Delving into Digital Marketing!
While the dependency on technology is increasing day by day it also allows us to complete our tasks in a much easier manner. With this comes the need to make effective use of technology to gain the most out of it. And one such area that can be capitalized on by using technology is in the field of marketing. Gone are the days where marketing was just done via conventional channels of marketing. Digital marketing has taken over and has shown rapid growth in a short span of time.
With over half the world using the internet, digital marketing has become an easy, effective, and quick way to share content and promote products and services to different geographies with great speed. It has also reduced the reliance on manpower which not only reduces costs for companies but also creates the need for more creative job openings. Let us take a better look at what digital marketing is. Digital Marketing is nothing but using the internet to reach out to customers via different mediums and platforms. It is broadly classified under different categories which are as follows:
SEO: Search Engine Optimization is nothing but a process in which the content and quality of a website or webpage is improved in order to gain traffic and increase its reach. A website with content that relates to the searches of the users gains more traction compared to an unoptimized website.
Pay Per Click: As the term suggests in its name, pay per click is an advertising model that is used to earn visits to a website by paying an advertising fee. This helps to gain website traffic rather than waiting for the audience to check it out organically. It is alternatively known as Search Engine Marketing.
Social Media Marketing: There is no shortage of various kinds of social media platforms and these platforms garner a lot of daily users. Naturally, it makes sense to capitalize on the user base of these platforms and to promote and advertise on these platforms. Text, image, or video advertisements on these platforms can be classified under social media marketing.
Content Marketing: Strategically creating content that is focused on a particular target audience and aims to create relevance among customers to attract them and to retain them to increase profits.
Email Marketing: Sending emails to a group of people to advertise, promote products, create awareness, and drive business categorizes under email marketing. Emails are usually sent to a group of people with a commercial message. It is the most successful form of digital marketing in terms of deliverability.
Mobile Marketing: With the usage of different types of gadgets digital marketing also needs to be customized to target users based on the device that they are using. The digital marketing that is done via SMS, MMS, and other adverts that appear on mobiles are classified under mobile marketing.
Marketing Analytics: Out of all the forms of digital marketing this is the most important as marketing analytics is the process in which the metrics and data are studied in order to obtain data that is used to come up with marketing campaigns. One of the tools that are predominantly used to gather data is Google Analytics.
Google Analytics: Google Analytics is very vast and an article of this length is very short to cover about it. Yet if there are some pointers about Google Analytics that one must know, they are:
It can collect real-time data of location, traffic source, user device, conversion data, active users, demographics, acquisition data, the path of journey, the effectiveness of a campaign and the list goes on. Personally, I would recommend any marketing enthusiast to complete the beginner and advanced course of Google Analytics as it not only provides insights on how effectively data can be used but also helps to understand how one can come up with marketing campaigns that can create a difference.
While the above-mentioned categories of digital marketing are far from being exhaustive, they give us a clear picture of where the future is headed for marketing. All in all, with the internet buzzing around with every second person in the world the potential for digital marketing, is endless and companies and brands have already begun capitalizing on it. Its affordability and quick reach along with high engagement rate have reaped fruits for those who have sown their seeds in it. What remains to be seen is — Is this the tip of the iceberg?
Experts believe the answer to be a yes, as machine learning and AI will be used by marketers and they cover only a fraction of the market today. While the benefits that they provide in terms of personalization, increased automation, and better customer engagement can completely change the way marketing evolves.
