Table of Contents
The Beginner’s Guide to Digital Marketing
market has changed .
100 years ago, it used to be enough to take out an ad in a daily newspaper .
50 years ago, it used to be enough to publish a icky television receiver commercial .
10 years ago, it used to be enough for companies to buy a cheap web site, scatter in a few keywords, and call it adept.
good, marketing has changed more in the past 10 years than it did in the former 100—launching us out of the age of television receiver spots and print ads into the age of VR, apps, social media, and Google .
This, my friends, is the age of digital.
We are in a prison term of 24/7 connectivity—where 81 % of Americans own a smartphone and spend on average 8.8 hours on-line per sidereal day. As a resultant role, it ’ s a must to have a digital selling scheme that meets consumers in the digital region and follows them through their on-line sales hertz .
What you ’ ll find below are the basics of digital commercialize, with the goal that you ’ ll be able to walk away with a clear understand of your options and an actionable way forward .
What Is Digital Marketing?
What is the actual definition of digital marketing ? In a nutshell, digital marketing—also known as on-line marketing—is an umbrella term for all market and battle activities done through on-line media channels. The character of digital market is to help you get found, get noticed, get leads, and then turn those leads into returning customers .
today, we can catalog digital commercialize activities into a few general buckets :
- Your website
- Search engine marketing (SEM)
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Pay per click advertising (PPC)
- Remarketing
- Marketing automation (including email marketing and messenger marketing)
- Social media marketing
- Video marketing
Granted, it gets more farinaceous than this, but we ’ ll lodge with the basics .
Why Is Digital Marketing Important?
The rationality digital market is thus important to your business—no matter which type of commercial enterprise you own—is because today ’ second consumers are connected to the network 24/7 thanks to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. electronic devices like these are the first thing most adults use in the dawn, and they ’ re the last thing 95 % of them see before they go to sleep. Consider the be statistics :
- The average U.S. consumer is exposed to 10,000 brand messages a day
- 92% of consumers look at a company’s website when choosing a service provider or product
- At any given time, 84% of Americans are shopping for something
- 97% of people go online to find products and services
- 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine
- 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations
- 86% of people look up the location of a business on Google Maps
One of the fundamentals of market and advertise is : Be where your prey audience is. As of now—really, as of 20 years ago—your prey audience is on-line .
How Did We Get Here? A (Very) Brief History of Digital Marketing
How did we get here ?
Marketing is nothing new. It can be traced back 4,000 years to when Egyptian merchants used papyrus to make sales posters. Over the millennium it changed—but not by much. The business owners that could afford it used print advertisements to broadcast their goods and services .
It was the 1940s before marketing very began to resemble what we know it as today. As competition in the business populace became more acute, selling and advertise started heating up as businesses tried to one-up each other to gain a competitive advantage .
Digital commercialize made its first appearance in the 1990s, as access to digital media became easier. The ’ 90s gave birth to giants like Google, Yahoo !, and the beginning web banner ads, which would pave the way for digital growth in the new millennium .
Now, pay attention—this bit is important.
Along with the new millennium came The Web 2.0, which basically blew up marketing as we knew it. In the 90s and the early on days of digital market, it was still basically about advertising TO people. The development of Web 2.0 changed the means people used the internet, which caused marketers to change how they market—it became less about overtly advertising to person and became more about creating an experience people wanted to be a part of .
What Is the Web 2.0?
“ Web 2.0 is the name used to the report the second generation of the world wide-eyed web, where it moved static HTML pages to a more interactional and active web know. Web 2.0 is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share data on-line via social media, blogging and Web-based communities .
Web 2.0 signaled a variety in which the world wide web became an synergistic experience between users and Web publishers, rather than the one-way conversation that had previously existed. It besides represents a more democrat version of the Web, where new tools made it possible for closely anyone to contribute, regardless of their technical knowledge. ” – Techopedia
That ’ sulfur because, with the Web 2.0, people stopped being passive voice users of the internet and became active participants. This wave of user-generated contentedness ( on sites like YouTube and blogs ), social network sites, and greater handiness put companies in the backseat as consumers took control of the media they consumed .
Why was that bit above so important? Because digital marketing as we know it evolved specifically because of the Web 2.0. It changed the entire marketing funnel as we knew it and triggered the establishment of the types of digital marketing channels below.
Digital Marketing Basics: Types of Digital Channels (And How to Use Them)
Before we get into the kernel, you should understand some digital commercialize basics. There are a core group of digital marketing practices that most businesses use. We listed them above, and we ’ ll dive a small far into each one under .
Your Website
Your web site is the mother of all on-line real estate, and arguably your best market asset. If the web were a denounce promenade, it would be your shopfront. Having a web site for the purpose of driving leads and sales is besides known as inbound marketing—a strategy focused on bringing customers to you via company-created content on your web site .
sol, first, you need a web site. Second, your web site needs to be five things to be successful :
- It needs to be fast – Your website needs to be fast. While website speed is largely subjective, every single visitor needs to see SOMETHING happen on your website within three seconds. After three seconds, 53% of mobile consumers will click the “back” button.
- It needs to be secure – Your website needs to be HTTPS instead of HTTP. The modern consumer is informed. One side effect of this is that they’re much more aware of the dangers of visiting an unsecured website. Hacks are all too common—and your website visitors know this. If your website has any place where users can fill in personal information (even if it’s just a phone number and email address) it needs to be secure. Heck, even if it’s just a blog with no contact form it should be secure because website security is a search ranking factor.
- It needs to be mobile-friendly – Mobile website traffic (website traffic that happens on either a tablet or a smartphone) now outpaces desktop web traffic, and experts predict that at least 30% of searches will happen without a screen by 2020.
- It needs to have a clean, easy-to-use design featuring your contact info – Your design needs to look good and add value. Key components are: Having contact into in the upper-right corner, clear calls-to-action, clear navigation that can be easily tapped on a mobile device, and an easy way to contact you. This is called having a good user experience (UX).
- It needs to be optimized for SEO – People need to be able to find your website, and most of the time, they find it with a search engine. Learn more about search engine optimization (SEO) below.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
People need to be able to find your web site. How do they do that ?
well, 93 % of the time, they find you via search engines like Google. Take a look at the human body of a search engine result foliate below :
Search engine market ( SEM ) is a combination of techniques and market methods that aim to make your caller dominate the search engine results page for a particular determined of phrases, questions, and keywords. This is done in two ways : Search locomotive optimization ( SEO ) and with paid search ads ( PPC ) .
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
That first organic position on Google mobile search has a 31.35 % clickthrough rate—which means it ’ s fabulously valuable. so, how do you get your web site to be in that top-ranking Google military position ?
With SEO.
SEO is one ramify of SEM, and is the process of fine-tune and updating your web site code and content to get your vane pages to rank higher in the search results organically .
here ’ s how search engines ( like Google, Bing, and Yahoo ! ) bring : They use search crawlers to scan world wide web pages and decipher what they ’ rhenium about. That manner, they can spit out the world wide web pages that are most relevant to your search question .
But, here ’ s the problem : Search engine crawlers speak a different language than we do—HTML. They can ’ t just read the words on a page, and they can ’ triiodothyronine “ see ” an trope. What we do with SEO is write clues for crawlers in a linguistic process they understand. It ’ s like adding subtitles .
How SEO Works
here ’ s how SEO actually works : Google and other search engines crawl pages on the web, indexing and categorizing them in what would be the universe ’ second biggest library. When you search for something on-line, you ’ rhenium putting in a request to the library. Google uses car learn and artificial intelligence to decipher your search term and produce web pages with the information you ’ ra looking for .
here ’ randomness where SEO comes in. research crawlers speak a different terminology than we do—HTML. sol, they need some excess aid to determine what a web foliate is about so they can correctly index it .
Think of it like this: You’ve gone to the world’s biggest library, but the librarian speaks Russian, and all the books are in English. By optimizing your website for search, you’re using specific tactics—like adding in extra bits of code and structuring your website a specific way—that act like subtitles and make it easier for crawlers to understand, categorize, and index each web page.
SEO is arguably the most reliable and profitable digital marketing tactic. But, before you ditch all your early advertising methods, understand that SEO is a set like the store marketplace. You pick stocks—your keywords—based on information available at the time. then, you wait for the returns, occasionally tweaking your strategy. Depending on how well-optimized your presence is, it can take anywhere from three months to a year to gather steam .
Like the stock market, results fluctuate—often due to factors like seasonal or annual consumer behavior, Google algorithm tweaks, and advances in digital technology. Also like the stock market, one thing is certain: If you play your cards right with SEO, you’ll get accelerated returns as time goes on.
There are more than 200 signals these crawlers use to determine what a page is about, but here ’ s a basic dislocation of what search engines look for :
SEO is one of the best digital marketing channels you can invest in—leads have a 14.6% close rate, compared to only 1.7% for outbound leads like print ads.
Learn more about SEO here >>
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Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
Pay per chink advertising is an umbrella term for on-line paid ads where you only pay teach time person clicks on your ad, hence the name “ pay per chink. ”
Paid search ads are the ones you ’ re probably most familiar with—they ’ re the ones that show up in the search results. Most of the time ( except for some dwelling services queries ) those ads are search ads, meaning they are triggered when person searches for a particular determined of keywords. On average, 41 % of clicks go to the top three paid ads on the search results page, and 75 % of people say paid search ads make it easier to find the information they need
You ’ re not limited to paid search ads if you want PPC ads. Within “ pay per click ” there are a few unlike types of ad strategies :
then, how effective are PPC ads ? Well, businesses make an median of $ 2 in income for every $ 1 they spend in Google Ads .
Learn more about PPC ads here >>
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Remarketing
ever feel like websites you ’ ve visited are following you with their ads ? You ’ re not crazy—that ’ second called remarketing .
here ’ s how remarketing works : When person visits your web site from any device, a few lines of code from your retargeting spouse ( like Google AdWords ) drops an anonymous cookie in the drug user ’ s browser. This cookie is a belittled file that stores respective bits of information and tracks the site chew the fat without storing any sensible personal information. then, when this cookied drug user leaves your web site, the cookie tells your ad platform when they land on another one. Then—POOF—your ad appears. It works, too—visitors retargeted with ads are 70 % more probably to convert on your web site .
You can retarget and remarket on hundreds of websites and platforms, including social media like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook .
Email Marketing and Marketing Automation
Email marketing is reasonably a lot what it sounds like—marketing mail through electronic mail. It has a wildly high ROI when compared to other types of digital commercialize, and is one that can skyrocket your leads for pennies .
Consider this :
- The first thing 66% of business leaders do in the morning is check their email
- 61% of consumers enjoy receiving promotional emails weekly, and 28% would like emails to come even more frequently
- Email marketing has a 4,400% ROI, with a return of $44 for every $1 spent
Email market is not the like thing as selling automation. Marketing automation is an umbrella condition that can include any shape of messaging that is triggered automatically. This can include everything from electronic mail market to automated textbook and messenger market on Facebook and LinkedIn .
here ’ s an case : person visits your web site, and enters their e-mail cover or telephone number to download something. That e-mail address or phone number then goes into an automated system that mechanically sends pre-determined emails and messages. We highly recommend incorporating market automation into your digital market scheme .
Learn more about email marketing here >>
Social Media Marketing
sociable media marketing refers to any market activity done via sociable media profiles and platforms. presently, seven out of ten consumers expect a clientele to have a well-maintained social media presence, and 17 % of consumers actively use social networks when looking for data about a business. The top platforms for social media marketing are :
however, not all platforms are created equal, and picking the wrong ones can tank your sociable media strategy. At most, you should be on four social media platforms ( unless you have a dedicated team devoted to social media marketing ). Find out which social platforms are best for your business here .
That being said, organic scope on sociable media is at an all-time gloomy, thanks to a combination of sociable media feed algorithms and the rising popularity of using the platforms for business. What that means is you can ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate get by with only posting organically. You need to supplement your social media campaign with paid social media ads, or else your message will die on the hoist .
Learn more about social media marketing here >>
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Video Marketing
Video market is precisely what it sounds like—marketing that takes the condition of a video. It ’ s incredibly effective—take a look at these video selling statistics :
- A video is 50 times more likely to get organic page ranks in Google than plain text
- Half of the consumers who watch online product videos say it helps them make more confident purchasing decisions.
- People who watch videos stay on a site two minutes longer on average and are 64% more likely to make a purchase.
- U.S. consumers now watch up to six hours of digital video per day
- Studies show that web pages with videos have a significantly higher average time on site than those without videos.
- Next to Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine out there.
- Videos allow you to drive branding and build trust. They’re like a TV commercial—for a fraction of the price.
The best marketing videos are under 60 seconds—in fact, they should be under 10 seconds for maximum impact. Because consumers prefer short videos, they are more probable to watch yours if they know you provide immediate, compendious details. To get started, we recommend making the pursuit video recording into your market design :
- How-to videos of your products and services
- Customer testimonials
- Company culture videos
- Videos that highlight the benefits of using your products or services
Learn more about video marketing here >>
Tracking and Analytics: The Metrics and KPIs that Matter
none of this matters unless you ’ rhenium tracking your campaigns and tweaking them based on metrics that affect your penetrate trace. however, thanks to the massive proliferation of data analytics capabilities, most companies are drowning in it. The key hera is to identify which metrics matter, and to do that, you need to understand the difference between a system of measurement and a key Performance Indicator ( KPI ) .
Metric: A system of measurement is a number
KPI: A KPI is a metric unit that is most closely tied to the overall business success
While metrics are helpful in forming specific strategies, alone sealed ones can help you refine and tailor your business scheme .
Bounce rates, page views, time on page, new visitors, and search rankings are all metrics.
These are the KPIs that actually matter to your digital market scheme :
- Total sales
- Leads
- Revenue
- Return on marketing investment (ROMI)
- Lead-to-sale conversion rate
- Booking rate (from calls)
- Cost per lead (CPL)
How to Develop Killer Digital Marketing Strategy
Where you ’ ll go with digital marketing depends on the datum of where you ’ ve been, your digital strengths, and your caller ’ south weaknesses. The numeral one room to start your digital market strategy is to have a digital competitive psychoanalysis done .
A competitive psychoanalysis will pit your on-line presence against your top competitors to see where you stand. You ’ ll besides find out what opportunities they are taking that you aren ’ thyroxine and what ’ s necessary to beat them in the search engines and grow your party. With the best digital competitive analyses, you ’ ll besides get a roadmap of the market channels that are the most significant for your business .
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