Digital Marketing
What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is the promotion and distribution of goods, services, or ideas over digital means, such as website, email, social media platforms and search engine results using modern technology. The term applies to all business activities that use digital tools, including websites, mobile apps and advertisements, in order to reach a wider audience. It also encompasses related areas such as paid advertising on social networks or pay-per-click (PPC) ads on search engines.
The key features of digital marketing include:
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Social media promotion
E-commerce promotion
Payment processing and acceptance
Paid search advertisements. How Much Does This Cost Per Month?
It's important to consider how much time you spend working for your online marketing efforts, so here is an estimate of what each month could cost if you were creating and promoting the same set of campaign content day by day for 12 months at these costs:
Monthly SEO/Search Marketing Costs ($) Monthly Social Media Promotion Costs ($) Pay Per Click Advertising Cost ($) Year 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Average $22,890.50 $32,900 $48,300 $82,000 $120,800 $163,000 Paid Search Ads Cost ($) Year 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Average $38,080.51 $51,360 $75,150 $110,600 $153,600 $183,800 $193,800 Total $50,944,600.00 $86,600 $122,800 $164,600 $196,600 $229,800
What Are Your Goals With These Budgets And KPIs?
There are many types of internet marketing strategies to choose from to help achieve your goals. Some people focus on getting more traffic from Google (affiliate marketing), while others may try to increase brand awareness on their sites via Pinterest or Instagram. Both can be useful, but there is plenty of competition for a certain type of target market. If you're looking to drive sales and build relationships with customers, it is best to have a mix between different methods for generating leads and building customer loyalty. Below are some examples of digital marketing techniques and their benefits.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
In the simplest of terms, search engines are designed to give consumers answers to questions about products or services. Each of them has its own algorithm that can determine how competitive a specific site appears in the SERPs. That makes it a lot harder for a new company to get ahead of the pack and improve rankings. However, there are ways to do this quickly while keeping costs low. For example, when someone searches keywords, they can find pages ranking very high with organic search engine results. In other words, the better a site ranks for any given query, the higher the chance it will show up on "popular" sites, which could generate increased ROI.
SEO is often used for helping brands find potential audiences. Many businesses are interested in gaining visitors who may not have been browsing their Facebook feed, YouTube video page or Twitter feed. They may not know where to start in search engines, and using a dedicated platform like SEMrush can give you the data needed to rank highly in relevant search terms. A simple tool like BuzzSumo can provide information about your competitors' positions in search engines and allow you to see what keywords they are targeting. You can then adjust your strategy accordingly.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social media is one of the most common forms of digital media. Users are interacting with businesses daily through blog posts and comments, posting images and videos, tweeting and liking, sharing and commenting on product reviews, and sharing content about a particular issue or event. There are thousands of companies, influencers, bloggers, agencies and individuals involved in this industry. Understanding how brands interact with their audience and how to manage those interactions is a powerful way to optimize your campaigns, especially if you're trying to attract a younger demographic.
Social media marketing is a great way to generate leads, engage followers and convert them. Depending on the size of your account, you may need to invest in a full-service agency, hire employees to manage them or outsource social media management and analytics to specialists. On average, SMM costs around $500 per month.
E-Commerce
E-commerce is another popular way for businesses to promote themselves online. Customers are researching goods and services as soon as possible. E-commerce creates an opportunity for small to large businesses to sell directly to end users without having to handle physical inventory or send stock to warehouses. Businesses can conduct inbound research on various products to understand customer needs and preferences, then store and ship orders, track their progress and make changes based on feedback. Because e-commerce gives customers access to the product right away, they're usually more likely to buy than someone browsing a competitor's website.
E-commerce is also particularly effective for growing a loyal user base. Once a prospective customer finds a product online, they're more likely to stay active on the merchant's website, buy or recommend it to friends, follow the retailer on social media or visit the brick-and-mortar location. While it costs a business upwards of $25,000 in advertising and promotion, the return on investment for reaching customers who are going to become buyers, or even existing ones, depends heavily on how well the business is engaging with customers on the ground. So be sure to look for opportunities to nurture long-term relationships with your current customers.
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
PPC or 'pay-per-click' advertising is where businesses pay a fee to a third-party organization, known as the ad network, to place text or image ads on websites. One of the biggest advantages of PPC is that advertisers aren't restricted by budget, scope or geography. When someone clicks on a link for an advert, they'll see your brand name. But pay-per-click is also less expensive compared to traditional marketing methods because you pay only for impressions on targeted sites. Instead of waiting months or even years before anyone sees your advertisement, your business gets into front of visitors.
If you want to advertise on the major search engines, you will need to create ads that run alongside top search results, like a sidebar or main feature article on a respected site. Another benefit of paying for display ads is that you don't have to worry about losing money due to poor performance, since you aren't expected to pay for every impression.
With advanced web browser plugins, advertisers can easily configure click tracking reports to record exactly who clicked on your advertisement, allowing marketers to analyze and compare these metrics for effectiveness. By doing this, you can pinpoint why you get clicks but get no conversions. Or you might notice that the majority of visitors come from social media or email, but few actually complete an action. Knowing in advance where viewers are coming from is vital to successfully running PPC ads.
Pay-per-click advertising can be extremely beneficial for growing a clientele, but it also comes with a number of pitfalls. Often, PPC campaigns fail simply because the quality or placement of the ads is off. Even though advertisers pay a fixed amount for displayed ads, they have little control over how these ads are presented, so advertisers shouldn't expect to see immediate results just by publishing ads. Moreover, paid search engine advertising takes a long time to appear. You may feel like you're wasting $40 or $50 dollars just for a single click, but many users won't discover an advertising until they've already seen ads from other sources. As a result, you could lose money in the short term if your ad doesn't perform. Lastly, the best performing search results can be difficult for even experienced advertisers to rank among first results. This is especially true for local keywords where you need to compete with tens or hundreds of local businesses. Having said that, it is possible to learn some basic search engine optimization fundamentals to start developing successful PPC campaigns.
Search engine optimization, social media promotion, email marketing, and paid search engine advertising are all key elements of digital marketing. Learn more about different types of online marketing and how to implement them to grow your brand.