Digital Marketing mainly refers to the marketing on the Internet, including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium. Some common channels are digital channels such as Google search, social media, email, and their websites to connect with their current and prospective customers.

In simple terms, digital marketing is the promotion of products or brands via one or more forms of electronic media. Digital marketing is often referred to as online marketing, internet marketing or web marketing.

THE 7 BIG CATEGORIES OF ONLINE MARKETING ARE:
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM)
CONTENT MARKETING
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING (SMM)
PAY-PER-CLICK ADVERTISING (PPC)
AFFILIATE MARKETING
EMAIL MARKETING

ASSETS

There are a number of assets and strategies that come with digital marketing. Some of the Assets are:

Your website
Blog posts
Ebooks and whitepapers
Infographics
Interactive tools
Social media channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
Earned online coverage (PR, social media, and reviews)
Online brochures and lookbooks
Branding assets (logos, fonts, etc.)

TACTICS

The important tactics of Digital Marketing which help in the growth of a business are as follows.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
It is an important process of optimizing your website to ‘rank’ higher in search engine results pages, therefore increasing the amount of organic (or free) traffic that your website receives.

CONTENT MARKETING
The creation and promotion of content assets for the purpose of generating brand awareness, traffic growth, lead generation, or customers.

INBOUND MARKETING
Inbound marketing refers to the ‘full-funnel’ approach to attracting, converting, closing, and delighting customers using online content.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
The practice of promoting your brand and your content on social media channels to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads for your business.

PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC)
A method of driving traffic to your website by paying a publisher every time your ad is clicked. One of the most common types of PPC is Google AdWords.

AFFILIATE MARKETING
A type of performance-based advertising where you receive the commission for promoting someone else’s products or services on your website.

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’  — for example, Facebook advertising and Instagram advertising.

MARKETING AUTOMATION
Marketing automation refers to the software that exists with the goal of automating marketing actions. Many marketing departments have to automate repetitive tasks such as emails, social media, and other website actions.

EMAIL MARKETING
Companies use email marketing as a way of communicating with their audiences. Email is often used to promote content, discounts and events, as well as to direct people towards the business’ website.

ONLINE PR
Online PR is the practice of securing earned online coverage with digital publications, blogs, and other content-based websites. It’s much like traditional PR but in the online space.

WHY DIGITAL MARKETING?
In digital marketing, a reporting and analytics engine can be layered within a campaign which allows the organization or brand to monitor in real-time how a campaign is performing, such as what is being viewed, how often, how long, as well as other actions such as response rates and purchases made.

The use of digital marketing in the digital era not only allows for brands to market their products and services but also offers online customer support through 24×7 services to make the customer feel supported and valued.
The use of social media in digital marketing interaction allows brands to receive both positive and negative feedback from their customers as well as determine what media platforms work well for them.
Digital marketing provides increased advantage for brands and businesses. It is now common for consumers to post feedback online through social media sources, blogs, and websites about their experience with a product or brand.
Some other benefits are:
Digital Marketing will help you in Building your Brand reputation by promoting it online and reaching to the huge audience.

Digital marketing is more cost effective than traditional marketing.

Helps in Generating Revenue.

Digital Marketing caters the Mobile consumers which is already a big market and increasing day by day.

THE MAJOR PILLARS OF DIGITAL MARKETING ARE:
• Setting up and optimising your website
• Creating a digital content strategy
• Promoting your brand on social media
• Converting website visitors into leads
• Utilizing effective paid advertising
• Turning leads into paying customers
• Measuring and improving your marketing

 

DO I NEED A BIG BUDGET FOR DIGITAL MARKETING?
It really depends on what elements or way of digital marketing you’re planning to use in your strategy.

Presuming you already have a website, if you’re focusing on inbound techniques like SEO (Search Engine Optimization), social media, and content creation then the good news is you don’t need very much budget at all. With inbound marketing, the main focus is on creating high-quality content that your audience will want to consume, which unless you’re planning to outsource the work, the only investment you’ll need is your time.

With outbound techniques like online advertising and purchasing email lists, there is undoubtedly some expense. What it costs comes down to what kind of visibility you want to receive as a result of the advertising.

For example, to implement PPC using Google AdWords, you’ll bid against other companies in your industry to appear at the top of Google’s search results for keywords associated with your business. Depending on the competitiveness of the keyword, this can be reasonably affordable, or extremely expensive, which is why it’s a good idea to focus building your organic reach, too.