Digital marketing is the promotion of a brand and its products via electronic and internet-based digital channels. This kind of marketing was developed early in the 20th century as a break away from traditional marketing techniques towards one that embraced technology and online media.
The adoption and usage of internet and digital devices by people in their everyday life gave rise to digital marketing as it combines content automation, search engine optimization, social media marketing, email marketing and other electronic components to promote product and services. The rise of digital marketing is interwoven with technological advancements that made dissemination of information and communication more efficient.
Digital marketing can appear in different forms like social media posts, influencer marketing, search engine ads, video, and email. Television isn’t usually classified as a digital marketing tool because it has been around a bit longer than the other digital channels.
Digital Marketing Tools
There are different tools used by organizations and marketing experts to promote products on digital channels. A brand might decide to use all these channels consecutively or focus on one of them to achieve desired results.
Search engine optimization and Content Marketing
Search engines play a big role in the determination of a website and its content’s visibility to internet users. This makes SEO a vital tool in content marketing because a specific audience must be targeted for the delivery of brand and product content.
Written material is produced with a free value proposition for potential customers known as leads. The aim is to convert these leads to customers with the promotional content delivered to them electronically. What determines success with this digital marketing approach is the ability to rank well in the results of search engines so the product content can be found by the targeted audience.
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is also referred to as pay-per-click and it is a form of digital advertising that involves creating ad content that a brand posts on a digital platform. Every time this kind of ad is clicked, the company has to pay.
The aim is to get people that click to do things like signup for a newsletter, make a purchase or just complete some other processes that are beneficial to the brand running the PPC campaign. The beauty of this advertising tool is the ability to track progress and conversions to gauge how well the campaign is performing.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a product promoting model in which people and companies are paid to promote a brand or products. It is a revenue sharing model in which the promoter is paid a commission of sales revenue for each purchase made through them. How it works is by providing the promoters and affiliates with incentives to publicize products and increase product sales.
Social Media Marketing
This kind of digital marketing revolves around creating awareness for products and engaging potential customers on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Social media helps generate buzz for products and brands, and draws attention to them. It helps increase brand awareness and helps brands understand their target audience better.
On social media, brands get to create conversations with potential customers with a view of getting them to buy into the brand eventually.
