Note: To learn more about how to do digital marketing for a small business, visit our blog post with 100+ Digital Marketing Questions And Answers.
Digital marketing is any form of marketing that involves electronic devices. People can see the forms of digital marketing on digital channels and through digital media. This means it's mainly on the internet but can be done offline, too.
Examples for offline digital marketing are electronic billboards, software demos, radio marketing, TV marketing, and phone marketing. Online digital marketing examples are Search Engine Optimization (SEO), email marketing, and social media marketing.
The average American spent 9.4 hours a week online in 2000, today it's 23.6 hours. The number of people accessing the internet from mobile devices has risen from 23% in 2010 to 84% now. Smartphone email use jumped from 21% to 79%. These numbers are from a study done by the University of Southern California.
The time people spend on the internet with their devices is continously increasing. When we want to reach people with our marketing, we must meet people where they are - on electronic devices.
Digital marketing can be done both online and offline. Online marketing therefore is a subcategory of digital marketing and it makes up the majoirty of all digital marketing efforts.
When you e.g. order your food in a restaurant from a tablet, you're using an electronic device that delivers marketing messages and advertisements to you in a digital format but without using the internet.
Online digital markting in contrast involves the internet and e.g. uses social media, emails, or websites. Learn more about online and offline digital marketing.
Conventional marketing communicates value to people using traditional channels. Digital marketing does just that using digital channels.
Yes. Small businesses need to take advantage of cost-effective ways to promote their offerings, reach their audience, expand, grow, and scale.
Just like marketing, digital marketing works by providing information to a target audience with the goal to get attention, awake interest, generate awareness, and make sales.
Here’s the full breakdown of digital marketing.
Online Digital Marketing:
Offline Digital Marketing:
It is important to know your target customers well and listen to what they want, need, and expect. Then you can pick marketing channels where they are active and susceptible to your marketing, and expand over time as you gain traction.
A good rule of thumb for startups and small businesses is to spend around 10% of the gross revenue on marketing.
Yes. Brands are becoming more and more popular and attract all kinds of customers. This is because people like to support people they can identify with and share their beliefs and values. We like to belong to a group of people who are like us or how we want to be. For ambitious companies it is important to build a strong brand to increase customer loyalty. A well-developed brand tells an emotional story to build a connection. Learn how to build a brand in our free branding course with certificate.
Modern websites feature large fonts for good readability, big hero images or background videos, have a flat structure and minimalistic design with little distractions, and offer a good user experience (UX).
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website to increase the visibility of its pages on search engines in order to attract more relevant traffic.
Google is used by billions of people everyday to find what they're looking for. The potential visitors you can get from Google are not just any visitors but people who are already looking for what you provide. These ideal visitors are the most likely to convert into customers. However, most people only bother for the top search results on the first page. This is why it is important for you to rank high and invest in SEO for your website.
It all starts with understanding the competitiveness. You'll need well-written content that is helpful, credible, relevant, answers the search query, and comes from an authoritative source that offers a good user experience (UX). Learn more about SEO.
Some SEO results can be seen in minutes, while other take months. Depending on the competitiveness of your industry, it can take all the way from 3 months up to several years to rank your pages on Google's first page.
Stopping SEO is like stopping to go to the gym. You will not notice an immediate difference but over time your rankings and traffic will drop. As long as search engines will be a thing, ranking high in them will be important.
A marketing campaign is an organized and strategized marketing effort to reach a company goal.
Marketing communication brings people together and turns individuals into groups. Being able to create and convey a flow of information and learning how to present your ideas concisely and in a way that excites people to participate is a crucial skill in business and life.
Communication can make or break a business. The best way to communicate is using a channel the target recipient of a message is susceptible for receiving it and speaking their language. Additionally, you can make your customers feel like a priority, be available for support, use tools that help manage the customer relationship, and engage in non-sales-related ways, too.
What a user experiences is the look, feel and usability of a product or service. A creative design that is intuitively to use, emotional and interactive, as well as informational, ensures the best possible experience for users.
Content marketing provides people with content that is consistent, valuable, interesting, and relevant. This can be in a variety of marketing channels and includes video, images, audio, and text. Examples are videos that drive brand awareness, podcasts, posts on social media, or email newsletters.
Email marketing is the practice of sending out emails to customers and prospects that provide them with relevant and valuable content on a regular basis and either directly or indirectly promotes a business.
A consultant is a person who offers to help improve a company's position by lending their expert knowledge. Consultants can assist in managing a process, solve a problem, or improve the general efficiency.
Employees are a true asset of a company. Each one contributes to the business goals. It is in your best interest to keep your people motivated and engaged, so they will give their best everyday, and to remain capable and loyal.
This includes the ability to understand and work with the latest technology to help you grow your online presence and market your small business online.
Digital marketing is more resource-efficient than traditional marketing. It allows you to monitor, measure, analyze, and test faster and better. In the future, it will continue to be more precise and effective as new technologies bring new opportunities.