What is “digital marketing”?
What is “digital marketing”?
Digital marketing is a general term for all marketing that uses electronic devices and the Internet. We use digital channels such as search engines, SNS, email, and websites as a way for many businesses to connect with existing and potential customers.
Can you believe that the number of people who use the Internet every day is still increasing, even now that the Internet is so common?
The percentage of adults who use the Internet “always” has increased by 5% over the last three years. (Pew Research, English) Also, as is often said, the way people shop and buy things has really changed so much that offline marketing is no longer effective. It was.
In the past and now, marketing aims to “connect with your audience at the right place and at the right time”. Applying this to the modern world means that you have to meet online where the audience is already gathered, that is, online.
Introducing the world of all online marketing and digital marketing.
You can download a free eBook here that gives a thorough explanation of how to get new prospects online.
Hubspot has introduced "inbound marketing" in various places as a way to attract customers online, develop relationships and satisfy them. But there are still questions from around the world about "digital marketing".
Some people who have been involved in marketing for many years see inbound marketing and digital marketing as virtually the same, but there is a slight difference between the two. In addition, we learned from the marketers and company managers in the United States, Britain, Asia, Australia and New Zealand and found out how these small differences appeared in various places. .
website by paying the media for the number of clicks on your online ads. Google AdWords , the most common PPC, is a service that displays your links at the top of Google search results and pays for each click. Other channels that PPC can take advantage of include:
Facebook paid advertising
Twitter Promoted Tweets
LinkedIn sponsored message
Affiliate marketing
A performance-based advertising activity where you can receive referral fees by promoting other companies' products and services on your website. Affiliate marketing channels include the following:
Hosting video ads with the YouTube Partner Program
Affiliate links to be posted on SNS
Native ad
Native ads are content-centric ads that appear on the platform to blend into regular content without sponsors. BuzzFeed's sponsored article is a good example, but many people think that SNS ads ( Facebook ads and Instagram ads) are also “native”.
Marketing automation
Software aimed at automating simple tasks in marketing. There are many repetitive tasks in the marketing department that can be automated without human intervention, as in the following example:
Email newsletter
SNS posting scheduling
Contact list update
Lead nurturing workflow
Campaign tracking and reporting
Email marketing
Email marketing is used as a means of communication with your audience. In addition to content, discounts and event promotions, it is also used as a guide to the company website. The types of email sent in an email marketing campaign include the following:
Newsletter for blog subscribers
Follow-up email to visitors who downloaded from the website
Welcome email to customer
Year-end promotion for loyalty program members
Email series for customer nurturing (introduction of useful knowledge, etc.)
Online PR
Online PR refers to activities that aim to become a topic in earned media using content-based websites such as digital publications and blogs. Apart from being deployed online, it is almost the same as traditional PR. The channels that can effectively promote PR activities include the following.
Disseminating information to reporters using SNS
Engage with online reviews about your company
Engage in comments on personal websites and blogs
Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing is an online content utilization approach that attracts customers, develops relationships and satisfies them throughout the marketing funnel. Inbound marketing strategies can use all of the digital marketing techniques described above.
The role of digital marketers
Digital marketers will promote brand recognition and lead generation through all digital channels, combining free and paid channels according to their policies . Channels used include SNS, company websites, search results display order, email, display advertising, and company blogs.
Usually, we focus on various key performance indicators (KPIs) so that we can accurately understand the performance of each company. For example, a digital marketer responsible for SEO measures the “organic traffic” of their website. This is the traffic for visitors who find your website page in search results.
Currently, digital marketing is used for a wide range of marketing operations. Some small businesses have multiple digital marketers working as a generalist. As a large company, multiple specialists are in charge of each job, and each one is responsible for only one or two types of digital channels for their own brand.
Below are some examples of these specialists.
SEO manager
Main KPI: Organic traffic
To sum up the role of the SEO manager, make sure that your company appears in the top search results. Using various approaches for search engine optimization, we will work with content creators to improve our search rankings. The same applies to content posted on SNS.
Content marketing specialist
Main KPIs: time spent on pages, total blog access, YouTube channel registrations
Content marketing specialists are digital content creators. Always check the update schedule of your company's blog and devise a content strategy that includes videos. We often collaborate with people from other departments to effectively support our new product launches and campaign launches with promotional content on their digital channels.
Social media manager
Main KPIs: number of follow-ups, impressions, shares
Social media managers are just as their name suggests, but the SNS networks they target vary by industry. The job common to all is to schedule the content (text, images, videos) posted by the company. In addition, in cooperation with content marketing specialists, we may also formulate a strategy for deciding on the SNS network to post to for each content.
(Note: “Impressions” included in the KPI here means how many times your post appears in the user ’s news feed.)
Marketing automation coordinator
Key KPIs: email open rate, campaign click-through rate, lead generation rate (conversion rate)
Helps select and manage software to understand customer behavior and understand business growth trends across the marketing team . Since the marketing operations described so far are often performed individually, it is important to organize various digital marketing activities into one campaign and to have a person in charge who can confirm the results of each campaign. .
Difference between digital marketing and inbound marketing
At first glance, the two are very similar in that they are both primarily online and aimed at creating digital content and showing it to people. So where is the difference between the two?
The term “digital marketing” does not distinguish between push and pull strategies (currently outbound and inbound) in marketing. Both are included in the digital marketing category.
The goal of “outbound” digital strategy is to get as many people as possible to view marketing messages in the online space. At this time, it is not important whether the content is of interest to the viewer or whether it is welcomed.For example, the flashy banner ad that appears at the top of many websites pushes products and campaigns and may not be welcomed.
On the other hand, the “inbound” digital strategy attracts websites by providing useful assets on the online content to target audiences.The simplest and most effective inbound digital marketing asset is a blog that allows you to create articles that take advantage of the keywords your target audience searches.
As you can see, inbound marketing is a technique that uses digital marketing assets to attract online customers, develop relationships, and satisfy them. Digital marketing, on the other hand, is a collective term for all types of online marketing, whether inbound or outbound.
Is digital marketing effective for any business?
Digital marketing is effective for any business in any industry. Regardless of the type of product, the essence of digital marketing is to establish buyer personas, identify audience needs, and create valuable online content. However, not all businesses have a similar digital marketing strategy.
B2B digital marketing
In the case of B2B business, marketing activities centered on online lead generation are common. The goal here is to increase inquiries to the sales department. Therefore, a marketing strategy that attracts the highest quality potential customers from websites and secondary digital channels and transforms them into promising leads (leads) is required.
Outside of websites, many companies will focus on business channels like LinkedIn, which are popular with target audiences online.
B2C digital marketing
Depending on the price range of the product, in the case of B2C business, the goal of digital marketing is to attract consumers to websites and make purchases without going through sales representatives. It is.
http://orcadmarketplace.com/UserProfile/tabid/43/userId/41765/Default.aspx
http://guildwork.com/users/kian007
https://forums.gta5-mods.com/user/kian007
https://sites.tufts.edu/pmclg/#comment-21173
https://iranmct-54.webself.net/
Therefore, rather than lead generation in the B2B business, we will focus on building a customer journey that completes the process from consumer access to the site to purchase. In such cases, the content that introduces the product is generally placed near the top layer of the marketing funnel. In addition, CTA (Call-To-Action) more aggressive than B2B business is required.
For B2C companies, channels like Instagram and Pinterest are often more effective tools than business-oriented platforms like LinkedIn .
What are the benefits of digital marketing?
Unlike typical offline marketing activities, digital marketing allows you to see accurate performance in real time. If you've ever advertised in a newspaper, you know how difficult it is to actually open that page and estimate the number of readers who have focused on your ad. You can't even know for sure whether the ad contributes to sales.
Digital marketing, on the other hand, can calculate the ROI of almost every component of marketing.
Below are some examples.
Website traffic
In digital marketing, you can use analytics software built into a marketing platform like HubSpot to know the exact number of website visitors in real time.
You can also check various analytics data such as the number of pages viewed by visitors, the type of device used, and the site from which the visit came.
This information can help you decide which channels to focus on based on the number of website visitors that each marketing channel creates. For example, if organic search traffic is only 10% of the total, you can decide to increase SEO and increase this percentage.
With offline marketing, it ’s hard to know how customers interact with your brand before making inquiries and purchases. Digital marketing, on the other hand, can identify behavioral trends and patterns until reaching the final stage of the customer journey. I can do it.
Content performance and lead generation
Suppose you want to print a product catalog and distribute it by mail. Although not online, this catalog is also a type of content. The problem is that I don't know how many people have opened the catalog and how many have left it in the trash.
Now, let's say you publish a catalog on a website instead of a print. In this case, you can accurately measure the number of people viewing the page where the catalog is hosted. You can also use the form to collect contact information for the person who downloaded the catalog. Not only can you know how many people responded to the content posted, but you can also get potential customers through downloads.
Attribution (attribute) analysis
An effective digital marketing strategy combined with the right tools and technologies can go from all sales records to the moment the customer first contacts the brand.
This process, called attribution analysis, allows people to look into the brand's products and identify trends in the buying process, so that improvements can be made in areas that need to be focused on in the marketing strategy and in the sales cycle. It is a useful source of information when determining what is necessary.
It is very important to clarify the correlation between marketing and sales. According to the Aberdeen Group , companies that have strengthened collaboration between marketing and sales report a 20% increase in revenue per year, while companies with weak collaboration have reported a 4% decrease. If digital technology can be used to improve the customer journey in the sales cycle, it will ultimately increase revenue.
Types of digital content to be produced
The type of content you produce depends on what your audience needs at each stage of the customer journey. Start by creating a buyer persona ( try this free template ) and identify the audience goals and challenges relevant to your business. Basically, we aim to create online content that can help achieve these goals and overcome challenges.
Next, consider the stage in the customer journey when the content is expected to be used. This is called content mapping.
Content mapping clarifies the following conditions as content targets:
The characteristics of the person to use (where buyer persona helps).
The road to the purchase of this person (life cycle stage).
There are many options for content formatting. The recommended format for each customer journey stage is as follows:
Recognition stage
Blog post: Effectively combining SEO and keyword strategies will contribute significantly to organic traffic growth.
Infographics: Infographics that can be easily shared increase the chances of being caught by new audiences by sharing content on social media. (For beginners , please use this infographic template (free) .)
Short videos: Easy to share, and posting to platforms such as YouTube will trigger new audiences.
Study stage
eBook: A more comprehensive eBook than a blog post or infographic, it is easy to get contact information registered as a price for downloading, and is effective for lead generation.
Survey Report: Important content that is also effective for lead generation. Industry-specific research reports and the latest data are often featured in media and trade magazines, and are effective at the recognition stage.
Webinars: Webinars that offer more interactive content can be more comprehensive than blog posts and short videos, making them ideal for content for the study stage.
Decision stage
Case Study (Case Study): Detailed case studies posted on the website can be an effective way to encourage new prospects to make decisions.
Testimonials: Even if your business is unsuitable for introductions, it is effective to post a simple “customer testimonial”. For the B2C brand, there are even more diverse formats. For example, in the case of apparel, it is possible to invite customers to purchase coordinated photos using their own brand hashtags and introduce them on the site.
How long does it take to produce results?
Because digital marketing makes it easier to evaluate ROI, people tend to think that results will be achieved in a shorter period of time than offline marketing. It is a town.
Build a comprehensive buyer persona to identify, attract, and focus on creating high-quality online content that can be transformed into a promising audience, and can achieve significant results within six months must.
If you ’re using paid advertising as part of your digital strategy, you ’ll find it even faster. However, for long-term, sustainable success, we recommend focusing on increasing organic (free) traffic using content, SEO, and SNS.
Does digital marketing require a large budget?
This is true for anything, but the budget you need depends on what you want to use in your digital marketing strategy.
If you already have a website and want to focus on inbound techniques such as SEO, SNS, and content creation, you don't need much budget. The main focus of inbound marketing is the production of high-quality content that audiences want to see. Except in the case of outsourcing, the only investment required is the time of the person in charge.
Initially, you can also host websites and create content using HubSpot's CMS (content management system) . If your budget is limited, you can use WordPress hosted on WP Engine using the simple theme of StudioPress .
It goes without saying that outbound marketing methods such as online advertising and buying email address lists require a reasonable budget. The size of your budget depends on how much you want the message to stand out.
Taking Google AdWords PPC as an example, you will have to compete with your peers in order to be ranked high in Google search results using keywords related to your business. Depending on the keyword's competitive rate, it can be relatively inexpensive or very expensive. This is why we encourage you to focus on organic traffic.
Positioning of mobile marketing in digital marketing strategy
Another important element in digital marketing is mobile marketing. In fact, even in the United States, where mobile popularity is not as high as in other countries, smartphone use accounts for 69% of digital media usage time, and there is research data that desktop-based digital media usage is less than half .
In other words, it is essential to optimize digital assets such as digital advertisements, web pages, and SNS images for mobile devices. If you have a mobile app that supports communication and shopping with your brand and users, it ’s counted as part of your digital marketing.
It ’s important that the online experience your company offers is as comfortable, whether it ’s from a mobile device or a desktop. Make your website mobile-friendly or responsive to make it easier to browse even on mobile devices. It may be necessary to consider shortening the input form so that content can be downloaded smoothly from mobile. For images on SNS, text may be interrupted due to the small display area on mobile devices. Always take into account how mobile users see it.
There are many ways to optimize digital marketing assets for mobile users. When promoting a digital marketing strategy , it is very important to consider the user experience on mobile devices. Keeping this point in mind will create an audience-oriented digital experience and, in turn, achieve the desired outcome.
How can I work on digital marketing in the future?
If you ’re already doing digital marketing, you ’ve probably seen a certain audience online. Still, there are still some areas where there is room for improvement.
Therefore, Hub Spot has prepared a document, “Why Digital Marketing?” That enables both beginners and experienced users to formulate effective digital marketing strategies simply by following the procedures . You can download it for free here .
