What is Digital Marketing
Updated on 03rd Jan, 24 9.4K Views

In this blog, we will discuss the following topics:

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Meaning of Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing has become an umbrella term for a wide variety of marketing channels such as mobile applications, social media, web applications, email, search engines, or any new digital channel. All these things and more are taught in digital marketing course. It all boils down to a much simpler definition: Digital Marketing is a form of marketing that involves electronic devices.

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History of Digital Marketing

The internet marked the beginning of the digital era and hence the growth of digital marketing was inevitable. The history of digital marketing is quite fascinating and deserves more reading. It was the advent of the Web 1.0 platform that led to the easy availability of information to users. This paved the way for marketers who used the digital platform to market their products and services. It was in the 90’s when the term ‘Digital Marketing’ was coined. Many believe that the first person who used digital marketing was Ray Tomlinson who sent the first email in 1971. However, there is a separate group of believers who consider Philip Kotler, the father of marketing, to be the actual founder of digital marketing.

One of the factors that contributed to the growth of digital marketing in the 1980s was the increase in the storage capacity of computers and the adoption of online techniques to market their products by most companies.

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Inbound Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

These two terms – Digital Marketing and Inbound Marketing are sometimes used interchangeably as they both are used together. But in general, both differ from each other on thin grounds. Even though the tools used in Inbound Marketing are also used in Digital Marketing, the usage may vary in various given circumstances.

Digital marketing is more about focusing on converting prospects into customers through individual tools. On the contrary, inbound marketing is all about focusing on determining the goal/objective first and then finding the right tool that reaches the target customers. In fact, inbound marketing is a holistic approach.

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Even though they both differ from each other, it is not necessarily true that you have to opt for either of them. Both digital marketing and inbound marketing use the same tools but with different goals. Hence, it is always fruitful to use both of them together and not just choose any one.

Read: Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

B2B vs. B2C Digital Marketing

There is no doubt that Digital Marketing is the same for both B2C as well as B2B, yet there are certain factors responsible for variations in the approach adopted. Let us have a look at the basic points of difference between B2C and B2B Digital Marketing:

BasisB2B Digital MarketingB2C Digital Marketing
TargetB2B Digital Marketing is targeted at business enterprises and SME owners etc.The target audience for B2C Digital Marketing are the consumers.
Decision-MakingThe decision making process takes a long time as businesses invest a good amount of time in making decisions.Customers are keen on exploring discounts and offers etc. If the offers interest them, they do not spend much time in buying the product/service. Hence the decision-making is prompt.
Transact TypeB2B transactions are driven by logic and multiple rounds of analysis.B2C is mostly driven by emotions.

Also, Check our blog on Internet Marketing

Importance of Digital Marketing

There are a number of reasons why learning digital marketing must be stressed upon. Below we have discussed the major reasons:

  • Digital marketing as a career has a lot of potential to offer growth opportunities to skilled professionals. As per TRAI, the number of smartphone users is expected to reach 442 million by 2022. This, in turn, implies that the demand and use of the online market will only surge.
  • Job opportunities in this domain are only expected to increase in the coming years because of the ongoing digital transformation. The job portals in India predict that there will be around 70 lakh job opportunities by 2025.
  • Organizations need to strengthen the knowledge base of their digital marketers to come up with new online marketing techniques and win over more customers.
  • Personalization is what customers like nowadays and offering personalized, customized communication is possible only through digital marketing. Hence learning digital marketing has become way more important than it was a decade ago.

Around 91 percent of top recruiters consider certification as a major criterion for hiring into the field: 48 percent offer higher packages for certified candidates. Hence, online training becomes rewarding for you to step up your career game and you can also say that there are numerous advantages of Digital Marketing.

Explore our comprehensive blog on green marketing where companies promote products or services that are good for the environment

Types of Digital Marketing

Many people believe that digital marketing is just one single technique or domain. But, in reality, that is not the case. It is a collection of various techniques and subdomains. The more you explore it, the more you learn about the various concepts. Here we have discussed the various types of digital marketing along with digital marketing examples:

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
  • Content Marketing
  • Social Media Marketing (SMM)
  • Pay-per-click Advertising (PPC)
  • Affiliate Marketing
  • Email Marketing
Types of Digital Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

In the field of digital marketing, SEO is the most important digital marketing skill to have. This is a process utilized to rank your website higher in a search engine, thereby increasing the traffic to your website without spending a single penny.

There are various tools also available like Google Analytics, Semrush, Ahrefs, etc. for helping you with SEO. This is quite a time-taking process. Some of the channels where SEO operations are applied are blogs, websites, and infographics. There are various SEO tools out there used by SEO experts.

Ways to approach SEO are as follows:

  • On-page SEO: Focuses on the content that exists ‘on the page’
  • Off-page SEO: Focuses on the content that exists ‘off the page’
  • Technical SEO: Focuses on the backend of the website

Read more about Digital Marketing in our Digital Marketing Tutorial!

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

This is a practice followed by businesses who want their paid advertisements to appear on search engine results pages (SERP). Advertisers pay for certain keywords that Google or Bing users enter into these search engines while they are looking for products or services.

What makes SEM (Search Engine Marketing) so powerful is that it puts the ads of marketers’ products in front of the right customers who are motivated to make the purchase at that very moment.

Content Marketing

Content Marketing

The sole purpose of this kind of marketing is to create awareness of the brand, lead generation, traffic growth, and increase the number of customers. Major channels through which we execute a content marketing strategy are:

  • Blog posts: A company’s industry expertise can be showcased by publishing articles on it.
  • Infographics: This visualizes the content for website visitors.
  • Ebooks and whitepapers: This allows users to exchange the marketing content for readers’ contact information and advance their business interests.

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Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media Marketing in Digital Marketing

This promotes a brand on social media platforms by generating brand awareness, attracting traffic, and creating leads for the business. Some of the channels used for Social Media Marketing (SMM) are:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Snapchat

You can also make use of platforms like HubSpot to connect with multiple channels such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Here, the message inflow can be directed to one place, thereby integrating social media inboxes.

Looking to build a career in Digital marketing? Read the informative blog on Digital Marketing Career now!

Pay-per-click Advertising (PPC)

Pay-Per-Click Advertising in Digital Marketing

PPC drives traffic to a website such that the publisher is paid each time your advertisement is clicked. The most common type of PPC is Google Ads, where you can pay to get the top slot in the Google search engine result at a price per click of the links you place. Some other channels where you can use PPC are:

Paid Facebook ads:

You can pay to advertise on Facebook by customizing a video post, image, or slideshow, which will then be sent to the newsfeeds of users having similar business interests.

Learn how Facebook Pixel supercharges Facebook ads through the Intellipaat blog.

Twitter ads:

You can pay to place ads on the feeds of a specific audience, who are dedicated to accomplishing similar business goals as yours.

Sponsored LinkedIn messages:

You can pay to directly approach industry experts on LinkedIn.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is where you get a commission for advertising someone else’s products or services on your channel or website. The channels used include:

  • Use of YouTube Partner Programs to host video ads
  • Use of Social media accounts to post affiliate links

Learn about the right tool as per your business requirement in this blog on Digital Marketing Tools.

Email Marketing

Email Marketing

Through this, companies connect with their audiences to promote their content, share information about discounts and events, and attract people to their websites. Below are the types of emails sent as part of the email marketing strategy:

  • Emails welcoming customers
  • Holiday promotions
  • Follow-up emails to website visitors
  • Subscription newsletters for blogs

The Digital Marketing strategies mentioned in this blog will increase the visibility of your content at a much faster rate than it might with offline or traditional marketing techniques. The effectiveness and scale of your Digital Marketing strategy will dictate its success. The massive job opportunity and high pay are attracting a lot of aspirants to the field. So, become a certified Digital Marketer by enrolling in one of our Digital Marketing courses and kick-start your career in the right direction.

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The Benefits of Digital Marketing

Benefits of Digital Marketing

We have already understood why learning Digital Marketing is important. Now let us understand the benefits of Digital Marketing. Following are the main benefits offered by Digital Marketing:

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1. Get Broad Reach through Digital Marketing

By using digital marketing, you can reach any customer at any geographical location. Reach is no constraint for marketers these days using digital marketing techniques. Since everyone is connected through the internet these days and the majority of people have smartphones, it is easy to reach anyone sitting in any corner of the world.

2. Cost-Effective

Digital Marketing is low-cost. It offers a broad reach along with keeping the ad spend as low as possible. As for traditional marketing approaches such as television spots, newspapers, etc., the overhead cost can be high. The average ad spend for traditional marketing techniques is way higher than that of any digital marketing technique. Digital Marketing offers the flexibility to create multiple ad campaigns and run them for shorter durations and reach maximum customers with a low spend.

3. Measurable Result

One of the best things about digital marketing is that you can measure the performance and effectiveness of the ad campaigns. The results are quantifiable which lets digital marketers find out how many and what kind of audience the campaign attracts. Using digital marketing, monitoring the performance, and analysis of the results is easy. This also helps in saving a lot of time and money along with targeting the right audience.

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4. Easy to Personalize for Customers

As earlier mentioned in this blog, customers these days like a personalized touch be it in the products or the communication. The more personalization, the more the chances of the customer relating and being attracted to the product. Digital marketing helps in achieving this as it facilitates targeted and personalized communication. Digital marketers have the data regarding each customer and hence the campaigns can be run based on the available data.

5. Easy to Target a Specific Customer Base

Digital Marketing offers the flexibility to run various campaigns simultaneously to target different target customer bases. The data regarding the customers is analyzed and alike customers are put in one specific target customer base and so on. The campaigns are designed according to the goals. Hence it becomes easier to target a specific customer base and adopt a focused approach.

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6. More Conversion rate

Using Digital marketing, customers can be taken to a level where they can make immediate decisions regarding purchases, etc. The ads and content are marketed in such a way that the customers can’t help but make prompt decisions. Digital marketers know what customers need by analyzing the data available. This lets them create ads and creatives that attract customers. Customers can click on a link or save the content to have a look at them later. However, in this process, their details get saved with the digital marketing team and later dropped down to the sales funnel. Hence, such a targeted approach helps easier and higher conversions.

Scope of Digital Marketing

All over the world, the spread of digital media is contributing 15 percent to the overall advertising. Digital marketing techniques are helping business enterprises spread their wings to face the challenges of the day. This is why Google and Facebook generate more income than any traditional advertising agency.

Now, let us discuss the reasons for you to know and what are the various objectives of Digital Marketing.

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Conclusion

Digital marketing has come a long way in helping organizations get the most out of their marketing efforts. This domain is further expected to expand and hence generate more opportunities in the process. To summarize, in this blog we have discussed the various types or rather concepts in digital marketing and the very importance of learning it.

Precisely speaking, the benefits of digital marketing have led to its growth. We have discussed its most important benefits too in the blog. To better understand digital marketing, it is recommended to enroll in a course. However, we do hope that this blog helped you in getting the basics of digital marketing right.

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