Digital marketing refers to advertising delivered through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. It connects with customers where they spend much of their time: online.
Digital Marketing is target-specific. Advertising through the digital platform is very flexible in nature and can be tailored and customized according to the needs and requirement of various customer base accordingly without much hustle and is also optimisable to various display sizes.
Impact
People are spending more time indoors, which has increased the attention span of a normal user and is heavily influencing digital marketing trends.
i. Increased Social Media engagement
Due to Covid-19 outbreak and lockdown being imposed and as people were home, the time spent on social media increased. So this provides an opportunity for marketers to capitalize on and better connect with their customers through various Social Media sites, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Hence, the focus of marketing campaigns is hence going to move higher towards search engines, media websites and social media.
ii. Rise in demand for O.T.T. platform
Covid-19 saw a rise in demand for Over-The-Top platform. This rise in demand provides the marketer with the opportunity to promote their products through these platforms
iii. Rise in Product Research among customers
People are spending more time researching products and services online. It made the brands and marketers to manage their online reputation effectively and be responsive towards the customer reviews and requests
iv. Experiential Marketing
As people are spending more time online, the marketers are heavily emphasizing on making the customers online experience a delightful one when they visit the website, attend a webinar, visit landing pages etc.
v. Rise in demand for Video Content
As people are spending more time indoors, the demand for video contents in Video streaming platforms like YouTube has increased tremendously. This provided the marketers with an opportunity to advertise and promote their products.
Tools used for Digital Marketing
1. Social Media Marketing
Social Media Advertising is when a business pays to promote content on a social platform. The most common social media platforms for advertising are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. The key benefit of social media advertising is that content promoted on social can be liked, shared, and commented on by audiences.
2. Email Marketing
Email marketing is an easy way to effectively reach a target audience who is already interested in the brand. Once an email list is collected, email campaigns can be sent to customers for a variety of reasons. They can be about promotions or discounts.
3. Content Marketing
Content marketing uses storytelling and information sharing to increase brand awareness. It can be blog posts, resources like white papers and e-books, digital video, podcasts. The goal is to have the reader take an action towards becoming a customer
4. Mobile Marketing
It is this focused on reaching your target audience on their smartphone or tablet. Mobile marketing reaches people through text messages, social media, websites, email and mobile applications. Marketers can tailor offers or special content to a geographic location or time.
5. Search Engine Optimization
It is the process of improving the visibility of and increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to the website or webpage organically by optimizing the particular search engine.
6. Affiliate Marketing/ Influencer Marketing
Both influencer and affiliate marketing utilise those in a position of ‘power’, usually social media influencers or industry experts. This is to assist you in marketing a product or service to their audience.
7. Mobile Marketing
As the number of smartphone users increasing world-wide, brands can now connect with their customers on mobile phones through mobile apps,be-mails, Mobile-Optimizable Websites, and social media.
8. Video Marketing
Video Marketing is a technique whereby video streaming platforms like YouTube is utilised by the brands to promote their products and services to the customers.
9. Radio Advertising
Previously, radio used to be solely based on radio waves, it’s now digital. Radio ads are a great way to get your business or brand heard.
Benefits of Digital marketing
1. Reach a bigger audience
You can get access to a larger and global audience by using digital marketing methods as the internet has made every country accessible.
2. Flexibility
It enables you to use the preferences and interests of an individual client for sending them a unique marketing message. You can tailor messages for different groups of customers and this kind of personalization is the biggest asset you can get because it makes clients feel special and draws them in.
3. Higher Conversion Rate
It is identifying the percentage of viewers who get converted into leads and then subscribers and in the end finally purchasing the product. SEO, Social media marketing and Email marketing are methods which have a high conversion rate as they are able to generate a quick and effective communication channel with the consumer.
4. Lower cost
A properly planned and well-targeted digital marketing campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods.
5. Personalization
If your customer database is linked to your website, then whenever someone visits the site, you can greet them with targeted offers. The more they buy from you, the more you can refine your customer profile and market effectively to them.
6. Social currency
Digital marketing lets you create engaging campaigns using content marketing tactics. This content which can be images, videos etc can gain social currency that is being passed from user to user and becoming viral.
7. Openness
By getting involved with social media and managing it carefully, you can build customer loyalty and create a reputation for being easy to engage with.
8. Engage the Customer at Every Buying Stage
No matter which channel the consumer discovers your business be it Google search, Facebook Ads, display advertisements, Instagram, etc., you can engage with them more easily now. This enables you to help the customer resolve all their questions and objections and influence their purchase decision.