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Digital marketing is the act of promoting products and services through digital channels, such as social media, SEO, email, and mobile apps. Any form of marketing that involves electronic devices is considered digital marketing.
It can be done online and offline; in fact, both kinds are important for a well-rounded digital marketing strategy.
Do you want to learn more about digital marketing? This guide will cover everything you need to know to get familiar with digital marketing.
Why Digital Marketing Matters
Remember billboards? I do.
As a young kid in California, my experiences from the back seat of our car mostly alternated between: “Mom, when are we there?” and “Uh, look, McDonald’s, can we go?” whenever one of those 10-foot billboards popped up on the side of the road.
This research shows that if you don't compete by maintaining quality online content to gain visibility within search engines and social networks then you're missing out on opportunities to reach potential customers online.
Regardless of the type of business, if your business doesn't have a strategic digital marketing plan aligned with your business plan, you will suffer from the ten problems I highlight in this article and you will lose out to competitors who are more digitally savvy.
Let's now look at the 10 reasons which you can treat as challenges, or better as opportunities. For each of the potential digital marketing challenges, I will also recommend marketing solutions and next steps to help you improve your process of digital marketing planning.
10 reasons why you need a digital marketing strategy
It's important to be able to make the business case to invest more in digital marketing since, if you can't convince yourself or your colleagues to invest, then the future of your business is in jeopardy. It's simple, you won't be able to compete to attract new customers in the future.
SEM and SEO
Search engine marketing (SEM) and SEO marketing aim to increase your website’s visibility through online search engines. SEM refers to paid tactics, while SEO refers to non-paid efforts.
To fire up your SEM, you can run pay-per-click (PPC) display ads and Google Shopping Ads through the Google Ads dashboard, targeting specific keywords for queries in your chosen locations. Your budget may vary depending on your goals and keyword competition, but there’s always an option for every budget.
LOVEBYT, which sells cruelty- and chemical-free toothpaste, uses SEM in its digital marketing strategy. It has bid on the keyword “organic toothpaste” so it appears at the top of search pages for queries with those words. Shoppers who type that keyword into Google will see the brand’s ad as their top result—and, with the top three results claiming 54.5% of all clicks, there’s a good chance consumers will click through.
