Digital marketing is the use of websites, apps, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other digital means to promote and sell products and services.
It involves many of the same principles as traditional marketing and is often considered an additional way for companies to approach consumers and understand their behavior. Companies frequently combine traditional and digital marketing techniques in their strategies. However, digital marketing also comes with its own set of challenges. It began to gain popularity with the widespread adoption of the internet in the 1990s.
Key Takeaways
- Digital Marketing Channels: Promotes products and services through channels like websites, mobile devices, and social media platforms.
- Effectiveness Measurement: Digital marketers have various tools to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.
- Challenges: One of the biggest challenges digital marketers face is standing out in a world oversaturated with digital ads and other distractions.
How Digital Marketing Works
Marketing encompasses a wide range of techniques and media that companies use to promote their products and services to potential consumers and improve their market share. To be successful, it requires a combination of advertising and sales savvy. Professional marketers take on these tasks either internally at individual companies or externally at marketing firms that may serve many different clients.
Initially, companies focused on marketing through print, television, and radio because those were the available mediums. Although those options still exist, the internet provided companies with another way to reach consumers, giving rise to digital marketing. New technologies and trends forced companies to change their marketing strategies and rethink their budgets.
Evolution of Digital Marketing
Email became a popular marketing tool in the early days of digital marketing. Then the focus shifted to search engines like Netscape, which allowed businesses to tag and keyword items to get noticed. The development of social platforms like Facebook enabled companies to track user data and deliver messages to very specific audiences.
Smartphones and other portable devices now make it easier for companies to market their products and services to consumers wherever they happen to be. A 2022 Pew Research Center study found that 76% of American adults had made online purchases using their phones.
Types of Digital Marketing Channels
Digital marketing channels have evolved since the 1990s and continue to do so. Here are eight of the most common channels in use today:
Website Marketing
Companies often use their own website as the centerpiece of their digital marketing activities. The most effective websites represent the brand and its products and services in a clear and memorable way. A website today must be fast-loading, mobile-friendly, and easy to navigate.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising enables marketers to reach audiences on news and other websites and digital platforms through paid ads. Marketers can set up PPC campaigns on Google, Bing, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Pinterest, and Facebook to show their ads to people searching for terms related to their products or services. These campaigns can segment users based on their demographic characteristics (such as age or gender), interests, or location. The most widely used services for PPC are Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
Content Marketing
The goal of content marketing is to reach potential customers through written, visual, or video content that interests them. This content is usually published on a website and then promoted through social media, email marketing, search engine optimization, or pay-per-click campaigns. Content marketing attempts to be more subtle than advertising, and the product or service being marketed may or may not be conspicuously highlighted.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most effective digital marketing channels, though many people associate it with spam and treat such messages accordingly. Many digital marketers use their other digital marketing channels to collect names for their email lists. Through email marketing, they then try to turn those leads into customers.
Social Media Marketing
The primary goals of a social media marketing campaign are to build brand awareness and establish trust. As you go deeper into social media marketing, you can use it to obtain leads and as a direct marketing or sales channel. Promoted posts and tweets are two examples of social media marketing.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the oldest forms of marketing, and the digital world has given it new life. In affiliate marketing, companies and individual “influencers” promote another company’s products and get a commission every time a sale is made or a fresh lead is added to their list. Many well-known companies, including Amazon, have affiliate programs that pay out millions of dollars to affiliates who help sell their products.
Video Marketing
Many internet users turn to sites like YouTube before making a buying decision, to learn how to do something, to read a review, or just to relax. Marketers can use various video marketing platforms, including Facebook Videos, Instagram, and TikTok, to run video marketing campaigns. Companies find the most success with video by integrating it with SEO, content marketing, and broader social media marketing campaigns.
Text Messaging
Companies also use text messages (formally known as SMS, or short message service) to send information about their latest products and promotions. Nonprofit organizations and political candidates also use texting to promote themselves and solicit donations. Today, many marketing campaigns make it possible for consumers to make a payment or donation via a simple text message.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Digital Marketing
Digital marketers use key performance indicators (KPIs) just like traditional marketers. KPIs let them measure the long-term performance of their marketing initiatives and compare those to their competitors’ efforts.
Common KPIs
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Measures the effectiveness of online advertising by counting the number of people who clicked on a particular ad as a percentage of all the people who might have seen it.
- Conversion Rate: Compares the percentage of people who took a desired action, such as making a purchase, to the total audience that a particular ad or promotion reached.
- Social Media Traffic: Tracks how many people interact with a company’s social media profiles. It includes likes, follows, views, shares, and other measurable actions.
- Website Traffic: Tracks how many people visit a company’s website during a given time period. It helps companies judge how effective their marketing efforts are at driving consumers to their site.
Digital Marketing Challenges
The digital world poses special challenges for marketers. For example, digital channels proliferate rapidly, and marketers have to keep up and figure out how to use them effectively. Additionally, marketers may find it challenging to analyze and make productive use of the large amounts of data they can capture through these platforms.
Perhaps most importantly, consumers are increasingly inundated with digital ads and other distractions, making it more and more difficult to capture their attention.
What Is a Digital Marketing Agency?
A digital marketing agency deals exclusively in marketing to consumers or businesses through digital channels. This includes creating and launching campaigns for clients through social media, pay-per-click advertising, videos, and custom websites, among other means.
What Is SEO in Digital Marketing?
Search engine optimization (SEO) describes a variety of techniques companies use to increase traffic to their websites and raise their position in search results. The higher a site appears on the search results page, the more likely consumers are to see it and potentially click to visit it.
What Is Internet Marketing?
Internet marketing technically refers to marketing that takes place solely on the internet. As such, it is a subset of digital marketing, which can use many different kinds of digital platforms, including the internet, to reach its desired audience.
How Can You Become a Digital Marketer?
Digital marketers need strong writing and social media skills, along with a good understanding of data analytics. A bachelor’s degree is required for most digital marketing positions. You might also want to take digital marketing courses or participate in a digital “boot camp.” Additionally, completing an internship while in school can be useful. A master’s degree in digital marketing may be beneficial but is not considered essential.
What Skills Are Needed in Digital Marketing?
- Communication Skills: Essential for telling a company or product’s story to potential customers.
- Data Analytics Skills: Important for understanding how well a marketing campaign is performing and where it might be improved.
- Social Media Skills: Crucial for engaging with audiences and building brand awareness.
What Is Implicit Bias in Digital Marketing?
Implicit bias, also known as unconscious bias, refers to messages that unintentionally convey negative stereotypes or derogatory attitudes toward certain groups. It has come under particular notice in advertising and marketing. In digital marketing, it may manifest itself in something as simple as the choice of stock photos for a campaign. Companies might use images of only heterosexual White individuals while excluding Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, along with those of different body types and abilities. Digital marketers often use supposedly unbiased algorithms to help craft their campaigns, but those algorithms are created by humans who may bring their own unconscious biases.
The Bottom Line
The ways in which people consume media in the 21st century have caused marketers to place increased, and sometimes exclusive, emphasis on digital platforms for their campaigns. While digital marketing uses many of the same techniques as traditional marketing through print, television, and radio, it also has its own set of tools that marketers need to master in order to succeed.