Digital marketing is nothing short of a hot commodity at the moment, and rightfully so. Now that the entire world is going digital, you can’t choose to stick to the ways of the past. Nowadays, not having an online presence is associated with a lack of credibility and dependability.
Over the last few years, there has been a drastic rise in digital marketing courses due to the increasing number of companies offering digital marketing services. If you are inclined towards knowing more about this rising star then there are a few things you should familiarise yourself with.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing or online marketing refers to all the marketing attempts that take place on the internet. Businesses utilize digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with their existing and prospective customers. This also includes communication through the means of text or multimedia messages.
Why is it important?
- It evens the playing field within your industry and allows you to compete with bigger brands.
- You can focus your efforts on only the prospects most likely to purchase your product or service.
- It’s easier to adapt and change a digital marketing strategy.
- Digital marketing is measurable.
- Digital marketing can improve your conversion rate and the quality of your leads.
- You can engage audiences at every stage with digital marketing.
- It’s more cost-effective than outbound marketing methods.
What are the core skills to be a digital marketer?
There are a few skills that can help you thrive in the digital marketing industry
- Project management skills
- Knowledge and understanding of automation
- The ability to draw insights after analysing the given data
- Up to date social media knowledge
- UX skills along with an understanding of the customer experience
Types of digital marketing
There are some things that a digital marketing company will simply expect you to know about. If you have experience with these concepts then it would be a plus:
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Search Engine Marketing or SEM is a form of online marketing where websites are promoted by improving their visibility in search engine result pages or SERPs mainly through paid advertising. It may take in SEO which alters or rewrites the contents of a website to obtain a higher ranking in the SERPs in order to enhance the pay per click listings as well as improve the call to action on the website.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search Engine Optimization or SEO refers to the process of optimizing a website to make it rank higher on a search engine’s result page resulting in an increase in the amount of free or organic traffic that the website receives. The platforms that benefit from SEO include blogs, websites, and infographics. Can be generated using any of the 3 possible types of SEO-
On-page SEO
Off-page SEO
Technical SEO
- Content Marketing: The term content marketing talks about the creation and promotion of assets like the content in order to generate traffic growth, lead generation, customers, and brand awareness. The channels that it covers include infographics, blog posts, audio or visual content, and even eBooks and white papers.
- Pay Per Click (PPC): Pay Per Click or PPC is a practice of bringing traffic to your website by paying a publisher every time they click on your ad. You can see this most commonly in Google Ads, where you can pay for the top slots on Google’s search engine results pages at a specific price for every click on the links that you place. Some other examples include:
Sponsored messages on LinkedIn
Twitter ad campaigns
Paid ads on Facebook
- Social Media Marketing: This practice is to promote your brand and content on the social media channels to improve brand awareness, lead generation as well as traffic growth for your business. It includes channels like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
- Email Marketing: Email is one of the most common forms of communication in the corporate world as must as in any other business. It is commonly used to offer discounts, promote events, and content, as well as draw people’s attention to the business website. Some of the most generic forms of email marketing include:
Emails welcoming new customers
Blog subscription newsletters
Holiday promotion for loyalty program members
Follow-up emails to those who downloaded something from your website
Tips or similar series emails to keep the customers engaged
- Online PR: Online PR or Public Relations is the practice of using the internet to communicate with both current as well as potential customers in a public space. Some ways to use online PR to your benefit include:
Engaging in online company reviews
Engaging in comments on personal websites or blogs
Reaching out to reporters through social media
These are some of the common types and terminologies in digital marketing that you might have heard of. These are also some of the crucial things that you will be taught in digital marketing course.
Does digital marketing apply to all businesses?
Digital marketing can work for any business regardless of the nature of the industry. Irrespective of what the company sells, digital marketing still requires building out buyer personas to pin down their audience’s wants and creating online content as per that. However, that does not mean that all businesses must implement a digital marketing strategy in the same exact way.
B2C Digital Marketing
If the company is business-to-consumer or B2C, depending on the price of its products as well as the goal of its digital marketing efforts likely is to attract people to the website and turn them into customers without ever needing to communicate with a salesperson.
For this reason, they are probably less likely to focus on ‘leads’ in the traditional sense, and more likely to focus on building an accelerated buyer’s journey, from the moment someone lands on the web page, to the moment that they finally make a purchase. For B2C companies, social media channels like Instagram and Pinterest can often be more effective compared to more business-focused platforms like LinkedIn.
B2B Digital Marketing
If the company is business-to-business or as commonly known, B2B, then its digital marketing efforts are probably centred around online lead generation, where the end goal is for someone to communicate with a salesperson. For that reason, the purpose of your marketing strategy is to draw in and convert the highest quality leads for their salespeople through their website and supporting digital channels.
Apart from their website, they will probably choose to focus their efforts on business-centric channels like LinkedIn where their ideal demographic spends their time online.
Knowing the basics and workings is very important when it comes to making a career choice or even learning something new. The more you familiarize yourself with the theoretical aspects the better it is for your professional portfolio and hiring prospects. In a field like digital marketing that is still growing, there is undoubtedly a lot to learn considering it requires more of a practical approach than a theoretical one. So if you are interested in it as a career opportunity, make sure to get your education from a reputable and knowledgeable institute just like Eduvert. Eduvert focuses on practical learning approach, that is why it was been recognized as one of the best digital marketing institute in Nerul by famous publications like ANI, Business Standard etc. They also teach in offline as well as online format with flexible timings suitable for both students as well as working professionals.
Get a free demo session and get a test of practical digital marketing course today! Fill out the form and we will help you fast forward your career.