What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is a general term for any steps a company takes to connect with customers through electronic technology. Digital marketing promotes and sells products or services to prospective customers through online platforms such as email, social media, mobile marketing, online customer communities, webinars and other video-based content.

The digital marketing process involves similar tactics as traditional marketing. Organizations can combine both traditional and digital marketing techniques as a strategy.

Types of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing can appear in many forms, including the following:

Email marketing. Organizations reach out to customers and prospective customers through email with the goal of promoting current business practices such as sales or events.

Social media marketing. Organizations use social media marketing through platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to connect and communicate with customers and prospective customers, notifying them of updates or deals, as well as just communicating and building social trust.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. PPC advertising enables organizations to advertise on different websites with paid ads. An example of such an advertisement is a banner ad. If enough data or cookies are collected about a user, these ads can be targeted by characteristics like age, gender, location or general interests. The ad publisher is paid every time a user clicks on the ad.
Content marketing. This digital marketing strategy tries to reach customers through content. Content refers to something an organization produces and publishes on a website with the intent to promote it through other marketing types, such as social media or email.
Sponsored content. An organization pays another business to create and promote content that highlights the marketer’s product or service.
Affiliate marketing. An organization pays a commission to an influencer on a specific platform, such as YouTube or Instagram, to promote its product or service.
Short Message Service (SMS) marketing. Organizations might choose to use SMS messages to send promotions to customers. Political candidates running for office commonly send SMS messages as a part of their campaigning efforts.

Marketing automation software has also become increasingly important to digital marketing as companies try to reach a broader swath of potential customers and link customer behavior with potential new purchases. For example, organizations use marketing automation to measure visitor behavior on their websites, and then target visitors to potentially sell products and services.

B2B vs. B2C Marketing

Digital marketing from business to business (B2B) is focused on online lead generation with the goal of an organization finding another business that will purchase its product or service.

Digital marketing from business to consumer (B2C) is focused on attracting individuals and having them become customers. B2C digital marketing also pays more attention to creating an accelerated buyer’s journey for customers.

B2B clients typically have a longer decision-making process, as it requires more than one person’s input. B2C customers, on the other hand, only need their own input — and could also make purchasing decisions based on emotion or mood. B2C customers might also respond better to social media marketing or the short-term deals and offers that appear in email digital marketing.

Marketing Benefits

Benefits of digital marketing include the following:

Global and local reach. Individuals can see the same ad in different time zones or across the globe. Digital marketing also improves local ad visibility, so organizations can customize their locally targeted ads.
Targeting specific audiences. Customers and prospective customers can stay connected to brands through email or social media platforms, where organizations can then communicate with them or test offers to gain insights.
Cost-effectiveness. Digital marketing is less expensive than traditional forms of marketing, such as TV spots. It costs almost nothing to promote through email campaigns and social media.
Customized channels. Digital marketing channels can be marketed differently, depending on the organization and the platform it’s on. Marketing teams within an organization can find their best and strongest forms of marketing and modify those methods as needed.

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