Apr 19, 20225 min read

What is digital marketing about?

Updated: Nov 9, 2023

Author: Dimitria Simeonova

Date of publication: 19/04/2022

Marketing has become a byword these days. Digital marketing is also known as online marketing, which is an inevitable part of our daily lives. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly difficult to go unnoticed by society. Although this topic is crowd-pleasing in the business world and present in our everyday lives, many do not know its significance and the function it performs.

Undoubtedly, many of you have searched the internet for the meaning of the term digital marketing as I did myself many years ago. Unfortunately, the online field is full of information about online marketing. Specifically, anyone can find about its different types, and many applications, which could be overwhelming at some point. As a result, they could lead to the omission of the general idea behind it.

Therefore, this article will reveal to our readers what digital marketing is and why it is becoming a necessity. This blog will cover only the most fundamental parts of online marketing by providing the readers with information that will be comprehensible.

What does digital marketing mean?

The first thing we need to address is the correct definition of digital marketing. It is simply the action of promoting different products and services to connect with potential customers by using the internet or any other form of digital communication.

The introduction of digital marketing in the 1990s has transformed the communication between businesses and their customers. With the application of this concept, companies began to realise the importance of mastering digital marketing for future success. The question, however, is why digital marketing plays an essential role in business.

Why is digital marketing important?

By using various technologies to market products or services, businesses improve their connection with the customer. Although customers' role is constantly changing, in the end, the customer stays an essential part of a marketing strategy, whether it is digital or not. Therefore, this justifies the statement that many technologies greatly benefit companies to connect with their chosen clientele.

Besides engaging with the targeted customers and creating stronger relationships with them, digital marketing has other benefits for future success and growth. One of them illustrates the affordability of digital advertising processes. Compared to traditional marketing techniques, digital marketing offers more opportunities for larger and small and medium-sized companies to take advantage of digital marketing concepts' affordability to grow their target reach.

Other benefits of promoting your products or services through digital marketing include the speed of the message in the virtual world and the fact that every customer's action can be measured.

Since digital marketing is a comprehensive system of various channels, this article will review the essential components used today to advertise different products, services, and brands online. Such channels could be search engines, social media, email, websites, even mobile applications.

There are seven main components present in online marketing that should be understood to comprehend the whole application of digital marketing. Therefore, in the following paragraphs, each of those eight types of digital marketing will be briefly presented in the following paragraphs.

Different types of digital marketing

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization, known and used under the abbreviation of SEO, is one of the most used types of digital marketing nowadays. The role of SEO is to make a website rank higher on a search engine result page (SERP) to increase traffic to this website. Using SEO for marketing achieves visibility when people search for products or services related to a marketers’ business, mainly on Google, for example, or any other search engines.

PPC - Pay-Per-Click

Pay per click is another type of digital mark that you can find under many names, such as SEM (search engine marketing) or PPC, and it refers to paid advertisements and promotes search engine results. This model is primarily based on the usage of keywords.

PPC is also a method for marketers to advertise their products and services to their potential customers where when someone clicks on the ad, the advertiser pays the publisher. In conclusion, pay per click advertisement is a way of earning visitors and increasing traffic to your website.

Social media marketing

As mentioned above, SMM or social media marketing is the use of social media channels and networks to introduce and advertise products or services of a business through technology. In fact, it gives companies worldwide the chance to connect with diverse customers.

In addition, it helps marketers stay informed about potential buyers and what the targeted customers like and dislike. Therefore, with this information gathered through social media channels, companies can better improve their marketing strategies to meet customers’ needs and preferences.

Content marketing

Content marketing is another type of digital marketing used to engage with customers throughout the internet and different technology usage. This process is all about creating and sharing free content for your audience to promote brand awareness and establish expertise. The difference between this type and the already mentioned ones is that it focuses on creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts, etc.

Email marketing

Email marketing is another form of promotion used by companies. Although there are many new and more appealing approaches, email marketing is still one of the most effective. This is because sending emails makes your customers aware of new products, possible discounts, or any other services your company offers.

However, the most vital advantage of email marketing is that it is a tool to engage with your customers between purchases. As a result, it keeps their attention by building better relationships.

Mobile marketing

Mobile marketing refers to promotional activities of products and services via mobile devices. It is a way of reaching targeted customers through their smartphones or tablets. Marketers get their customers through this type of digital marketing

Actually, this happens by using different methods such as push notifications or mobile-optimised ads. So, mobile marketing is a fundamental part of a marketing strategy nowadays. This is because the reach of targeted audiences is numerous as people tend to be active via their mobile devices daily.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is another effective way of digital marketing that has become popular in the last few years. Affiliate marketing is an online marketing system that involves businesses paying commissions to one or more affiliates (ex., website owners, bloggers) when they manage to generate traffic or sales to those businesses. This approach to advertising products and services is crucial because it does not desire a high budget. It is a great way to gain brand awareness and business growth without investing much time or effort in the process.

Conclusion

This article is a brief presentation of what Digital Marketing is analysing its categories in a nutshell. Firstly, we learned about the meaning of the term digital marketing and discovered why it is an essential concept in today's business world.

We defined the main types of online marketing companies use to connect with their customers to increase brand awareness, traffic, and sales. However, there are many other aspects to consider when involved with digital marketing for your own business and promoting products and services.

Still, this article explains the fundamentals of the topic and the importance of digital marketing, which is all about the customers, without which digital or traditional marketing could not be successful.