With a robust strategy in place, digital marketing can be defined as an effective way to reach consumers and promote your business through online channels.
The widespread use of technology and the internet has changed the face of advertising, making adapting valid more so now than ever.
In this article, we provide a well-elaborated definition of Digital Marketing with real-life examples that showcase its impact.
Digital marketing definition
Digital marketing is marketing that targets consumers through digital platforms. Digital Marketers formulate digital marketing campaigns to promote products through various digital channels including such as social media, online videos and paid ads.
Digital marketing channels
Explore multitude ways to effectively reach your target audience by leveraging on the available digital marketing channels.
Search Engine Optimisation: Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is a process geared towards improving your website’s rank on search engines like Google when people are searching for information. This online marketing technique goes beyond simply increasing the traffic to your website, as it also enables brands to develop domain credibility & authority.
Pay-Per-Click advertising, or PPC in short, is when businesses bid and pay for certain search engine keywords to direct targeted individuals to their ads via search engine link folders resulting conversion nets them guaranteed return on investments made.
Email Marketing: Email marketing is a powerful and still an effective tool for businesses to connect with their customers in a more personal way.
Social media marketing: Social media marketing is more than just a buzzword in the business world! It’s an essential tool that empowers companies to create engaging content that raises brand awareness, entices clients and drives traffic to your official website.
Influencer collaborations are the latest ‘it’ thing in digital marketing, and for good reasons. Brands can now leverage an influencer’s popularity to raise authentic brand awareness amongst previously uncaptured audiences.
Affiliate marketing: Affiliate Marketing, as opposed to existing traditional advertising models, is a smart way for businesses to earn commissions by collaborating with passionate marketers who can get the job done while retaining a strategic sense of publication etiquette that garners success.
Content Marketing: Your audience naturally resonates with high-quality, informative content that is engaging and solves their problems. The goal should be to share accurate information and insights, building relevance around lifestyle and your customers’ pain-points topics thus earning timeless and long-lasting interactions through blog posts, videos, or social media.
Mobile Marketing: With mobile marketing you can reach your potential customers in real time through push notifications and or personalised text messages.
Video Marketing: Platforms like Tik Tok and Youtube provide a fertile ground for businesses to shine a spotlight on their brand and products. Tiktok currently enjoys an empressive1 billion monthly active users.
Digital marketing benefits
In this fast-paced digital era, a myriad of reasons underpin why digital marketing should be not only be a part of your marketing strategy, but rather an essential component in your business strategy. Here are some of the benefits:
- Global Reach: It allows you universal accessibility, eliminating geographical boundaries
- Cost Effectiveness: It is much more affordable than traditional methods of marketing
- Instant Results: Digital marketing provides real-time feedback, allowing you to make adjustments and optimization.
- Targeted Audience: It enables exact targeting, thus ensuring your messages reach the right people at the right time
- Brand Building: Digital marketing is a great tool to raise brand awareness and building stronger relations with customers.
Digital marketing basics
Digital marketing is all about using digital platforms like social media, search engines, and email to connect with customers. But how can you get started? Let's break down some basic tips.
- Research your audience. Find out where they are online and what kind of content they're looking for. This way, you can focus your efforts and budget on the right platforms instead of trying to be everywhere at once.
- Provide value through content. Whether it’s helpful articles or product demos, aim for 80% valuable information and 20% promotional messages.
To keep track of how well everything is working out across each platform (which is important!), review campaign performance regularly by using analytics software or apps designed specifically for monitoring digital trends. - Staying agile is another important aspect – update your knowledge frequently with professional forums / communities focused in Digital Marketing! In addition to building up an arsenal of marketing templates from which one can execute campaigns quickly and efficiently saving both time & money over long haul!
- Consistency counts! Make sure that messaging & branding details stay consistent across all your communication channels so that potential buyers know who they are.
In short, the world of digital marketing can be overwhelming, but starting with these basics will help you get a handle on how to reach your desired audience and engage customers online. So don't hesitate to get started today!
Digital Marketing Examples
Takealot (South Africa)
Takealot is one of the largest online retailers in South Africa, offering everything from electronics to groceries. Their success has been largely driven by targeted email campaigns that segment customers based on purchasing behaviours or interests.
For instance, they send a reminder email immediately after a customer abandons their shopping cart without completing an order—coupling abandoned carts with customized discounts helps convince these potential buyers to complete their purchases!
Travelstart
The Travelstart company offers travel-related services like flights and hotel bookings within South Africa. It has had successful promotions through social media advertising campaigns promoting specific regions across the world, hitting most shareable content creations and using seamless booking interfaces for users sharing photos on Instagram as well.
Purple Mattress
Purple Mattress is an online-only retailer for high-quality mattresses in America, which gained popularity through its innovative Digital Marketing tech techniques – “One-page checkout process”, Multi-variant copy testing & Email abandonment strategies all topped up with Smart segmentation technologies helped them grow exponentially!
Tuft & Needle
Another US mattress company successfully leveraging influencer partnerships to achieve success with digital marketing. In addition to noteworthy social media presence across all popular channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, Tuft & Needle has built its brand through influencer collaborations for video content creator teams on Youtube!
These examples showcase the benefits of implementing targeted email campaigns coupled with engaging social media advertising, Smart use of analytics/algorithms for better product integration or impactful influencer partnerships that allow brands to connect well with their audiences while generating sales growth over time.