The Basics of Digital Marketing

I have taken several courses in the past few months on digital marketing, and I believe that documenting learning is crucial because it gives you a tool to assess your progress and identify your areas of weakness. It’s also a valuable resource for others going down the same path. So without further ado, this is a brief introduction to digital marketing.?

Marketing is an important life skill. All human institutions are built on the ability to communicate and provide needs. Marketing involves spotting a need, creating a solution and convincing others to use it. Jay Conrad Levinson , author of Guerilla Marketing defines it as, “the art of changing one’s mind.” On an elementary level, marketing cannot be defined without the word market, and because a market is a place where demand meets supply, one can say that marketing is the art of meeting the demand and supply of a product or service.?

Marketing relies on several pillars and frameworks to guide its effectiveness. The most basic is the four Pillars of Marketing:

1. Product: What are you selling?
2. Price: How much is it?
3. Place: Where can it be bought?
4. Promotion: How will you sell it??

Of course, these questions may be expanded to address additional topics, such as a comparison with competitor companies that offer similar goods or services. It's really intriguing information that mostly depends on each company's vision and marketing strategy.

Image from expertprogrammanagement.com

There are two broad types of marketing: traditional marketing and digital marketing.

Traditional marketing is any type of marketing that happens offline. This includes TV, press, billboards, and radio. The problem with traditional marketing is that it may not be very effective. For one, it is difficult to customize. Everyone sees billboard ads as they drive through Lekki, and everyone watches TV, so there’s no way to tailor the ads to the people that will find them most useful.

Traditional marketing also relies on being interruptive to make an impact. By this, I mean commercial breaks that a lot of people may not be interested in, or might even upset them when they're watching their favourite shows. It’s also very difficult to gauge how well the ads perform or what convinces people to buy the product. So for instance, if the sale of a beverage rises after a tv ad is aired, it’s a good thing, yes. But the beverage company might not have any real insight as to what really caught the attention of the people, in order to replicate that success. The performance of the ads is based majorly on hard work and inshallah. Traditional ads are also quite expensive, especially for small brands. Not everybody has 50k to pay Wazobia FM for a 30-second slot of their product.?They are also slow to implement, due to the bureaucracy rife in a lot of media houses.

As you can see, these are a lot of issues.

Digital marketing on the other hand is the ability to do marketing via screen, usually online. Social media, websites, and emails are examples of digital marketing outlets. Google defines digital marketing as, “the practice of reaching consumers online through digital channels with the aim of turning them into customers.”

Digital marketing matters because the world is becoming more and more digitalized. The number of people using the internet now is over 5 billion, a figure that is steadily rising. In 2016, the internet surpassed television as the best advertising medium in the world and the revenue of some companies, like Google, is bigger than entire states. Digital marketing covers all the ground that traditional marketing is unable to. With digital marketing, online ads can be personalized to meet the eyes of the people most likely to benefit from them. You have probably noticed that after visiting a website selling human hair wigs, you see a lot of ads selling similar products on Google or Instagram.

Analytics tools can also help marketers discover how well their ad campaigns perform, and what parts resonate most with viewers. It sounds a little complex (and it could be) but it is as simple as the number of people that like, share and comment on a photo of your dress on Instagram. Digital ads are also rapidly integrated into new technologies and formats and are faster to effect, easier to customize, and less expensive than traditional ads. With an internet-enabled device, so much can be done.

Now more than ever, digital marketing is very important, and the role of digital marketers has become essential for the success of many companies because they understand on a deeper level how to use the internet to meet business goals. Digital marketers take potential customers (also known as leads) through a customer journey, which is the pathway customers take from their first encounter with a product, (a Skillshare youtube ad for example) to the last (getting a subscription plan). While the usual aim is to convert leads into customers, the aim of digital marketing could also be to raise awareness about the product and build the reputation of the brand. I’ll tell you more about this some other time.?

There are so many roles within digital marketing that focus on specifics. Examples include: Digital Marketing Management, Content Strategy, Social Media Management, Search Engine Optimization Specialist, Email Marketing Specialist, Copywriting, Account Management, among others.?

To learn more about digital marketing: you can find a variety of courses and teaching materials online. I personally recommend 谷歌 's Fundamentals of Digital Marketing Course on Google Digital Skills for Africa. It’s a great place to start, and it is free.?

Next Week, I’ll talk about the customer journey and the marketing funnel. Cheers.?