What is Digital Marketing?
To understand What is Digital Marketing and how does it work?We have to compare it with traditional marketing because of its similarities.
The objectives are similar, but the means and channels of interaction with our customers have evolved in a very short time. Therefore, adapting to these changes is essential if we want our business to move forward.
The digital marketing has been at the forefront of companies' marketing plans. since the emergence of digital transformation.
With the advance of new technologies and the emergence and development of smartphones, the way to reach potential customers has changed completely in the last 20 years.
Likewise, the implementation of digital strategies within companies' marketing plans is a reality. Even SMEs need to develop strategies for SEO positioning Local if they are to be competitive today.
Surely your competitors are already implementing digital strategies or contracting the services of a digital SEO Agency and gaining advantages and greater visibility on the network.
Don't you have an Online Marketing strategy in place for your business yet?
As a result of digitalisation, new terms and techniques have been systematically incorporated into companies.
Terms such as SEO, SEM, e-mail marketing, Social Media Management, mobile marketingetc. All of them are essential nowadays in existing and new companies.
Interestingly, there are still companies that have not yet taken the step to implement these techniques and concepts into their business strategies. As a consequence, many businesses are losing competitivenessThe company is not only competing with local competitors who have gone digital, but also with external competitors who sell the same products online, cheaper and without charging shipping costs.
For this reason, through this article, we want you to better understand some concepts and we will try to provide answers to questions like: What is digital marketing?, why digital marketing is important, y what tools can we take advantage of in Digital Marketing depending on the objective we want to achieve.
Elements that have evolved within Online Marketing
First, we define and highlight seven relevant factors that have evolved over time. internet usage and related to the Online Marketing.
- Super-informed consumer. Consumers are becoming more demanding, have more information at their disposal and request more information before making a purchase. The internet also allows them to compare, analyse and make better decisions.
- Internet is mobile. Likewise, consumers' access to the internet at any time and place allows them to enhance their interaction with companies and their products or services. As a consequence of this, there is a current trend to adapt existing websites to the web mobile or websites on mobile devicesIs your website adapted to mobile devices?
- Internet and geolocationThe relevance of geolocation when searching for any product or service: restaurants, addresses, places of leisure, etc.
- Social Online Interaction in Social Networks. There are more and more Social Networks and more users in each one of them that have even changed the way we relate and give our opinion about products or services. As a result, many of these users, with a large number of followers, have become opinion leaders.
- A new media platform. The media have found the internet to be an excellent platform to reach a huge number of consumers and/or readers quickly and easily.
- The CLOUD. Cloud Computing. The cloud has led to the emergence of cloud computing companies. These companies offer their storage services, which have led to a significant reduction in costs and time, generating value and simplicity for their users.
- Internet means instant solutions. The Internet is an inexhaustible source of free content that the user can find easily, minimising the time spent searching and waiting to receive it.
What is Digital Marketing
The Digital Marketing is the application of the internet and social media in order to facilitate the marketing of our products or services. In digital marketing, we apply our traditional marketing strategies to the digital media.
As a result, a whole range of digital tools have been created to channel and carry out our marketing actions, simplifying the implementation of our promotional actions on the web.
If you have doubts, problems or queries about how to implement a Digital Marketing strategy, the recommendation is to contact an Digital Marketing Agency and take advice.
Advantages of Digital Marketing
Digitalisation offers you a multitude of new opportunities to grow and develop your online business. For example, you can find the following:
- Increase the visibility of your business
- 100% measurable. At any time you can see the return on your investment.
- Flexible. It allows adjustments according to the results you obtain.
- It allows you to create a brand image by making the user remember you.
- Optimising customer segmentation
- It is cost effective
- Enables 24/7 customer service to be accommodated
- Improves conversion rate which translates into more sales
Why digital marketing is important for my business
Digital marketing focuses on the customermaking it the protagonist. Digital transformation has led to the evolution of the concept of the customer from customer consumera type of customer who only consumed; to a type of customer prosumerwhich could be defined as a mixture of the two terms, stating that the customer today is not only a receiver, but also a creator and producer of content.
Due to all these changes and developments, one of the key characteristics of customer-centric marketing is the Segmentation. What interests us most in digital marketing is to locate those customers with the highest value in order to incorporate them into our customer portfolio.
The customer segmentation is one of the bases of a marketing strategy, which allows us to analyse information about customers, with the aim of detecting groups or segments of customers who share particularities and common needs.
If you have doubts, problems or queries about how to implement a Digital Marketing strategy, the recommendation is to contact an Digital Marketing Agency and take advice.
Characteristics of Online Marketing
There are 10 key points to encapsulate the characteristics of digital marketing
- Recognise the growing power of the customer in the digital age. We must try to reach and connect with our target customers in order to offer them the best solutions to their problems, the most satisfactory experiences and to achieve long-term customer loyalty.
- Develop an offer according to the customer segmentation we have defined. Focusing our efforts and products or services on the target audience we have defined.
- Define our marketing strategies from the customer's perspective and expectations. We must not only segment our customer correctly, but also listen to them and get to know them in order to be able to offer them what really meets their needs.
- The distribution of our product must be exquisite. There is no point in analysing and getting to know our customers and offering them a product that meets their needs if, once they have purchased our product, they do not receive it in a satisfactory manner.
- Encourage active listening to the voice of our client. It is essential to listen to the voice of the current and potential customer in order to collaborate together to create value.
- Diversify the ways in which we deliver our message to customers. Online marketing has multiple ways to reach or capture our customers. The ideal is to diversify the way in which we get our message to them, in a non-intrusive way, with useful information for the user and that at the same time entertains them and improves their experience with our brand.
- Establish ROI (return on investment) metrics. It is very important that we can measure and evaluate whether the actions we are taking are producing the expected result and make adjustments if necessary.
- Investment in Technology. Investment in technology is key to quality scientific and technological marketing.
- Long-term loyalty. Our product or service and our after-sales services must be sufficiently powerful and attractive to be able to generate long-term relationships with our customers. Customer loyalty is a treasure that can bring us many benefits.
- To implement an integral vision of Marketing (360 degree MARKETING). Marketing affects all levels of the company and global engagement is critical. Our employees are our best customers and partners and it is important that they are aligned and committed to the strategies of the business.
Digital Marketing Tools
We can divide digital marketing tools into two groups.
Tools that will allow us to set up a business website. Within these tools we can find the domain name and the hosting or web hosting.
Tools we will use to attract, convert and retain our customers. The following diagram can visually help to locate each tool according to the objective we wish to achieve.
- To attract visitors to the website:
- Web Design
- SEO and SEM positioning
- Affiliation programmes
- Display Advertising
- Viral Marketing
- Blended Marketing and Offline Advertising
- To convert visitors into customers:
- Usability and accessibility of our website
- Content marketing
- Promotions
- Methods of payment
- Help and support
- Lead Magnet
- Retargeting
- To retain the customers we already have:
- e-mail marketing
- Process optimisation
- CRM and customer intelligence
- Cross-selling
- To measure the results of our actions:
- Web Analytics
- Competitive analysis
- Usability test
- Surveys
If you have doubts, problems or queries about how to implement a Digital Marketing strategy, the recommendation is to contact an Digital Marketing Agency and take advice.