaigns and connect with customers through social media. If you’re really on a shoestring budget, these are efforts that can be done in-house (by someone with the right knowledge) or for little cost by an outside digital marketing agency. Make sure that all of your efforts drive customers back to your website, where they can fully interact with your business, products and services, and choose the channels through which they will communicate with you.

If you’re interested in getting aggressive with search marketing, you can set aside some digital marketing dollars for search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising. Today, many businesses rely heavily on being found online to gain new customers. A common misconception among business owners is that simply having a website means customers will find you. not so Your site should be built with specific keywords and phrases, metadata, page content, and linking strategies that will help you reach the top search rankings.

Because many keywords and phrases face stiff competition for top search rankings, you’ll need to supplement your organic search engine optimization efforts with pay-per-click advertising. Getting established with pay-per-click ad campaigns can be a bit daunting, but with a little time, effort, and instruction, that too can be accomplished in-house or for a reasonable cost through a third-party digital marketing agency.

Beyond email, social media marketing, and search engine marketing, you can venture into a host of other digital marketing efforts. Mobile advertising, radio, television, electronic billboards and much more are available as outlets. Regardless of the digital endeavors you choose, they all need to connect and link back to your home base: your business website.

If you have the means, a good investment would be to hire the services of a digital marketing agency to help you with your marketing efforts. Today, many digital agencies offer multiple levels of service to suit businesses large and small.