what is the digital marketing?
Digital marketing is the use of digital technology to deliver your marketing messages and allow your customers to interact with your business.
Traditionally, marketing has been about getting your messages across to your customers. With technology, you can now enter into a dialogue with your customers and deliver what they really want and not what you think they want. Often times there is a huge gap and digital marketing is what allows you to communicate one-on-one with your customers and on a massive scale.
So what areas does digital marketing cover?
For me, digital marketing includes:
- Websites including:
- Search engine optimization (SEO): being found on Google, etc.
- Pay Per Click (PPC) – Pay to have someone find you on Google, etc.
- Banner Ads – Paying for banner ads to drive visitors to your site.
- E-commerce: the ability to buy and sell products, services, and information over the Internet.
- Consumer Reviews – Consumer reviews are a powerful way to get consumers to your eCommerce site as they make the purchase decision easier as the reviews are from consumers who have purchased the product. Entire companies rely on this concept, like TripAdvisor.
- Blogs. Personal websites with stories, expert opinions, etc. that you believe will help your readers, customers, and stakeholders.
- Social media. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, Google+, Ushi, Xing, etc. These are web-based systems that allow you to connect and share information like ideas, links, photos, videos with like-minded people. They can also generate income for your business and therefore can be routes of marketing for your business. They can be great ways to connect with people you may not be able to reach through other means. Twitter can be a great source of public information in real time and has reported major world events before the world press.
- Social media news. Mashable is by far the largest social media news site.
- Online public relations. There are specific websites to make press releases available to the press. Prlog.org and helpareporter.com are examples.
- Webinars / Events – Webinars are one or many webinars distributed over the Internet. This allows you to present to a large number of people regardless of location. The events are traditional meetings or workshops but they are marketed through social networks such as Linkedin.
- Email Marketing – Sending mass emails that you think are relevant to the people you are sending the message to.
- Lead Nuturing – This is where a potential customer gives you their email address in exchange for something free. This is usually an e-book (in pdf format), a video, an e-mail course on how to do something.
- Viral Marketing – Sending a message that is so compelling that people forward it to other people you don’t know. A great way to send a message if you get it right.
- Video – An increasingly popular method of sharing ideas, transmitting information, and selling on the web. Ideal for selling more complex products or services. YouTube is the most popular today, but video is being integrated into more digital media.
- Music / Podcasts. Spotify is becoming the most popular legal file-sharing system, giving you access to a wide range of music. Podcasts are voice recordings on a particular topic. They can be downloaded to listen to on a computer or MP3 players at a later date. Ideal for relaxing or learning about a new topic while traveling.
- Chat / Instant Messaging / Skype. Chat and instant messaging are systems of conversations using a keyboard that take place in real time. That is, one person writes something and the other responds. Both must be present and online for this to work. Users of Facebook, Bebo, etc. they use it, especially the younger generation. Skype is an Internet-based video and phone system that allows Skype users to call each other for free or at a very low cost and is becoming increasingly popular for business use and will grow now that the video version is available. on Facebook.
- Applications for smartphones or mobiles. Smartphone or mobile phone apps (or software apps from which the term is derived) are small pieces of computer software that run on your phone and allow you to do things that you would normally do on a computer. The need to work anywhere and anytime means that these will become increasingly popular with the commercial systems that start to appear in them. Ideal for anyone who works outside the office, including executives, technicians, and sales personnel. Also keep an eye out for a growing number of consumers using their mobile phones for online shopping while they spend their time waiting for something.
- Cloud-based file storage / sharing. The cloud is, for most purposes, another name for the Internet. Therefore, cloud-based storage is the ability to store information on the Internet, including backing up and sending large files to customers and suppliers. DropBox and Yousendit are examples of systems for sharing large files between unrelated users. Today there is a wide range of remote backup system providers and most companies include them in their backup strategies. Personal file sharing is also available for two or more computers to link together to share information, including music and videos. Personal file sharing is generally not a business tool for larger companies.
- Cloud-based systems. These are systems that allow you to work anywhere. Google has Google Docs, Microsoft has Office 365. Many third-party software providers are moving their systems to the cloud so that customers can access them from anywhere and not have to worry about their own IT infrastructure. Businesses are moving their IT infrastructure to the cloud to reduce costs, as the entire infrastructure is managed by a third party.
- Extranets / Web-based systems. Companies are now looking to give customers and suppliers access to their information (through Extranets) and their systems (through Web-based systems). This allows customers and suppliers to access information relevant to them and allows them to perform any processing manually, saving you time and money, such as entering and advancing orders and checking stock levels.
- Remote access. The ability to work anywhere means that sometimes you need to access your computer at home or at work. Remote access through websites like Teamview and Logmein are a great way to access critical documents outside of the computer. Some of these systems allow you to demonstrate your product and service online. This saves you and your client time and money.
- Games / online games. More gaming companies are moving their operations to the web so that their services can be accessed anywhere, anytime. Also note that more consumer apps have game technology or ideas built in to make shopping more fun. The term is called gamification. This could be a challenge for parents, as the line between buying something and playing games becomes blurred.
In an age where systems are everywhere, companies need to understand how to exploit digital marketing as it is a means of improving service to their customers, reducing costs, and making their organization more agile.
All organizations, large and small, must understand digital marketing and have a strategy for how they are going to take advantage of the opportunities that digital marketing offers.