The growing trend of Digital Marketing

 "The best marketing doesn't feel like marketing.” - Tom Fishburne

 In today’s COVID-19 crisis, people are stuck in their homes and are avoiding going out as much as they can. This has caused traditional ways of marketing to be almost dead. Today almost 80% of people are engaged in their mobile phones and tablets. Internet usage has gone up like anything and the time spent on electronic gadgets has almost been doubled. It is now next to impossible for companies to market their products the way they used to do.

The biggest question for them is how can they reach their potential customers?

The best solution to this problem is Digital Marketing.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word Digital Marketing?

You must be thinking that digital marketing means advertising your products on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook Etc. Many people mistake Digital Marketing with social media marketing.

In reality, Digital Marketing is an extensive aspect that emphasizes all direct or indirect marketing efforts which are used by companies on all the electronic devices or the internet. Business leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

Direct Digital marketing involves engaging with leads or customers directly, for example, sending a customer an email that contains a promotional offer. Indirect marketing is a strategy in which you put yourself in a position to be found by leads. Consequently, allowing them to engage with you instead of just directly engaging with them. For example, writing a blog on your product, mentioning the benefits of using it, and people who are interested in that product will contact you.

The two main pillars of Digital Marketing are online marketing and offline marketing.

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There are 7 categories of Online Digital Marketing:

1. Search engine optimization [SEO]- SEO is the process of optimizing your content so that it ranks higher in search engine results pages so that you drive more traffic to your website.

2. Search engine marketing [SEM]- With SEO, you’re using best practices to make traffic to your site organically. With SEM, however, you purchase ad space in paid search platforms such as Google AdWords.

3. Content Marketing-Content marketing involves content creation and distribution across all your online channels, such as your blogs, websites, or social media. The content you create is not meant to be promotional but instead stimulates interest and ultimately, improves brand awareness.

4. Social media marketing [SMM]- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn are some of the most prominent social media platforms. Social Media Marketing involves gaining traffic and attention from these channels.

5. Pay-per-click advertising [PPC]- If you’ve noticed those ads that appear alongside your search results, then you’ve encountered PPC ads before. PPC is a model of online marketing where advertisers pay a fee each time a person clicks on their ad.

6. Affiliate marketing- Affiliate marketing is a commission-based arrangement typically between an online retailer and an external website. The purpose is to generate traffic and sales through referrals. It is performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's marketing efforts

7. Email marketing- Email marketing is a type of direct marketing that uses emails to deliver marketing messages to its audience. Effective marketing emails convert prospects into customers and turn one-time buyers into loyal, raving fans.

8. YouTube marketing-You tube is currently the 2nd largest search engine. Millions of people watch videos every day and are engaged by the content, which directs them to different websites of companies. Videos are the best form of marketing a product because instead of reading some content, people prefer to watch and listen. 

There are 4 categories of Offline Digital marketing:

1. Radio advertisement-Radio is an extremely powerful marketing tool. People often listen to the radio while driving in the car and they internalize the message at a much higher rate because it's the only thing besides driving competing for their attention. Radio achieves a huge listener of the Daily travelers effectively every month.

2. Television ads-Television Ads are a very important part of Digital Marketing as companies pay a hefty amount to famous TV Shows to play Ads in between. Though the cost of running an Advertisement is quite high, Big brands use them as a powerful tool to attract people as television Ads are considered more authentic.

3. Electric Billboards Ads- Then there's enhanced offline marketing: if you’ve ever been in a restaurant and ordered your meal using an electronic tablet, then you’re no stranger to offline marketing. It is an enhanced offline marketing experience with a digital device. Electronic billboards are a great example of enhanced offline digital marketing.

4. Phone Calls (Cold Calls)-Lastly, there’s phone marketing, otherwise known as cold calling. Many people believed that cold calling was dead, mainly since people now screen their calls. However, cold calling and telemarketers still exist and, surprisingly, even bring in sales.

There was a time when offline marketing was in demand. But now, in this era, when everyone has a smartphone and also has an internet connection, offline marketing is not much helpful. Now people are even reading newspapers on mobiles, so one cannot afford to spend money on offline marketing. Also, with the help of offline marketing, we cannot track who is seeing our ads and who are interested.

How to be more effective and efficient

You can invest your money in online marketing which is much cheaper than offline marketing. Looking upon you can advertise on Instagram with a minimum budget of 80 rupees per day.

Also, you can invest money only on your target audience.

You can also track your advertisements and can see how many views it got; how many people had taken an action after seeing the advertisement.

Having proper details and information helps to set up better ads for the future. You can insert a call to action extension, where people can connect with you.

The best thing about online marketing is that you can stop your ads whenever you wish to. This is the greatest advantage of online marketing.

So, looking at the various aspects, what do you think is better marketing online or offline?