All you Need To Know About Digital Marketing And How You Can Get Started

Wondering what digital marketing is, how it helps business and how you can get started with digital marketing? An answer awaits you.

In this blog-post, I will be breaking down what digital marketing is. Addressing how it can help and benefit your business positively, and also how you can start implementing it right away.

We are in the era that traditional form of marketing is getting close to extinction, and most people don’t pay attention to unlike before.

They would rather check the internet to make their buying decision, which moves business that has not adopted digital marketing, to adopt it into their marketing operation.

Digital marketing explained

Before I define digital marketing let a look at the term ‘marketing’

We can say that marketing is a creative activity designed to know and understand the customer’s needs and successfully satisfying these needs.

From the statement above we can now say that digital marketing involves carrying out digital activities to know and understand the customer area of needs and successfully satisfying these needs through different digital channels.

Although, Digital marketing has different definitions according to different organization and thought leaders

According to Neil Patel ‘Digital marketing is any form of marketing products or services that involves electronic devices’

According to Lucy Alexander of Hubspot ‘Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers’.

According to fantastic connect we view digital marketing as a data-driven form of marketing that uses different digital and internet tools to research, carry out, engage and influence customer buying decisions through different digital channels.

Through digital marketing, you can influence the emotion of your customers through your content to make them purchase your goods or services.

Also, a skilled digital marketer must carry out various researches using different digital and internet tools to determine customer behavior and competitor activities which is crucial to the success of the digital marketing campaign.

Nevertheless, a digital marketing campaign also involves engagement which connotes whether the campaign is working or not.

Digital marketing can be implemented through different ways, which depends on the financials of business or entity that is what they can afford, in respect to this let me illustrate the different ways in which digital marketing can be implemented and how you can get started with it

1. Go Social

One of the first steps you can take that will not cost you any penny is to open a social media page for your business.

Today there are multiple social media networks and platforms out there you can leverage your business on, to create a digital presence on these platforms will come to you at no cost.

Some of these platforms include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin and all others.

These platforms are where most people spend their time on the internet and you are not an exception either.

It is said that an adult spends over 20 hours on the internet per week which is quite enough for you to showcase your business to them

With Facebook having over 2 billion users in the world, it will be one of the largest social networks with lots of opportunities you can tap in to.

Going digital with Facebook involves you opening a Facebook business page with all the correct information concerning products and services you are offering.

With a Facebook business page, you can add all the details concerning your business affairs, such details include, your address, product and services you offer, opening and closing time for your business, previous customer reviews and many more.

Now social media is not limited to Facebook there are many networks you can leverage on too as stated above with their importance and qualities but Facebook is the most common among digital marketers and it is advisable to start with it, before moving on to others.

With a Facebook business page, you can start inviting families and friends on your list to like, engage and comment on your page from here your network starts growing and more people will start to know about your business and in the long run, will start getting you sales. And from there you can start to grow your business with the help of social media.

2. Google my business

Another way you can make your business go digital is by using a Google service called “Google my business”.

This service powered by Google enables local traders and entrepreneur to list their business details such as name, address, Google map location, web address and so on, for customers who are interested in their services and are in the same area or locality to easily find and locate them.

This service is to ease Google users, for them easily find what they are looking for and as well fulfilling their objectives as a search engine thereby, giving free opportunities to entrepreneurs for customers to easily find them.

It’s an opportunity for you if you are thinking of adopting digital marketing into your business, you can easily do this and get found by customers looking for your services.

Note that other search engines apart from Google also offer this opportunity but their percentage of usage together is not up to Google’s, this is the reason I won’t be discussing them, but that should not stop you from trying them out because it will only be an added advantage for you.

3. Email marketing

If you are considering going digital with your business you should as well consider email marketing.

Email marketing involves sending out different emails to promote your business which you can easily start on your own.

Your ordinary Gmail account will have limited functionality unlike real email marketing tools such as Getresponse, but notwithstanding it is still email marketing.

You can start by collecting emails of your prospective customers through small workshops or through receipts and ledgers when they buy your products or generate google forms from your Gmail accounts surveying them and taking their emails accounts

From here you can start a small email campaign through your Gmail by sending them personalized emails about your product and services offers using the free versions of Google sheet add-on such as mail merge.

And once your list grows bigger you can now switch to an appropriate email marketing tool such as Getresponse in other to better track your email marketing campaign performance.

If you are ready to take your business to the next level download an e-book here showing you how to start email marketing with Getresponse

4. Web presence

You should consider having a website if you want to get more recognized digitally.

A website creates an avenue for your customers to know you better without having to visit your location, with a website a buyer can easily make a buying decision without contacting you first, the website will have answered all his questions considering if your contents are convincing enough and are also of a good standard.

Through websites, customers can easily complete transactions and also perform activities that might as well prevent them from visiting your offices which can put them off even before the transaction is done, but with a website all that can be put to bed.

Owning a website involves you to get a domain name such as .com, .net, .org and so your domain name can be anything you want considering it availability i.e not yet used by another person, you can go ahead and check out Namecheap for a domain just for 8.88 dollars for a whole year.

Another thing you need, to own a website is a hosting plan which will host your domain and website, hosting plan varies from each other there is shared hosting, WordPress hosting and a bunch of other hosting plans, but domain host on a shared hosting plan is more plausible which can do almost anything you will need it for.

With standard shared hosting, you can create an app and also multiple sub-domain and integrations including reliable security certificates to protect you and your customers from intruders.

Shared hosting has different plans depending on how much you can afford and how big your business is. Check out Namecheap for a different affordable shared hosting plan to host your website and domain.

The benefit of Digital Marketing To Your Business

Now that you must have understood the concept behind digital marketing and how you can start implementing it in your business, let discuss how it benefits your business and its importance over the traditional form of marketing as we know it.

1. Digital Marketing cost is flexible

This means that digital marketing can be adopted by any business outlet either small or big, regardless of its size due to its flexibility in cost.

With digital marketing, the cost is no barrier because it is affordable and can even cost you nothing to start implementing it in your business as per how it was discussed above.

And unlike the traditional form of marketing that will cost you the expense of hiring foot marketers you can do it yourself.

2. It can be done remotely

Digital marketing gives a marketer and a business owner the comfort to carry out his duties anywhere he is, given the fact that he knows what he wants to market, unlike the latter that you will have to walk up to every person you see on the street which could be quite stressful.

3. Digital marketing is effective

Apart from the fact that digital marketing is cost-effective and affordable for every business regardless of its size, it is also highly effective in terms of delivery.

Through digital marketing, you can target specific people who you know will be interested in your product or service through different criteria such as, age interest, occupation, etc which is close to impossible to do with the traditional form of marketing.

4. Effective feedback system

With digital marketing, you can easily get feedback from your customers to help you improve or improvise on your product and services.

You can get feedback through different ways such as reviews, social comments, direct messages, direct emails and so on.

With digital marketing, you can easily engage with your customers to know, what they want and to better serve them and make your campaign a success.

5. Highly Profitable

With digital marketing, you can make as much as 200% on your ROI as profits due to its effectiveness and efficiency.

Implementing digital marketing is not only going to make your business more sales, but it’s also going to scale it up in no time and make you more profits like never before.

6. Digital marketing is global

Digital marketing has the potential to make your business and products go as viral as you need or want, without any global or territorial boundaries.

With digital marketing you can easily showcase your business to the world without much stress, anywhere you are in the world and complete a series of transactions without living your country

Other benefits of Digital Marketing include

Results are trackable

Makes a research on market and product more simplified and effective

Boosts and create quality brand identities and recognition for business

Well, digital marketing benefit is so numerous that I won’t be able to discuss or mention all of it but it’s not limited to only what I stated above.

Now since you have seen the various ways digital marketing can benefit your business, it is also important to point various branches attached to digital marketing.

Branches of Digital Marketing

Content marketing

This involves the generation and promotion of content in other to build, generate brand awareness, attract traffic and generate leads. Content marketing can’t stand on its own as it has to be expressed and showcased through different platforms such as:

Blog post: writing and releasing articles on a blog post relating to a product or a company is a form of content marketing.
Social media: content marketing is also released through pictures, videos, and short articles on a company’s social media page related to its product or service.
Newsletters
websites

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is one of the most popular branches of digital marketing; it is all forms of digital marketing activities that go through the different social media platforms such as facebook, twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and so on.

Social media marketing makes campaigns such as brand awareness and others more effective with its wide range of users and the amount of time spent on them.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This is the branch of digital marketing that has to do with optimizing and structuring website pages for it to be indexed on search engines such as Google, Bing, Ask and so on

Search engine optimization makes a company web page visible to customers who are looking for their products or services on search engines. Search engine optimization provides free traffic and leads to websites that know how to use them. To leverage on SEO one has to take note of the following criteria to rank well and compete on search engines:

The On-page SEO
Off-page SEO
Technical SEO

Email Marketing

As part of digital marketing, it holds the highest success rate to the history of digital marketing due to its flexibility and its cost-effectiveness.

it has to do with sending out promotional emails to a mailing list, it is the building and generating of a targeted mailing list to nurture them into paying customers.

Lead generation

As a branch of digital marketing, lead generation has to do with collecting and compiling customer’s information through different lead generation strategies using different tools such as lead captures forms and sign up forms and in turn converting them into paying customers.

Lead generation is a very important aspect of marketing that drives customers and sales acquisitions which is the primary goal of every marketing campaign.

Digital marketing has a lot of other branches attached to it, a few I have mentioned, other branches include:

Pay per Click marketing

Social Media Advertising

Affiliate Marketing

Website Development

Search Engine Marketing.

And A long list of others.

Final Words

Digital marketing is wider than what I discussed above, but this will give you an insight into what digital marketing is and how you can start implementing it in your business.

It’s now up to you to start harnessing the power of digital marketing. I wish you Happy Marketing.

FANTASTIC CONNECT DIGITAL