Understanding Digital Marketing

Traditional marketing tools served us well but with technology comes change and businesses have to adapt or get left behind.

The internet has reshaped our lives and how we read, watch and listen.

Sunday newspapers used to contain large sections of advertising circulars and today, those same Sunday papers barely provide enough coverage to fill the bottom of a birdcage.

In 2020, newspaper advertising spending topped $50 million and increased to over $53 million in 2016. Since then, it's all been downhill and that spending is projected to be just $12 million in 2022.

That advertising money didn't vanish into thin air. Instead, businesses have followed their current and potential customers onto the various social media platforms.

Digital Marketing then is the use of that new media and/or digital technology to achieve marketing and business goals.

To reach their customers, businesses have adapted--some more quickly than others--and many brands have very popular social media followings.

There are two main principles of Digital Marketing: Outbound and Inbound marketing.

Using outbound marketing--the more traditional approach to promoting a brand--the business pushes out a message to a target audience for the purpose of driving awareness of a product or service. Outbound marketing includes TV ads, newspaper ads and billboards, all of which encourage potential customers to remember the brand, also known as drive product recall.

While outbound marketing involves pushing a message to an audience, inbound marketing is the opposite. Inbound marketing seeks to pull already interested customers toward a product or service using blogs, search engines, email subscriptions, word of mouth, and online reviews/recommendations.

Inbound marketing is the most valuable tool for digital marketers as the purpose is to target already interested customers who find the product or service relevant to their needs and desires.

Digital Marketers rely on three media channels to drive their marketing strategy.

Owned media is media created and managed by the advertiser; paid media is the strategy of paying to drive your message through banner ad or video clicks; earned media is the free publicity advertisers benefit from after a user engages with the advertisement (such as a retweet or like) on social media.

While each media channel has its own merits, digital marketers must balance each to provide the best strategy to help the business reach its goals.

Traditional and Digital Marketing have many similarities and differences and it's important for the digital marketing specialist to understand how each affects its intended audience.

Among the differences between the two forms of marketing are Reach, Frequency, Engagement, Relationship and Method.

Reach refers to the number of people exposed to the media. This helps the marketer define whether that media is geared toward a large group of people or if it is for individual consumption. For instance, advertising during the previews of a movie will reach a large audience at the same time. That's a more traditional approach to advertising. But, considering how social media works, the same video ad posted on YouTube or Twitter or Facebook also reaches a large audience but that message is now tailored to the individual, who can react to the message with retweets, likes, follows, etc. This ability to engage with the marketing strategy creates an active audience while a traditional media source (newspaper ad, TV commercial) leads to a passive audience, one who cannot at the moment engage with the source of the media.

Frequency relates to how often an audience views the ad or media. Using traditional methods, that exposure is limited while in digital marketing, the message can be delivered over and over each time a customer visits a website or social media platform.

Relationship refers to how an audience reacts and how relevant the media was to the customer. 

Finally, the method in simple terms is the main tactic used to deliver the media to the customer. This could be through pushing (outbound) content to them or pulling (inbound) them in through content.

The Digital Marketing Institute has identified three core principles of digital marketing known as the 3i Principles.

•  Initiate: The customer is the starting and finishing point for all digital activities. "Let the customer decide." Start with what the customer desires and work backwards to your stated objective. Utilizing past or current customer research, identify what the customer wants, what interests them, what purchases or engagements have they already completed? 
•  Iterate: The emphasis here is adjusting the digital marketing strategy based on a user's response. Increase a campaign's effectiveness by adjusting the strategy based on feedback, engagement and other consumer data.
• Integrate: This is the process of combining a marketing effort across digital channels to increase the effectiveness of each channel. Integrating both traditional and digital media channels enhances the overall marketing strategy.

Lastly, there are several digital media channels to understand before undertaking a new campaign.

These include Email marketing, Paid Search, Organic Search, Website Optimization, Display Advertising, Content Marketing, and Social Media Marketing.

We're all familiar with email marketing. Companies use this approach to target past or current customers or those who have registered to receive the company's newsletter, sales, or other offers, etc.

Paid and Organic Search are very similar with the main difference being the cost associated with Paid Search. That involves the company paying the search engine (Google, Bing, etc.) to highlight the company when certain keywords are searched by a user. Organic search is free but relies on a company developing its website and other media channels with relevant keywords so its listings appear near the top of the search results. 

That's where Website Optimization comes into play.

First, Website Optimization, or Search Engine Optimization, is more complex than it seems. It's important a company's website is optimized for speed, ease of use, a friendly navigation system and appealing features to enhance the visitor's experience. But, under the hood, that website should be defined with valuable keywords to attract search engine users.

Display Advertising allows a company to target users with relevant banner advertisements and other media utilizing demographic information, keywords, etc.

Content Marketing is essential to a digital marketing strategy. This inbound strategy utilizes content such as blogs or product reviews to draw already interested customers in for a closer look. Through this content, customers learn more about the company and its products and services.

Social Media Marketing also is very valuable as it has the ability to present the brand to thousands and thousands of viewers.

Digital Media and Marketing are relatively new concepts but they quickly have established themselves as essential parts of any company's marketing strategy.