A Concise Guide to Digital Marketing
Digital marketing uses all the ways we use to communicate with each other online, in order to promote brands to customers. It has a specific goal with all its interactions: To convert prospects into leads. What is digital marketing? It’s social media, email, SMS, MMS, web-based advertising, and SEO.
In this article we take a look at 5 good reasons to use digital marketing strategically, and we examine each of its manifestations in a bit more detail.
Why Use Digital Marketing?
Online marketing has now largely replaced the more traditional forms of advertising, such as leaflets, newspapers and brochures. It’s dominance as a marketing method comes down to 5 clear benefits it offers to business:
Digital marketing doesn’t incur hefty advertising charges (other than PPC etc). Instead, it eats into your time and resources. So, businesses find themselves growing a team of digital specialists in order to make the most of the opportunities online marketing affords.
Digital marketing provides data analytics, which tells businesses where their customers are coming from, what their age and gender is, and which keywords work best. So, you can target your communications accurately to the customers you want to speak to.
Geographical boundaries no longer exist for marketing. Your ads, blogs, posts and emails can be seen by as large, or as niche a group as you wish. You can also decide to sell to specific geographic areas.
Every digital channel you use will be tracking the results of your campaigns and offering invaluable information as you move forward. It could be as simple as knowing how many people read your blogs, or which of your website pages is performing best.
Digital prospects are offered multiple ways to connect with a brand and buy from them. There’s no need to write down telephone numbers, or cut out an advert, you can simply click on a link to register an interest, save for later, or buy immediately.
What is Digital Marketing? 5 Different Channels
There’s a range of channels to choose from when it comes to digital marketing. It’s tempting to try out all of them, but this risks spreading your brand thinly. Much better to think strategically about which of the platforms your customers tend to gravitate towards and concentrate your energies on those. None are better than others; it simply comes down to what blend suits your business best.
Social Media Marketing
This is what most people think of in connection with digital marketing. The most widely used social media platforms are LinkedIn (B2B), Facebook (B2C), Instagram (B2C), Twitter (B2B & B2C), TikTok (B2C). Social media marketing is all about generating conversations and discussions which can take the form of likes, shares, follows and posts.
- Facebook. The ad reach for FB is now just over 51% of the UK population. 54% of users are female, and 46% male. Users need to be over 13 to join.
- Instagram. Instagram’s ad reach is 47.4% of the UK population. 56% of users are female, 44% are males. Users are required to be 13 to join.
- TikTok. Ads placed on this channel have a reach of 40% of UK adults. 60% of users are female, 40% are male.
- LinkedIn. The channel’s ad reach is 50.8% of the user base. 43.8% of the users are female and 56.3% are male. Users are required to be over 18 to join.
- Twitter. The ad reach for Twitter is 26.9% in the UK. 43.6% of users are female and 56.4% are male. Users have to be over 13 to join.
(All statistics taken from Datareportal)
Search Engine Optimisation
SEO is critical for all your digital marketing. Why? Because without it you won’t get found by Google. A staggering 90.63% of online content gets no traffic from Google. Why? Because they don’t meet Google’s criteria for trust and authority.
SEO is the crucial link between your site and the major search engines. SEO ensures that your site is ‘Google friendly’ which is to say that it is recognised and promoted by the Google algorithm. SEO is made up of technical and content ‘benchmarks’ which must be met to make any kind of impact online.
Content Marketing
Online customers have different expectations from traditional customers. They are delivering their time and attention, in return for high-quality content, providing information they find valuable and/or entertaining. Google considers content key to the delivery of value, so well-written, seo optimised, original content is now on the agenda for most businesses.
There are many different ways to use content to strike up a conversation with your customers. The trick is to open up a range of ways to engage and find out which are most popular. Here are a few examples:
- Meet the team intros – demonstrating your workplace culture.
- Opinion pieces – from team experts or CEO.
- Case studies – showing how your product/service solves problems.
- Client feedback – with helpful and friendly responses from your business.
- ‘How to’ guides – sharing your expertise as a ‘value-add’.
- Regular blogs – sharing company news, tips, and helpful advice around your products.
- Recent images of the team at work – making your business more people-friendly.
- Regular newsletters – some demographics prefer regular emails to social media.
There are many ways to strike up a conversation, but some will be right for your customers and others won’t. The trick is to find what your customers feel comfortable with, and build on that foundation.
Paid Advertising
Most of the digital channels now offer space to run ads. The advertisers pay for them each time someone clicks through to their landing page. This form of digital marketing is generally used to introduce a new product, alert people to a promotion. Paid advertising generates instant sales because they are designed to appear when online searchers use a specific keyword connected with your product.
Email Marketing
Is email marketing still relevant in 2022? Absolutely. Recent research showed that email generates around £35 – £40 for every £1 spent, which is an amazing ROI!
Research shows that recipients like email marketing if:
- They’re asked if they would like to subscribe (with a clear option to unsubscribe).
- The content remains appropriate to their interests.
- Emails include promotions and quality content.
A brand might offer a regular newsletter with specific items within it being offered to different segments of their email list. Large organisations tend to include in their email marketing delivery updates, email receipts, product updates, and articles designed to enhance trust in the brand.
About Imagefix
Our business at Imagefix is all about growing your business. Our digital marketing team provides a practical answer to the question ‘what is digital marketing?’ by creating tailored marketing campaigns designed to improve your search engine ranking, grow traffic to your site, and provide you with more qualified leads and conversions.
We’re here to help with your specific digital marketing requirements – large or small. Looking for a specialist to fill a gap in your team? We’ll provide one. Need a high-impact PPC campaign? We’ll create and manage it for you. We are an award-winning digital marketing agency based in Bedfordshire with an experienced team that’s worked across a range of business and commercial sectors.
Would you like to talk to us about your digital marketing requirements? Call Imagefix today on 01525 715608
