All You Need To Know About Digital Marketing

In short, Digital Marketing is the component of marketing that utilizes internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing refers to any form of marketing or advertising delivered through traditional and new digital channels such as websites, social media, mobile applications, email or search engines, among others.

Digital marketing is traditionally done online and offline and it includes different types of paid and non-paid digital marketing strategies such as:

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Email marketing
Content marketing
Mobile marketing
Social media marketing
Forum marketing
Affiliate marketing
Marketing automation
Influencer marketing
Referral marketing

Digital Marketing terms & definitions

You might have already decided to outsource your first digital campaign. Maybe you’re considering hiring a team member or two. Either way, you have to speak the language so you can join the conversation.

Here are 13 essential online marketing terms you should know:

Inbound Channel	An inbound marketing channel is a platform where customers can seek out your business online. Your website, your social media pages, and your email list are just some of the inbound channels that let you attract and engage with customers.
Buyer Persona	A buyer persona represents your ideal customer and helps you understand your target audience’s needs and motivations. Market research and data shape buyer personas, which can outline everything from age and gender to interests and problems.
Conversion	A conversion is a specific action you want customers to take during a digital marketing campaign. For example, you might want customers to buy an item, sign up for an email list, or download a white paper.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)	KPIs are the metrics or goals for your digital marketing campaigns. A successful campaign should reach or exceed your KPIs. To set effective KPIs, use the SMART goal method: Specific: Be as clear as possible about each KPI Measurable: Make sure your KPI includes numbers, such as sales figures or new customer signups Achievable: KPIs should be realistic, not impossible Relevant: Your KPIs should align with your overall business goals Time-based: Every KPI should include a timeline so you know when to start and stop measuring
Return on investment (ROI)	ROI calculates the revenue from a marketing campaign and helps you assess the overall value. To calculate ROI, subtract the amount you spent on the campaign from the revenue total. Then divide by the amount you spend on the campaign.
Cost per click (CPC)	CPC refers to the amount you spend every time a customer clicks on your digital ad. To calculate CPC, divide the total amount you spent by the number of link clicks. Many digital ad platforms use CPC as a pricing model, which means you get charged for each click. By monitoring CPC, you can also make sure you’re spending the right amount to get customers on your website.
Cost per acquisition (CPA)	CPA measures the cost of converting a customer. To measure the CPA for a campaign, divide the total amount you spent by the number of conversions. Like CPC, many digital ad platforms offer CPA as a pricing model so you can control how much you spend to land a new customer. When you optimize for CPA, you can also keep your CPA low and run more cost-effective campaigns.
Cost per install (CPI)	CPI measures the amount you spend for each app install. To calculate CPI, divide the total amount you spend by the number of app installs. Like CPA and CPC, digital platforms may let you use CPI as a pricing model for your campaigns. Yet CPI applies only to app developers, since it uses app installs as its conversion metric.
Click-through rate (CTR)	CTR refers to the percentage of customers who click on a link in your marketing campaign. To calculate CTR, divide the total number of views by the number of clicks. Although CTR doesn’t measure cost, it can still help you assess your campaign’s success. A high CTR shows that a large percentage of people who saw the link were interested enough to click.
Remarketing	Remarketing is a strategy that targets customers who have already interacted with or shown interest in your business. Using this strategy can help you lower your digital marketing costs since it guides customers through the sales funnel.
Bounce rate	Bounce rate refers to the percentage of people who visit your website and then exit quickly. To find your website’s bounce rate, check your Google Analytics data. Ideally, you want your bounce rate to be as low as possible, and you want it to decrease over time. After all, the lower your bounce rate, the more value customers get from your website.
A/B split testing	This tactic involves experimenting with two versions of one campaign. For example, you can run an A/B test with two ads that are identical aside from the graphics, button color, or other variable. Digital marketers typically use tools designed specifically for A/B testing to effectively run these tests. It’s imperative that you only test one variable at a time to truly understand the impact of the change you are testing. After you test the two versions, you can compare to find out which drives the best results. Then you can invest more of your budget into the top-performing version.
Call to action (CTA)	CTAs are prompts that encourage customers to do something. For example, “Shop now” and “Sign up” invite customers to take the next step after visiting your website or reading your ad. Choosing a strong CTA is important to any campaign’s success. Leaving out the CTA can mean fewer conversions. Adding an enticing CTA can lead to more sales or signups.

Digital Marketing channels & respective KPIs and metrics

Digital marketing includes over a dozen channels, each with their own strategies and tools that you can use to help you meet your business goals. To help you understand these channels and how they can benefit your business, here’s an explanation of some of the most common—and most effective—types of digital marketing.

Channel	Description	KPIs and metrics
Content marketing	Content marketing refers to the creation and promotion of all types of content, whether it’s written, audio, or visual content. Content marketing assets include blog posts, case studies, videos, podcasts, and more. A successful content marketing strategy attracts and guides customers through every stage of the sales funnel. How can your business benefit from content marketing? You can build trust. When you create helpful content that solves customers’ problems, you gain credibility. Over time, you can establish trust, which can lead to sales. You can improve brand awareness. The more high-quality content you create, the more chances you have to introduce your brand and rank with search engines.	Number of comments: A larger number means you’re attracting more customer engagement. Time on page: An increasing number means customers are spending more time reading and gaining value from your content. Social shares: A higher number means more customers found your content valuable enough to share.
Email marketing	This channel connects with customers directly in their email inboxes. An email marketing strategy can include everything from sale announcements to monthly newsletters to remarketing messages. An email service provider (ESPs) like MailChimp or ConvertKit can help small businesses execute these strategies more efficiently, but email marketing specialists may also use other tools or methods to craft a profitable strategy. The secret of email marketing success is writing compelling headlines and high converting copy that makes people want to take the next step. The more relevant your emails are to what potential customers need, the better they will work to build your relationship with them, so they think of you when they’re ready to buy. How can your business benefit from email marketing? You can get impressive ROI. Email marketing has an average ROI of 3800%. That means email can generate $38 in revenue for every $1 in ad spend. You can keep costs low. Email marketing lets you get right into inboxes, so you don’t have to pay for an ad every time you want to connect directly with customers.	Open rate: A higher number means more customers opened and read your email. CTR: A higher number means a greater percentage of subscribers clicked a link in your email, such as a link to a product page or a blog post. Conversions: A higher number means your email generated more conversions, such as revenue or website visitors.
Social media marketing	There are almost 2.8 billion social media users worldwide, around one-third of all internet users. That means you can’t ignore social media for marketing your business. Social media is a great tool to give customers a personal connection with you. In addition to the huge audiences, most social media sites have the added advantage of analytics, giving you more data about your audience’s composition and preferences than ever before. In short, social media is a major vehicle for business growth. With social media marketing, you can connect with customers on their preferred platforms. You can use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, or other social media platforms to grow a loyal following and sell products. How can your business benefit from social media marketing? You can build relationships. Social media is ideal for making connections and growing a community. Over time, social media can help you improve customer loyalty. You can offer customer service. Since social media allows for public commenting and private messaging, you can rely on this channel for simple, cost-effective customer service.	Likes: A steadily increasing number means your social media audience is growing organically, or without paid promotion. Active followers: A larger number shows that more people are engaging with your social media content. Shares: A higher number means more users shared your social media posts.
Search engine optimization (SEO)	SEO refers to techniques and strategies that make your website more visible in Google search results, ideally ranking in the top 10 results for search queries that are important for your business. This can include changes and optimizations to the content on the site; the structure of the site including navigation, links to and from site pages, and even some behind-the-scenes code; and links from external websites to your own because of the merit of your content. Of course, that’s not all there is to SEO. In fact, there’s a long list of search ranking factors. In a nutshell, Google wants to know your business is trustworthy and it looks for signals like: External reviews of your business Brand mentions from trusted external sources Social media sharing And more. The more positive these signals are, the better your pages and your site will rank. How can your business benefit from SEO? You can win new customers. SEO increases the chance of customers finding your website when searching for queries related to your company. Whether customers are just researching or they’re ready to buy, getting them to your website is the first step in winning their business. You can establish authority. When you rank high for popular search queries, your business can become an expert on key topics. Over time, you can increase your credibility and drive even more business.	Keyword rankings: A number as close as possible to one means you rank closer to the top of the search engine results page (SERP). Page-views: A steadily increasing number indicates that people are visiting more pages on your website. Number of backlinks: A steadily increasing number of natural backlinks means more sites are linking to your website, which can improve your rankings.
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)	The focus of PPC advertising is about helping to achieve marketing goals such as brand awareness, content downloads, newsletter sign-ups, website traffic, leads and of course conversions. While you Google a search term you’ve probably noticed that a few ads appear at the top of the search results. These ads are served by AdWords and your PPC strategy aims to ensure that your ad comes up at the right time to target the people you most want to reach. These ads also appear on mobile devices. Because of the positioning, these ads get a lot of clicks, which means more traffic, sales, and leads for your business. How can your business benefit from PPC? You can generate leads and sell products. Since PPC ads can target customers at any stage of the sales funnel, they’re ideal for driving sales and collecting contact information from warm leads. You can remarket to customers. PPC ads can also target existing customers or warm leads who haven’t purchased yet.	CPC or CPA: A lower number means you’re spending less for each conversion. CTR: A higher percentage means more customers are responding to your ads. Quality score: A higher quality score means your ad is more likely to win the automated bidding process.
Affiliate marketing	With affiliate marketing, you authorize others to broaden your audience, scale traffic, and drive sales for your business. Then you pay a commission for each sale. Your business can join large, established affiliate platforms like Amazon Associates or Fiverr affiliates or you can set up your own. How can your business benefit from affiliate marketing? You can increase revenue and scale traffic without doing extra work. Since you rely on affiliates to promote your products and drive more prospects to your website, you can get more sales with minimal additional work. You can get valuable endorsements. Affiliates often create in-depth reviews or write endorsements to drive sales. Since almost 90% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, affiliate marketing can offer incredible value.	Average order value: A higher number means customers spent more on each purchase. Referral traffic: A larger number indicates your affiliates are broadening your audience. New customers: A larger percentage shows that your affiliates are driving more new than returning customers.
Referral marketing	Referral traffic means customers who clicked on a link on another website to get to your website. Referral traffic often comes from blog posts that link to your business or company listings in online directories. How can your business benefit from referral marketing? You can get warm leads. Customers who clicked over to your website have shown an interest in what your business has to offer. As warm leads, they’re easier to convert than cold leads. You can improve SEO. As you build more referral links, search engines assign more value to your website. Over time, you can boost your SEO, which improves your rankings in search results.	New users: A higher number means that more new customers are clicking through to your site, possibly due to successful SEO efforts. Source: A wider variety of sources means that more websites are linking to your site.

Benefits of Digital Marketing

Does your company really need a digital marketing strategy to grow?

In short, absolutely YES and here are six good reasons why:

It gives small businesses more opportunities to compete
For small businesses, competing with the big guys isn’t exactly easy. For example, if you run a mom-and-pop diner, it’s impossible to buy more TV spots than IHOP. But here’s the thing:
Digital marketing lets you level the playing field, no matter how big your competitors are. With the right digital strategies, you can build a massive social media following, rank at the top of Google, or sell tons of products via email.
It helps you identify and engage your ideal audience
When you invest in traditional marketing like magazine articles or TV ads, you can target your audience to an extent. After all, you know who usually reads the magazine or watches the TV show. But what if you really want to zero in on your audience and optimize your budget? It doesn’t matter if your ideal audience includes stay-at-home parents or high-powered CEOs. With digital marketing you can identify and engage your ideal buyer using various online marketing tactics, even if your audience is small or has niche interests.
It helps you reach your customers in the right places
Fewer people than ever before are reading magazines and newspapers or listening to the radio. In 2018, newspaper circulation in the United States reached its lowest level since 1940. Local news audiences have declined for more than a decade. Instead, your customers are spending more time online. In fact:
– 90% of American adults use the internet on a regular basis
– Almost 70% use Facebook regularly
– Nearly 75% use YouTube routinely
So what does that mean for your business? With the right digital marketing tactics, you can connect with your audience where they already are.
It makes tracking and monitoring easy
Tracking results from traditional ad campaigns isn’t easy. You might know how many times your ad appeared. Yet it’s impossible to know how many people actually responded to your newspaper or TV ad. When you launch a digital marketing campaign, you can track virtually any detail. With a few clicks, you can find out how many people clicked on your ad and whether they bought something. You can even target the same group of people with another ad.
It allows you to scale and adapt your efforts
When you find a digital tactic that works for your business, you can easily scale it. After all, you aren’t tied to a TV ad or committed to a direct mailing months in advance. That means you can spend a bit more in digital and get exponential results, adapting to your needs as they evolve. But how do you find what works?
You can rely on analytics tools to measure your results. Because you’re in complete control of your digital efforts, you can test out new ideas at any time. If you like the results you get, you can scale them up. If they don’t work out as well as you’d hoped, you can stop them before spending too much.
Your competitors are already using it
No matter your industry, there’s a good chance your competitors already have a head start with digital marketing. In fact, 70% of marketers are already using content marketing, and almost 75% are using social media. Almost two-thirds are investing in SEO, and nearly half are using email automation.

How Digital Marketing helps grow your business

Because digital marketing is so versatile, trackable, and scalable, it’s uniquely positioned to help you reach your business goals. Let’s take a look at some of the key ways digital marketing can build your business:

– Decreases costs: Traditional marketing tends to cost much more than digital tactics. When you focus on digital marketing, you can lower your costs while still driving impressive results.
– Drives online sales: Since digital marketing takes place online, these tactics are naturally geared toward driving online sales and conversions. If you want to sell products online, digital marketing is essential.
– Increases revenue: Digital marketing campaigns can use both paid and organic strategies to drive revenue. No matter the size of your budget, digital marketing gives you the opportunity to boost your company’s bottom line.
– Targets with precision: Digital marketing channels allow you to target users by demographics, interests, and even devices. That means you can connect with the right person at the right time, making the most of your marketing efforts.
– Expands reach: No matter the size of your business, you need to expand your customer base continually. Digital marketing can reach customers across the nation and around the globe so you can expand to new markets and even trade globally.
– Builds brand reputation: Whether your company is new or seasoned, it’s important to increase brand awareness continually. Digital campaigns can introduce your brand to relevant customers and help you establish a positive reputation with loyal customers.

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