Online Marketing: The Who, What, Why, & How of Digital Marketing
As of 2024, there are 2.71 billion online shoppers, about a third of the world's population. This online shift in shopping and buying behaviors underscores the need for a strong digital presence, where tools like HubSpot's drag-and-drop website builder become essential in crafting an impactful online strategy. So, offline marketing can’t be your only strategy for driving sales because you need to meet audiences where they’re already spending time: on the internet. Enter digital marketing — in other words, any form of online marketing. If you're curious about the ins and outs of online marketing, you've come to the right blogger.
What is digital marketing? Digital marketing, also called online marketing, refers to all marketing efforts that occur on the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers. This also includes communication through text or multimedia messages. Digital marketing, also called online marketing, refers to all marketing efforts that occur on the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers. This also includes communication through text or multimedia messages.
How does a business define digital marketing?
At this stage, digital marketing is vital for your business and brand awareness. It seems like every other brand has a website, and if they don't, they at least have a social media presence or digital ad strategy. Don't believe me? Well, our 2024 State of Marketing Survey found that Social media is the highest ROI marketing channel and will see the most growth in 2024. Digital content and marketing are so common that consumers now expect and rely on it as a way to learn about brands. Because digital marketing has so many possibilities, you can get creative and experiment with a variety of marketing tactics on a budget. Overall, digital marketing is defined by using numerous digital tactics and channels to connect with customers where they spend much of their time online. The best digital marketers have a clear picture of how each digital marketing campaign supports their overarching goals. And depending on the goals of their marketing strategy, marketers can support a larger campaign through the free and paid channels at their disposal.
A content marketer, for example, could create a series of blog posts that generate leads from an ebook. A social media marketer might help promote those blogs through paid and organic posts on the business's social media accounts, and the email marketer could create an email campaign to send those who download the ebook more information on the company.
Why is digital marketing important? Digital marketing helps you reach a larger audience than you could through traditional methods and target the prospects who are most likely to buy your product or service. Additionally, it's often more cost-effective than traditional advertising and enables you to measure success on a daily basis and pivot as you see fit
There are a few major benefits of digital marketing:
- You can focus your efforts on only the prospects most likely to purchase your product or service.
- It's more cost-effective than outbound marketing methods.
- Digital marketing evens the playing field within your industry and allows you to compete with bigger brands.
- Digital marketing is measurable.
- It’s easier to adapt and change a digital marketing strategy.
- Digital marketing can improve your conversion rate and the quality of your leads.
- You can engage audiences at every stage with digital marketing.
Types of Digital Marketing
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Content Marketing
3. Social Media Marketing
4. Pay Per Click (PPC)
5. Affiliate Marketing
6. Native Advertising
7. Marketing Automation
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
This is the process of optimizing your website to "rank" higher in search engine results pages, thereby increasing the amount of organic (or free) traffic your website receives. The channels that benefit from SEO include websites, blogs, and infographics.
2. Content Marketing
This term denotes the creation and promotion of content assets for the purpose of generating brand awareness, traffic growth, lead generation, and customers.
The channels that can play a part in your content marketing strategy include:
- Blog posts: Writing and publishing articles on a company blog helps you demonstrate your industry expertise and generates organic search traffic for your business. This ultimately gives you more opportunities to convert website visitors into leads for your sales team.
- Ebooks and whitepapers: Ebooks, whitepapers, and similar long-form content helps further educate website visitors. It also allows you to exchange content for a reader's contact information, generating leads for your company and moving people through the buyer's journey.
- Infographics: Sometimes, readers want you to show, not tell. Infographics are a form of visual content that helps website visitors visualize a concept you want to help them learn.
- Audio or visual content: Television and radio are popular channels for digital marketing. Creating content that can be shared online as a video or heard on the radio by listeners can greatly broaden your potential audience.
3. Social Media Marketing
This practice promotes your brand and your content on social media channels to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads for your business. If you're new to social platforms, you can use tools like HubSpot to connect channels like LinkedIn and Facebook in one place. This way, you can easily schedule content for multiple channels at once and monitor analytics from the platform as well. On top of connecting social accounts for posting purposes, you can also integrate your social media inboxes into HubSpot, so you can get your direct messages in one place.
4. Pay Per Click (PPC)
PC drives traffic to your website by paying a publisher every time your ad is clicked. One of the most common types of PPC is Google Ads, which allows you to pay for top slots on Google's search engine results pages at a price "per click" of the links you place.
PC drives traffic to your website by paying a publisher every time your ad is clicked. One of the most common types of PPC is Google Ads, which allows you to pay for top slots on Google's search engine results pages at a price "per click" of the links you place.
5. Affiliate Marketing
This is a type of performance-based advertising where you receive a commission for promoting someone else's products or services on your website. Affiliate marketing channels include:
- Hosting video ads through the YouTube Partner Program.
- Posting affiliate links from your social media accounts. This is part of the relatively new wave of influencer marketing. Creating a campaign using influencers can be a highly effective form of affiliate marketing. Finding the right content creators can take your digital campaign to the next level.
6. Native Advertising
Native advertising refers to advertisements that are primarily content-led and featured on a platform alongside other, non-paid content. BuzzFeed-sponsored posts are a good example, but many people also consider social media advertising to be "native" — Facebook advertising and Instagram advertising"
7. Marketing Automation
Marketing automation refers to the software that automates your basic marketing operations. Many marketing departments can automate repetitive tasks they would otherwise do manually.
What does a digital marketer do? Digital marketers are in charge of driving brand awareness and lead generation through all the digital channels — both free and paid — that are at a company's disposal. These channels include social media, the company's own website, search engine rankings, email, display advertising, and the company's blog.Digital marketers are in charge of driving brand awareness and lead generation through all the digital channels — both free and paid — that are at a company's disposal. These channels include social media, the company's own website, search engine rankings, email, display advertising, and the company's blog.
Conclusion:
online marketing is a dynamic and essential tool for businesses seeking to thrive in the digital age. By targeting specific audiences with tailored messages through various digital channels, companies can effectively promote their products and services. The strategic use of SEO, social media, email marketing, and other online techniques helps to enhance brand visibility, engage customers, and drive sales. By continuously refining these strategies based on performance data and emerging trends, businesses can further improve their marketing efforts, ensuring sustained growth and a competitive edge in the marketplace.