Many businesses trust forms of traditional
advertising to bring in leads and sales, such as print ads, mailers, billboards,
and more. But to get the best bang for your marketing bucks, digital marketing
is an essential tool that helps businesses reach their audience in ways that
are more affordable, more impactful, and more measurable.
Whether you’re launching a new business or
strategizing your marketing for the new year, digital marketing is essential to
your strategic marketing success. Digital marketing can help you attract,
convert, close, and engage your current and potential customers, getting your
products and services right into the hands of your target audiences.
If your business doesn’t have an online
presence and a digital marketing strategy, you are losing out on a massive
piece of the market. 78% of
people who use the internet do their product research online before they buy
anything. If they don’t see you in the search results or on social media, your
brand essentially doesn’t exist–at least to them.
Digital Marketing Is The New Standard – Here’s
Why!
Today, most of your audiences are online most
of the time, so businesses need to implement digital marketing strategies to
connect with their audiences.
Digital marketing gives small businesses and
even local brick and mortar stores the opportunity to compete with big
corporations. That’s why companies are willing to spend enormous amounts on
online marketing, even though 49% of them don’t
have a clearly defined strategy in place.
The Elements of Digital Marketing
All strategies managed to market products and
services online fall under digital marketing. Here are the basic categories of
digital marketing where you can focus your efforts.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the industry term for making sure that
your website and online content will show up in the search results. Google gets
more than 77,000 searches every second,
and 67% of all clicks go to the first five results displayed. If you want to
make your brand visible in search results, SEO can help you do it.
As part of SEO, you will have to make sure
that your website has quality content with relevant keywords and easy
navigation. This will help your site climb the top of the search engine
results, leading to an increase in more targeted traffic.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM or search engine marketing is when you pay
to rank higher in the search results. Research shows that 96% of marketers use SEM tactics to deliver content to their prospects.
Search engine marketing can take on various forms, such as:
Google AdWords is perhaps the most popular
platform for paid ads, followed by Bing ads, which can also show your ads on
the Yahoo network.
Email Marketing
Email marketing can generate $38 for every dollar
spent and is one of the most popular digital marketing channels.
Consumers are exhausted with advertisements,
on TV, radio, and online. Ads can be invasive and unwelcome. An email that your
audience has opted into receiving takes your brand straight to their inbox,
where it is harder to ignore.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a strategic approach to
creating and distributing valuable brand content, like images, infographics,
videos, blog posts, white papers, and other forms. Content marketing helps
brands to build better relationships with new and existing customers and build
a stronger reputation online, while giving them the information they want,
need, and are searching for.
Content marketing
Social Media Marketing
Consumers have reported spending 20% to 40% more
money with brands that interact with them, and what better place to do that
than social media?
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and
even Snapchat can be powerful marketing platforms that can connect your
prospects to your products. These social media sites also offer targeted
advertising capabilities that can be used to create better ROI. The key to
successful social media marketing is knowing where your audiences are and
targeting them with content and advertising where they are already spending
their time.
Paid Search
Also known as digital advertising or paid
advertising, this refers to strategies that drive referral traffic to your site
using digital display ads.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing allows businesses to deliver
a customized and controlled marketing experience right on their customers’
phones.
Different categories of mobile marketing
include:
Developing a digital marketing strategy that
encompasses all these elements is the way to showcase your brand, your products
and services, and your value. When you’re ready for a digital marketing
strategy that engages your audiences and brings customers to you in
droves, we can help.
Everything You Need To Know About Strategic Marketing
Download C-leveled’s free guide full of expert, insider advice on everything you need to know about strategic marketing. Use our insight to plan for success and create a lasting impression on your audience.