Beginner's Guide To Digital Marketing

Digital marketing, also known as internet marketing or online marketing, is the use of internet-based approaches for promoting goods and services to customers, including search engines, email, social media, and websites, as well as textual or video communication.

Digital marketing is an ever-changing, shifting field that really differs from traditional static marketing and its "one-way" communication.
Customers can't interact with a company through a billboard or printed ad, right? But they definitely can do so by leaving comments on brands' websites or social media.

Why should businesses put effort into digital marketing?

With digital marketing, businesses can reach a far larger audience more easily and efficiently than they would with traditional marketing methods such as print, radio, billboards, direct mail, phone calls, or door-to-door.

Additionally, digital marketing allows businesses to track the results of their campaigns in real-time, providing valuable insights into what is working and what isn't.

Digital marketing, unlike traditional strategies, is not limited to a certain location since the internet is accessible to people all around the world.

This allows businesses to reach customers from all over the world, eliminating many of the entry barriers that exist with traditional methods.

In addition to that, you can also reach people from a certain country, state, or city. There are no limits.

Certain elements of digital marketing may be done with a minimal amount of time and money.

Even an aspiring small business can set up a website, manage social media accounts, and publish blogs without breaking the bank, as these marketing channels are cheap and easy to use. Everybody can create a website with page builders like Wix or Squarespace.

Return on Investment (ROI) is a crucial metric for businesses.

ROI can be difficult to calculate with traditional marketing. Digital marketing, on the other hand, allows company executives to make well-informed decisions based on real-time insight into the success of each campaign to increase revenue and improve profitability.

Take for example a newspaper ad: wow are you going to determine how many people viewed the ad and how many of those viewers became new clients? With digital marketing, this is very easy to track and prove its effectiveness. More about that later.

Through digital marketing, businesses are able to target very specific demographic groups of potential consumers, and therefore they have a far better chance of reaching their target demographic than with traditional marketing.

The targeting capabilities of digital marketing channels such as Facebook or Google, for example, allow the precise targeting of users in a specific city with specific interests.

Customers nowadays conduct internet research and read customer reviews before making a purchase. The first step in this process generally begins with a search engine.

Businesses that use search engine marketing may connect with consumers more immediately as a result of this.

With digital marketing, you can create multiple touchpoints on different channels with potential customers. When the customers are ready to buy, they already know your business.

Inbound marketing is all about using great bait to get in contact with your customers and send them to your website. Inbound marketing is used to engage, educate, and attract consumers at each stage of their buyer's journey.

When it comes to reeling people in, blogs, video marketing, and e-mail contact lists seem to be the most effective. Search engine marketing is also a good example of inbound marketing.

Getting in front of your consumers is known as outbound marketing. It's seen as pushy or aggressive by some, but it does the job. Outbound marketing follows people everywhere, even if they don't want it to.

Consider this: you're surfing the internet and coming across a product and advertising banner advertisements all over the place. Customers aren't looking for a product when they come across one; instead, they are forced to look at it.

Facebook Marketing is all about outbound marketing. You can create awareness for your product by displaying an ad to potential customers. Maybe your potential customers didn't know that they needed your product but after seeing the ad they want to buy your product. That's the power of outbound marketing.

The journey of a customer from discovering your brand to making a purchase is referred to as the customer journey or buyer's journey.

To each consumer, this process is unique, some journeys are briefer or longer than others. It all depends on the person and the product/service in question.

Let's take a look at each step of the way:

Awareness is the first step of the consumer journey. The client has identified an issue and is now looking online for more information.

Customer attention is the second stage of the journey. The consumer has conducted research, compared the products, and considered their options.

The third stage of the customer journey is when a consumer makes an ultimate purchasing decision.

Action/Conversion is the fourth stage. The customer has made a purchase and is now in the post-purchase phase.

Customer Advocacy: The final stage of the client journey. This period focuses on after-purchase activities. It's critical to show your gratitude and appreciation, and continue to interact with them. For instance, a satisfied customer can get you referrals.

The marketing funnel, also known as sales funnel, is the path through which someone interested in a product becomes a customer.

The users go through numerous touchpoints until they convert at the end of the funnel, and these funnels are used to guide potential consumers throughout their journey.

The conversion from a prospect to a customer does not always occur immediately (or ever). A service or product purchase, downloading a paper, or becoming a member of a newsletter are all examples of conversions.
The prospect may bounce at each stage of this process so that the final conversion never takes place. Effective internet marketing seeks to reduce bounce rates to encourage as many people as possible to become customers.

You can find more about sales funnels and what makes them successful in our sales funnel guide:

As stated before, digital marketing has several significant benefits, one of which is that it is extremely trackable and measurable.

Coupons and other direct mail offers were the only trackable marketing components in the past. If a customer used a coupon, you knew the message had an impact.

Analytics now offers marketers insight into user behavior at a very granular level: how many times they click on a link, how much time they spend on a web page, how frequently they open emails, and much more.

Understanding how customers react to a variety of content, advertisements, messaging, offers, and other variables gives companies insight into what works best. This knowledge also enables marketers to deliver better marketing messages in the future.

There are plenty of analytics tools available, and many marketers will utilize a combination of them based on their requirements and their target audience. One of the most popular analytic tools is Google Analytics.

There are several distinct digital marketing channels accessible to businesses nowadays. Each has particular advantages and disadvantages, so it's vital to find the right combination of channels for your company.

To put it simply, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the study and practice of marketing on search engines. It involves strategies for increasing a website's visibility on search engine results pages (SERP) and is of the most important premises for online success.

There are two types: search engine advertising (SEA), also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC), aimed at paid search results, and search engine optimization (SEO), based on organic search results.

Keywords are the foundation of search engine marketing and play a crucial role in both Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Advertising.

A keyword is a word or phrase (search query) that users enter into the search bar of a search engine. Search engines use their algorithms to process and compare the keyword with their index, and the user subsequently receives a result page that lists the most relevant results for the search query.

Search Engine Optimization

The majority of the effort is required for organic search results. Websites are frequently added to search engines' result lists by default, which happens as a result of Google Crawler's continuous scanning. They regularly analyze search queries, search the internet for new websites, and assess their quality.

SEO is a set of tactics aimed at helping search engines discover, index, and rank your website higher on SERPs (search engine result pages).

The use of relevant keywords, title tags, and meta descriptions, as well as internal linking on the website, are all important elements of On-Page SEO.

With Serpstat Keyword Research and Text Analytics you can expand your website's semantics and optimize meta tags to boost your search engine rankings:

Links from other websites, called backlinks, that lead to your website are especially crucial for good ranking and are a part of Off-Page SEO.

Analyzing backlink profiles becomes very convenient with the Serpstat Backlink Analysis tool:

And last but not least, a non-technical ranking factor you should never neglect is always having the searcher in mind:

What are the users looking for when typing in a specific keyword? What exactly do they need to satisfy their needs? Of course, you want to drive revenue and that’s your main goal with SEO. But you should always help the customer first.

Remember, content is king. If you're trying too hard to make a sale, the customer will leave the page and go to another website. By helping the users you create trust and authority with them, and as a result, their behavioral factors encourage the search engine to rank your website higher.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

On the other hand, there are paid listings in search engines. While getting to organic search results is technically free, getting into paid search results, as the name implies, is not.

Website owners are able to advertise their website without actually optimizing the webpage for SEO.

By paying for the advertisement, they appear first for relevant search queries (keywords). As soon as the ad campaign stops, the website loses its "ranking".

Search engine advertising (SEA) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) are the technical terms for the promotion in paid search results.

With Serpstat Domain Analysis you can discover your competitors in PPC, analyze their keywords, ads, landing pages, and more:

Social media marketing (SMM) is a fundamental component of internet marketing, through which you develop content to obtain attention and interest for your business and its products or services across various social media platforms.

Nowadays the most important social media platforms for companies are Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. It's necessary to tailor your messages specifically for the platform you post them on.

A great advantage of social media marketing is that your brand recognition increases and conversion rates rise as a result of your efforts.

So how should you approach social media marketing?

When creating a social media marketing plan, several factors must be considered.
First and foremost, the content must be valuable to your consumers.
After all, this is what gives your social media presence its reason to exist and assures that you can succeed in this area of digital marketing.

Remember: “Content is King”.

Also, people enjoy social media conversations, and businesses that engage with their consumers on social media are more trusted and considered a member of the community.

Advertising is an essential component of a successful social media marketing plan. After all, without social media ads these days, getting enough organic reach with your company would be nearly impossible! Social advertising allows you to reach new target audiences and create brand awareness.

The ever-increasing appeal of industry authorities and social media superstars is utilized in affiliate marketing, which becomes more popular year by year.

Your company will work with third-party influencers to sell your products or services for a fee in collaboration.

Influencers will use their followers to stimulate interest in your product by publishing, blogging, or filming content for your firm's success and for new leads to be generated.

By the way, Serpstat offers an affiliate program too ;)

Email is still one of the most efficient marketing methods. It can be used in a content marketing plan to gradually turn a prospect into a customer.

Email marketing experts not only know how to develop campaigns but also how to tailor and deliver the right message to the right person.

Email marketing is one of the most flexible tools a company may utilize to expand its business. It can be used for acquisition, retention, direct sales, or generating traffic.

Messenger marketing is the use of instant messaging services such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp to market.

Messages are transmitted directly to interested persons to develop personal and individual communications (one-to-one or one-to-many).

Chatbots are frequently employed, which send automated messages to the target group. Personalized letters are the most significant benefit of messenger marketing. Messengers also have no spam filters, unlike e-mail.

The high open rates and automated communications are two other advantages of messenger marketing.