By definition, Digital Marketing is an online marketing effort a company spends to promote its brand, sell its products and services, and get engaged with its audience.
In other words, Digital Marketing is basically marketing… Well, just on a different platform, a BIGGER platform.
Nowadays, it is almost hard to imagine what the world would be like without the internet. Everyone goes online; no matter you want to shop, do research, or connect with people, the first thing you grab is either your phone or your laptop. In fact, statistics have shown that the world is gaining a constant increase in online usage.
According to a recent study conducted by Statista, the global digital population of active internet users as of July 2020 was 4.57 billion people, which accounted for about 60% of the global population, with China, India, and the United States ranking the highest among all countries. More surprisingly, Pew Research Center has revealed that in the United States, almost 8 in every 10 adults go online at least daily and there is also a rising rate of 9% among young adults aged between 18 to 29 years old.
What all the mind-blowing data here is telling us, is that people rely heavily on the internet. When a majority of the population is active in the online community, it is natural for businesses to have the urge to get involved in that community. That is why we are seeing more emails, online shopping portals, and social media engagements these days.
What are the most effective digital marketing strategies?
There are numerous digital strategies in the market and each of them has a different function. This time, I will share with you what strategies the major-league companies are using for digital marketing.
(1) Search Engine Optimization
SEO, also known as Search Engine Optimization, is a process of increasing the visibility and traffic of a company’s site through organic search results. When you search on a search engine and it shows more than 100 pages of search results, have you ever wondered why the first-page results are on the first page?
Well, on every search engine, there are bots that go out there to crawl pages and gather information from site to site. These bots then come back and put everything into an index. After that, the algorithm analyzes the pages and ranks the data and factors to decide the page sequence in regards to a given query.
There are actually many factors that would affect the sequence and I am not going to get into the advanced science here. But in general, a website’s content quality, keyword search, crawlability, and mobile friendliness are some major factors that have a significant impact on its search engine ranking.
Keep in mind that SEO is tremendously important because you always want your company to appear at everyone’s first sight when they search for something. According to current statistics, approximately 93% of web traffics is from search engines and most people’s online process starts from there. With SEO, you ensure your company stays at the top of the rank before your competitors.
(2) Pay-Per-Click
PPC, or commonly known as Pay-per-click, is another model that falls under the category of Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Pay-per-click, just as it’s named, means that the advertisers are paying a fee every time their links are being clicked. Unlike SEO, it is rather inorganic because you are basically buying an audience to visit your website. However, PPC is still one of the most adopted strategies in the business world for a reason.
PPC strategies can be implemented on different online platforms. For example, one of the most popular platforms is the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
When you search for something on Google, what you’ll realize is that the first couple of websites shown on the first page usually have the word “Ad” next to them. That is because those companies invested in Google Ads and made sure that when people type a certain keyword, their websites show up first. Besides search engines, businesses can also carry out PPC strategies on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Although PPC is seen as less organic, it is still beneficial for a different purpose. Pay-per-click is, in fact, a pretty helpful shortcut for companies when they want to engage with a specific group of people quickly.
On search engines, paid ads are like an assurance of visibility to the audience who are typing a specific keyword. Similarly, companies paying ads on Facebook also have the ability to reach the right audience by choosing certain demographics, locations, and behaviors of users. In general, PPC is an effective tool to boost brand awareness, generate leads, and increase site traffic.
(3) Content Marketing
Besides SEM, Content Marketing is also of paramount importance to digital marketing. Content Marketing is an approach that focuses on building and delivering valuable and relevant content to the audience.
Instead of being pushy and focusing on selling, you focus on providing consistent and proper content that helps build a trustworthy relationship with your audience. Companies can be creative when developing their content: infographics, original images, ebooks, blogs, or even case studies are some good examples of content marketing.
Remember, content marketing and SEO are associated and are almost complementary. To achieve SEO, you have to provide great content and resources on your website. Subsequently, when your website has high visibility on search engines, you want to make sure every visitor has a positive experience on your website so they would convert to customers.
(4) Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is something that should not be missed at all, because… who doesn’t go on social media nowadays? Generally speaking, Social Media Marketing can be defined by any marketing actions a company takes on any social media platform.
According to a Hubspot study, the number one platform for digital marketers is Facebook. In the first quarter of 2020, Facebook had 2.6 million monthly active users. Besides, it also embodies 80 million small businesses that use its business tools for marketing purposes.
What about Instagram? The same study states that Instagram is a social platform with the 2nd highest ROI (Return of Investment) and that by 2023, Instagram expects itself to reach a total of 120.3 million monthly active users (just in the United States). Depending on the purpose, different marketers go active on different platforms. For B2B (Business to Business) marketers, LinkedIn is the 2nd most popular platform for them to connect with people.
Social Media Marketing is a great strategy because of the tremendous amount of active users on social media. Furthermore, social media allows businesses to create both original content and paid advertisements, which gives businesses flexibility on budgets and marketing goals.
(5) Email Marketing
Email marketing is the process of sending direct emails to the targeted audience to communicate and promote your business. It is one of the most used forms of digital marketing nowadays and certainly plays an important role when businesses try to connect with their audience, as emails contain resourceful content with somewhat a personal touch, especially when you greet your audience by their first name.
There are numerous email marketing service providers nowadays, platforms like MailChimp or Aweber, are some very well-known service providers that allow you to schedule, design, and send out automate email campaigns.
Why Is Digital Marketing So Important?
As you can tell by now, digital marketing is very important in the business world. First and foremost, it helps companies reach out to the right group of audiences at the right time, in the right place.
There are countless online platforms on the internet and different platforms encompass different audiences with different demographics, behaviors, and interests. For example, Pinterest tends to attract more female users than male users, and Instagram intrigues a majority of young adult users. No matter paid or organic, any digital marketing content created by your company has the power to convey a message to your targeted audience.
On top of that, digital marketing gives you traceable and real-time data. When you manage a website or a social page, you can always attain the analytic information like site traffic, engagement, impression, and followers, etc. The data also keep you updated on your audience’s activities like their most active time in a day, or demographics like their locations and number of users of different gender, etc.
The data on digital marketing is crucial to a company because it allows you to measure the ROI (Return of Investment), make forecasts, and adjust your marketing strategies, budgets, and goals.
Lastly, digital marketing builds up your brand. Every step you make, you are basically presenting who you are as a company and giving an impression to your audience. Any online activity is a chance to engage with your audience – A blog tells a story, a new product shows your advancement, a statement affirms what your company values.
Through engagements with your audience and the messages you send, you are gradually building your brand’s reputation and image.
Frankly speaking, digital marketing is easier said than done. Not only does it require time and commitment, but it also requires technical skills and knowledge. After all, that is why we are here – RMA digital is nothing but a professional digital marketing agency that fulfils what you need and help your company compete in the major league.
