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What is Digital marketing and its impact on businesses

Awaking India

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing refers to the use of online channels, technologies, and strategies to promote products, services, and brands to potential customers. It includes various digital platforms such as search engines, social media, email, websites, and online advertising.

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.

Key Components of Digital Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Optimizing websites to rank higher on search engines like Google.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) – Running paid ads on search engines and social media.

Content Marketing – Creating valuable content (blogs, videos, infographics) to attract and engage audiences.

Social Media Marketing – Promoting brands on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Email Marketing – Sending promotional emails to nurture leads and retain customers.

Affiliate Marketing – Partnering with influencers or affiliates to promote products.

Video Marketing – Using videos on platforms like YouTube and TikTok to engage users.

Mobile Marketing – Reaching audiences through mobile apps, SMS, and push notifications.

Impact of Digital Marketing on Businesses

Global Reach – Businesses can reach customers worldwide without geographical limitations.

Cost-Effective – Compared to traditional marketing, digital marketing is more affordable and scalable.

Targeted Advertising – Advanced analytics and AI allow businesses to target specific audiences based on demographics, behavior, and interests.

Improved Customer Engagement – Direct interactions through social media and email create stronger customer relationships.

Data-Driven Decision Making – Analytics tools provide real-time insights into consumer behavior and campaign performance.

Higher ROI (Return on Investment) – Digital marketing strategies often yield better returns than traditional marketing methods.

Brand Awareness & Credibility – Regular online presence increases brand visibility and trust among customers.

Competitive Advantage – Businesses that leverage digital marketing stay ahead of competitors by adapting to market trends.

How to Get Started in Digital Marketing

Step 1: Learn the Basics

Step 2: Choose Your Niche

Step 3: Get Hands-on Experience

Step 4: Build a Portfolio

Step 5: Stay Updated

Step 6: Apply for Jobs or Start Freelancing

Inbound marketing versus digital marketing

Digital marketing and inbound marketing are easily confused, and for good reason. Digital marketing uses many of the same tools as inbound marketing—email and online content, to name a few. Both exist to capture the attention of prospects through the buyer’s journey and turn them into customers. But the two approaches take different views of the relationship between the tool and the goal.

Digital marketing considers how individual tools or digital channels can convert prospects. A brand’s digital marketing strategy may use multiple platforms or focus all of its efforts on one platform. For example, a company may primarily create content for social media platforms and email marketing campaigns while ignoring other digital marketing avenues.

On the other hand, inbound marketing is a holistic concept. It considers the goal first, then looks at the available tools to determine which will effectively reach target customers, and then at which stage of the sales funnel that should happen. As an example, say you want to increase website traffic to generate more prospects and leads. You can focus on search engine optimization when developing your content marketing strategy, resulting in more optimized content, including blogs, landing pages, and more.

The most important thing to remember about digital marketing and inbound marketing is that as a marketing professional, you don’t have to choose between the two. In fact, they work best together. Inbound marketing provides structure and purpose for effective digital marketing to digital marketing efforts, making sure that each digital marketing channel works toward a goal.

Why is digital marketing important?

Any type of marketing can help your business thrive. However, digital marketing has become increasingly important because of how accessible digital channels are. In fact, there were 5.45 billion internet users globally as of July 2024.

From social media to text messages, there are many ways to use digital marketing tactics in order to communicate with your target audience. Additionally, digital marketing has minimal upfront costs, making it a cost-effective marketing technique for small businesses.

Digital marketing strategies work for B2B (business to business) as well as B2C (business to consumer) companies, but best practices differ significantly between the two. Here’s a closer look at how digital marketing is used in B2B and B2C marketing strategies:

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. A B2C company with a high-ticket product, such as a car or computer, might offer more informative and serious content. As a result, your digital marketing strategy always needs to be geared toward your own customer base, whether you’re B2B or B2C.

Take a look at your current audience to create well-informed and targeted online marketing campaigns. Doing so ensures your marketing efforts are effective and you can capture the attention of potential customers.

Types of digital marketing

There are as many specializations within digital marketing as there are ways of interacting using digital media. Here are a few key examples of types of digital marketing tactics.

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is technically a marketing tool rather than a form of marketing in itself. It is often called “an art and a science.”

The “science” part of SEO is what’s most important. SEO is a science because it requires you to research and weigh different contributing factors to achieve the highest possible ranking on a search engine results page (SERP).

Today, the most important elements to consider when optimizing a web page for search engines include:

In addition to the elements above, you need to prioritize technical SEO, which is all the back-end components of your site. This includes mobile-friendliness and loading times. Improving your technical SEO can help search engines better navigate and crawl your site.

The strategic use of these factors makes search engine optimization a science, but the unpredictability involved makes it an “art” that often requires experienced SEO professionals.

Ultimately, the goal is to rank at or near the top of the first page of a search engine’s result page or in Google’s AI Overviews. This ensures that those searching for a specific query related to your brand can easily find your products or services. While there are many search engines, digital marketers often focus on Google since it’s a global leader in the search engine market.

Google and other search engines change their algorithm almost constantly, so SEO is a never-ending progress. And your competitors most likely also invest in SEO. What you can do is closely monitor your page’s performance and make adjustments as needed.

Content marketing

As mentioned, the quality of your content is a key component of an optimized page. As a result, SEO is a major factor in content marketing, a strategy based on the distribution of relevant and valuable content to a target audience.

As in any marketing strategy, the goal of content marketing is to attract leads that ultimately convert into customers. But it does so differently than traditional advertising. Instead of enticing prospects with potential value from a product or service, it offers value for free in the form of written material, such as:

Content marketing matters, and there are plenty of stats to prove it:

As effective as content marketing is, it can be tricky. Content marketing writers need to be able to rank highly in search engine results while also engaging people who will read the material, share it, and interact further with the brand. When the content is relevant, it can establish strong relationships throughout the pipeline.

To create effective content that’s highly relevant and engaging, it’s important to identify your audience. Who are you ultimately trying to reach with your content marketing efforts? Once you have a better grasp of your audience, you can determine the type of content you’ll create. You can use many formats of content in your content marketing, including videos, blog posts, printable worksheets, and more.

Regardless of which content you create, it’s a good idea to follow content marketing best practices. This means making content that’s grammatically correct, free of errors, easy to understand, relevant, and interesting. Your content should also funnel readers to the next stage in the pipeline, whether that’s a free consultation with a sales representative or a signup page.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing means driving traffic and brand awareness by engaging people in discussion online. You can use social media marketing to highlight your brand, products, services, culture, and more. With billions of people spending their time engaging on social media platforms, focusing on social media marketing can be worthwhile.

The most popular digital platforms for social media marketing are Facebook, X, and Instagram, with LinkedIn and YouTube not far behind. Ultimately, which social media platforms you use for your business depends on your goals and audience. For example, if you want to find new leads for your FinTech startup, targeting your audience on LinkedIn is a good idea since industry professionals are active on the platform. On the other hand, running social media ads on Instagram may be better for your brand if you run a B2C focused on younger consumers.

Because social media marketing involves active audience participation, it has become a popular way of getting attention. Social media marketing offers built-in engagement metrics, which are extremely useful in helping you to understand how well you’re reaching your audience. You get to decide which types of interactions mean the most to you, whether that means the number of shares, comments, or total clicks to your website.

Direct purchase may not even be a goal of your social media marketing strategy. Many brands use social media marketing to start dialogues with audiences rather than encourage them to spend money right away. This is especially common in brands that target older audiences or offer products and services not appropriate for impulse buys. It all depends on your company’s social media marketing goals.

To create an effective social media marketing strategy, it’s crucial to follow best practices. Here are a few of the most important social media marketing best practices:

To learn more about how Mailchimp can help with your social media strategy, check out the comparison of our free social media management tools versus others.

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