Quick Digital Marketing Overview

Have you wondered why there is so much buzz about digital marketing? Before the advent of digital marketing in the 1990s, marketing objectives were achieved via traditional media like news paper, magazines, billboards, radio, tv ads, flyers & brochures,direct mails and door to door sales.But with the internet revolution which emerged from the proliferation and inter networking of computers, businesses began to realize that there were opportunities for much greater marketing success beyond their wildest imaginations by having access to a larger pool of target audience via the internet.Soon they realized that...

 'If your business is not on the internet, then your business is out of business'  Bill Gates. 

Digital marketing became the bridge for businesses to connect to the ever-growing massive internet community in a more flexible, robust and faster way

What is Digital Marketing? 

Simply put,digital marketing is the marketing of product and services mainly on the internet by taking advantage of digital technologies.In a digital age where speed of access to information and its relevance are real-time needs of internet users, digital technology has become an enabler for greater campaign success in this digital age.The digital technologies that businesses have incorporated into their marketing strategy include but not limited to:

Mobile Technologies:With the rise of smartphone usage which has led to flexibility of internet access,businesses are employing a responsive design for their websites and its content to fit the screen resolution of smartphone users.The use of icons instead of texts are commonplace all in a bid make the customer experience seamless.

Search Engine Optimization(SEO):With over 40,000 searches on Google each second,website and blog owners are optimizing their sites and contents to improve visibility and ranking on search engines by using SEO tools and techniques

Marketing Automation:This entails using softwares to automate repetitive marketing actions.

Big Data Analytics:Via various digital channels,businesses are constantly inundated with large volume of unstructured data. Big data analytics helps businesses to structure and visualize the data;predict behavioural patterns of customers as they engage with them in order to make better intelligent business decisions.

If digital technology is the enabler, digital marketing channels are the gateway to promote businesses and engage with existing and potential customers in this digital era.The digital channels include:

Search:Can you think of any internet user who doesn't use search engines?I bet you won't find!Digital Marketers understand the power of search engines to reach thousands of people on a daily basis.Therefore they use SEO and PPC (Pay per Click) advertising-where advertisers are billed for each ad that is clicked by a searcher as they are displayed in response to search queries on search engines-to help business make themselves visible to searchers.

 'Brands that ignore social media will die' Jeff Ragovin. 

Social Media Marketing. (SMM)There is no gainsaying the fact that no digital marketing strategy is complete without SMM. Brands must have a strong social media presence to stay relevant and compete successfully.

Email Marketing: A fast growing digital marketing channel for marketers, email marketing offers marketers more  flexibility  in promoting their products and services via emails to their existing and potential customers by using a mixture of texts, images and videos, etc

Affiliate Marketing: By being a promoter of someone's products and services, you are are rewarded by the business.This is what affiliate marketing is all about in a nutshell.By being part of affiliate networks, you gain access to products and services you can promote and be rewarded for.(Look out for subsequent post for more on this)

Display:Have you visited a site and you see ads in different format, most times unrelated to the site's content?Those ads are called display ads.Display advertising gives businesses the opportunity to advertise their products and services to the general public on websites.The website owners are then paid for the ad space.

Mobile Marketing: According to Statista, smartphone users worldwide in 2017 is estimated at 2.1 billion and is predicted to increase to 2.71 billion by 2019.Considering these staggering numbers, it is clear that mobile marketing is a very powerful digital marketing channel that cannot be ignored.Making websites to have a responsive design is a key to mobile marketing success.

In conclusion,any business that takes a passive position on digital marketing is digging its own grave because a very large percentage of both existing and potential customers are online.As advancements in digital technology continue to make individuals become more digitally-minded ,the only language to connect and engage with businesses is digital.