Are you interested in learning about digital marketing?
So, before we go into the principles of digital marketing and even advanced strategies, let’s start with the basics. Let’s know what is digital marketing.
That way, we’ll be on the same page before we get into step-by-step approaches.
What is the definition of digital marketing?
The act of selling items and services through digital channels such as social media, SEO, email, and mobile apps is known as digital marketing. In a nutshell, digital marketing refers to any type of marketing that uses electronic devices.
It can be done both online and offline, and both are required for a complete digital marketing strategy..
Why Is Digital Marketing Important?
Do you recall billboards? Yes, I do.
From the rear seat of our automobile as a small kid in California, my experiences largely varied between: “Mom, when are we there?” and “Mom, when are we there?” everytime one of those 10-foot billboards arrived on the side of the road, and “Uh, look, M” whenever one of those 10-foot billboards came on the side of the roadcDonald’s, can we go?”
When I was a kid growing up with Indian parents, the answer to both of those questions was almost always the same: “not yet.”
Big businesses would occasionally stage a billboard war, such as this one between Audi and BMW, which received a lot of laughs:
Hundreds of millions of dollars were still spent on billboard advertising by several of my clients in 2015.
Unfortunately or thankfully, billboard advertising is mostly extinct.
Consider this: Google and Facebook make more money than any other traditional media company because they have more eyeballs. That is why digital marketing is so important; it is where the eyeballs are focused.
The reason for the demise of billboards like the ones above is that the future of driving will look like this:
Even if self-driving cars are already on the market, drivers must remain vigilant; as technology advances, no passenger will be forced to glance at the road.
When you’re driving and giving a friend a ride, take a look in the passenger seat.
Just a moment, please.
Right now, they’re undoubtedly staring at their phone.
If no one is looking at the road, who is supposed to see those advertisements?
Furthermore, the percentage of people who spend more time on electronic devices is increasing, while print advertising is declining.
If no one is looking at the road, who is supposed to see those advertisements?
Summary of Online Digital Marketing
The two major cornerstones of digital marketing are online and offline marketing. However, because I’ll cover web marketing in a separate book, I’ll only go through the basics here.many aspects of online marketing here for completeness’ sake.
The following are the seven major types of online marketing:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Content Marketing
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- Pay-per-click (PPC)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Email Marketing
Unbounce made a fantastic infographic that neatly summarises all types of online marketing.
Digital Marketing’s Evolution
Digital marketing has been present for far longer than it was popularised as a word in the early 2000s.
WAY, To be precise, almost 100 years longer.
Guglielmo Marconi was his name.
Marconi, you say?
Yup. He was the first person to show a “public transmission of wireless signals” in 1896.
This guy is credited with inventing the radio.
Morse signals were sent across open ocean shortly after his demonstration in England.
While it would take another ten years for the radio to reach the general public, it didn’t take long for the founders to discover that it could be used to sell products.
Guess what happened after the first live broadcast, which was from a Met opera performance?
They bought tickets to the show!
The concept of a digital marketing plan was established.
Digital Marketing: An Overview
There are four types of digital marketing: enhanced offline marketing, radio marketing, and social media marketing, television marketing, and mobile marketing.
Enhanced offline marketing is a sort of offline marketing that includes electronic components.devices.
For decades, people have been leveraging digital media to improve their marketing (you just don’t realise how, as you’ll see).
Then there’s radio advertising. Thank Mr. Marconi the next time you hear an irritating, overly zealous car salesmen shout every word of his or her commercial.
Of course, we must not overlook television advertising. TV commercials have been around for over half a century (and since 1953 also in color, nationwide; yes, there was a time before colour TV).
Finally, there’s phone marketing, which is the most popular and fastest-growing type of offline marketing, yet it’s not without its share of flops, busts, and failures.
Let’s take a closer look at each of the four sections.
Offline Marketing Boost
What’s the difference between a billboard in the Arizona desert and a billboard in Times Square in New York City?
What about the scale? What is the final product?
LED stands for light emitting diodes and is composed of three letters.
In Times Square, all of the billboards are electronic!
Why? Because no one is competing for people’s attention in the Arizona desert. You win if you have a billboard at all.
However, attention is perhaps more valuable in Times Square than anywhere else on the planet. Every day, almost 330,000 people pass through it.
There are buses, taxis, promoters shouting, and, of course, electronic billboards if you want to be distracted.
Some of them are also interactive, with live broadcasts from the square or photographs of customers.
For a year, renting a billboard space in Times Square will run you back anywhere from $1,000,000 to $4,000,000.
What are some of the additional forms that increased offline marketing might take?
When you walk into an Apple Store these days, what do you see?
iPads, Macbooks, and iPhones are being leaned on.
Any product demo is a vital component of your digital marketing plan if you have any form of electronic product.
Okay, let’s go on to the next one. You can consider yourself a very lucky youngster if you remember this:
This is an original PlayStation demo disc. Several of these were distributed alongside other games or even magazines.
The same thing happened with computer publications. Remember how excited you were when they came with CDs (and later DVDs) and you couldn’t wait to put them in your computer and see what samples were on them?
These are digital product samples, which are different from demos.
Marketing on the radio
Over a century has gone since the first live transmission of an opera performance at the Metropolitan Opera, and guess what? Radio is still alive and well.
- Every month, about 250 million Americans tune in to the radio.
- The radio programming is listened to for an average of 102 minutes every day.
- Radio ad spending is expected to increase by half a billion dollars by 2023.
It has taken a wise move in recent years by having announcers read out advertising sponsorships at the start of programmes. This is when the radio show’s host reads a script that you or they have created to advertise your goods.
To start a sponsorship, do a fast Google search for local radio stations. Find a station with an audience that matches your company’s target demographic; radio stations should be able to offer you with the information you need to make the best decision.
If your organisation provides pregnancy supplies, for example, you’ll want to pick a radio show with a female listenership between the ages of 24 and 40.
If you’re going to advertise on the radio, the trick is to be entertaining and grab the listener’s attention.
Cadillac and Dairy Queen are two brands that consistently produce excellent radio advertisements.
You can hear some instances here.
Advertising on Television
Television advertising is such a Goliath that it will almost certainly never go away. It’s also without a doubt the industry that loses the most money each year.
Here are some quick facts about television advertising:
- The average American still watches 4 hours of television per day, including streaming shows.
- Only around two-thirds of Americans still have cable.
- 78 percent of people have multiple streaming service subscriptions.
Despite the fact that cable TV ads are more difficult to target the correct demographic, have a lower ROI than other types of digital advertising, and appear to be mostly useless in the digital age, there is one type of tv ad that may still be worthwhile; however, it will cost you.
Remember how I said that renting a billboard in Times Square for a year costs a million dollars or more?
The cost of a 60-second Super Bowl commercial is $5.6 million.
The commercials, which are frequently viral and memorable, continue to pay for themselves due to their cross-pollination impact.
Super Bowl ads account for roughly 10% of all TV commercial-related social media shares. Similarly, around 8% of all YouTube views go to TV ad videos.
The viral effect is generally considerably bigger if your commercial makes it to the blacklist (commercials that the network says can’t be displayed on TV), such as the iconic Carl’s Junior ad that couldn’t be shown during the 2015 Superbowl.
Furthermore, these commercials become internet assets, resulting in millions of views on YouTube over time.
Unfortunately, the Super Bowl advertising’ enthusiasm is likely to be a relic of a successful moment that is going to disappear.
With every tenth person in the United States having a Netflix account, and more on the way, the $200 billion that firms still spend annually on TV advertisements is hardly justifiable.
TV, in its current form, will be phased out in favour of the more personalised experiences that we are currently accustomed to.
So, if you’re going to undertake offline digital marketing, I’d recommend investing your time and money on a future-oriented marketing platform or channel.
Marketing over the phone
Nearly 75% of Americans own a smartphone, and we passed the tipping point in 2014 when more individuals used their phone to access the internet than a desktop PC or laptop.
Mobile marketing is here, and in 2015, mobile ad spending surpassed desktop ad spending for the first time.
Let’s take a look at some offline strategies for marketing your products via phone marketing.
There are two apps that are vastly underappreciated, despite the fact that they are there on every phone, smart or not:
Texting and Calling
Cold calling is when you phone someone that you haven’t spoken to before and try to sell them anything.
While it doesn’t have the scalability of social media or email (marketers call 52 people each day on average, with about 17 calls until they find a buyer), it’s still a viable marketing strategy.
When selling to end customers (B2C), the strategy works, but it doesn’t scale well, and initiating contact before trying to sell helps to complete the purchase (especially in B2B, which is all about connections).
What works better is text marketing, which is a type of “app” that is available on almost every phone.
A text message is virtually always read, whether it is sent online or offline.
While you should always seek permission first, such as having your clients text a certain word to a phone number, there are a lot of companies that offer large-scale text marketing.
Text message marketing can be used in a variety of ways.
Restaurants can use special offers, coupons, and discounts to attract new customers and convert walk-ins into regulars.
You can find more examples of effective restaurant text messaging campaigns here.
Many pharmacies use text reminders as customer service to strengthen their mobile marketing. When a customer’s prescription is ready for pickup, they are notified.
Another alternative is to build a loyalty programme in which you SMS special offers and gifts to clients who sign up.
How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy for Offline Use
Create a more effective offline marketing plan.
Create commercials that are optimised for digital billboards, provide product demos, and distribute digital product samples.
Make a radio advertising strategy.
Approach local radio stations about ad sponsorships or use humorous voices, local personalities, or trending themes to generate interesting traditional commercials.
Participate in television advertising.
Buying ad time during famous events that people watch live, producing viral advertising (by being controversial, emotive, or hilarious), or making ads that you can reuse across various ad channels are the most successful ways to generate a fair ROI on tv ads.
Make use of mobile marketing.
Smartphones offer one-of-a-kind prospects for mobile advertising. You can use current software to cold call and leave ringless voicemails for targets, send SMS to subscribed customers providing specials and promotions, or employ QR codes.
To summarise, is it worthwhile to take a digital marketing course?
Yes, but only in certain circumstances.
Digital marketing courses can be incredibly valuable if you avoid online courses that overpromise and underdeliver or provide knowledge that is comparable to that of free certifications.
This is particularly true if the courses include:
- Accreditation around the world
- Assistance with finding work and career services
- Several types of financial aid for students are available.
In general, regardless of your school level, businesses favour candidates with extensive experience. Fortunately, one can obtain through freelancing or working on pro gratis projects. Using these tactics will increase your chances of getting employed.
Digital marketing classes, on the other hand, can be a terrific method to strengthen your resume and sharpen your skills. Just make sure to do your homework and select an accredited education that matches your needs.
