What Is Digital Marketing and Why You Should Care (For Entrepreneurs)

If you're thinking about starting a business or changing industries. I'm sure you've thought about digital marketing or heard the phrase. Here's a high-level overview of the topic. I hope you can learn something or begin thinking about implementing digital marketing into your plans if you own a business or sell a product or service.

Not long ago, developing and executing marketing campaigns involved:

  • Running print or radio ads.

  • Making cold calls.

  • Printing brochures and catalogs.

  • Taking out billboard ads.

At the last place I worked, McMaster-Carr, we focused our marketing efforts on the catalog. Sounds crazy, right?

Marketing has changed significantly with the rise of digital marketing. Small business owners like me no longer have to pay thousands to get noticed and reach their audience.

Customers have also been liberated. They can research solutions to their problems, purchase products, and services, book appointments, and read reviews – all online.

That's why investing time and resources into digital marketing is crucial. So please don't leave it to chance.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing uses online channels to market products, services, and brands to current and prospective customers. The five critical digital marketing channels are SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and conversational marketing.

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of practices that can improve the position of your web pages in search results. SEO tactics include pay-per-click (PPC) ads, Google Shopping ads, link-building, on-page SEO, optimized webpage content, and more. It's essential to consider SEO when you add titles, descriptions, and captions to your content across channels like Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and even TikTok.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is the process of planning, creating, and publishing content around your core topics and keywords. Examples include infographics, blog posts, videos, and podcasts. Content can be made by brands themselves or by using content creators (like me) to develop content marketing ideas, scripts, videos, or even campaigns.

Social Media

Social media marketing uses channels like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and Twitter for marketing products/services, increasing brand awareness, and engaging with current and prospective customers. Some examples include regular live streams, stories, or posts on Instagram or Facebook, carousel ads; sponsored content; or interacting with your audience on social media channels. Over the past year, I've made income from platforms like Pinterest and Instagram for simply creating content on their platforms and from brands for creating sponsored content for them. It's important to get prospects from social media to you, though, and that means on your SMS campaign list or email list. The algorithms change constantly. Remember Instagram was an application for pictures? Now we have to know how to edit videos and find music to go with them.

Email Marketing

Email marketing allows you to communicate directly with prospects and customers via email. Some examples include newsletters and email series. This newsletter, for instance, could be considered a form of marketing. Unfortunately, small businesses often overlook this marketing method because the allure of "blowing up" on social media is so strong. We've all heard stories of brand-new companies that make a single post on social media and then sell out. I always hope they collect (and utilize) email marketing when I see these stories.

Conversational Marketing

Conversational marketing uses channels like SMS, chatbots, and instant messaging. The purpose is to engage, educate, and market to potential customers and provide post-purchase customer support. SMS has higher open and click-through rates than email marketing. Click-through rate is the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement.

Why You Need Digital Marketing

Digital marketing matters because it is the primary form of marketing for small businesses, and it can help you achieve the following goals (and more!):

Generate more revenue

Digital marketing helps you convert internet audiences into paying customers. It allows you to target people at every stage of the buyer's journey.

Boost brand awareness

Brand awareness is what motivates customers to choose you over the competition. It encourages loyalty and trust and facilitates connection through your brand's personality, values, and voice.

Increase lead generation

Lead generation is critical for small businesses. It's the process of attracting the attention of potential customers and transforming them into prospects for your product or service.

Nurture relationships with customers

It's more cost-effective to retain a customer than acquire one. Digital marketing allows you to maintain relationships with existing customers so that they become repeat buyers.

Establish yourself as an expert

If you are working to boost your reputation in a specific topic area, digital marketing is essential. Create and share valuable content on your blog, social media, and third-party blogs as a guest blogger. This can extend so far as co-hosting lives on Instagram and TikTok or even dueting or remixing content from established authorities in your industries. For example, duets on TikTok and Remixes on Instagram allow users to post their video side-by-side with a video from another creator.

Increase traffic

Various forms of digital marketing channels and tactics can drive people to your site. For example, I get website visitors every month for free, thanks to social media!

The Advantages of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing has many advantages over traditional marketing:

It's Cost-Effective

With traditional marketing, it's difficult for small businesses to keep up with larger companies. Digital marketing levels the playing field. In addition, many tools used to execute your digital marketing strategy are free or low-cost. And most of the tactics can be done in-house, with very little expertise or tech skill needed.

For example, suppose you don't like writing. In that case, you can create lists or infographics or record videos to share on social media. All of these digital marketing tactics don't require a large budget. They do require a bit of creativity and showing up, but that's about it!

And if you stick to organic SEO, you can use techniques like on-page optimization, guest blogging, and optimized content to boost your Google rank without paying for ads.

Suppose you need some additional help with writing, design, or SEO. In that case, you can find freelancers on Fiverr or Upwork that will stay within the budget.

It's Global

Their geographic region no longer restricts small businesses. For example, creating an international marketing campaign using traditional methods would be expensive and time-consuming. But with digital marketing, small businesses can reach people from all over the world with a click of a button.

It's Measurable

Digital marketing comes with countless ways to accurately analyze the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts. Using analytics from your website, social media pages, email marketing software, content management platform, and more, you can access detailed data about your:

  • Leads

  • Page views

  • Cost per lead

  • Conversion Rates

  • Likes/Follows/Shares

  • Click-through rate

  • Returning visitors

  • And more!

This allows you to identify what works and what doesn't in real-time, allowing you to tweak and adjust immediately.

It's Highly Targeted

Digital marketing gives you the ability to target specific audiences quickly and affordably. For example, you can use email marketing to build a list of email addresses and then segment them based on what problem they want to solve, demographics or psychographics. Or, with social media, you can use hashtags, the channel's analytics, ads, or groups to isolate and target distinct audiences.

You can also target people using specific SEO keywords in your organic and paid SEO.

This allows you to save time and go directly to the prospects who are most likely to buy your product or service.

For example, here are the keywords my videos show up under on YouTube: Entrepreneurship, Personal Finance, Motivational, Educational, Female Empowerment, Content Creator, Small Business, Dogs, and Funny. I know a few of the people who receive this email are from YouTube, so some of these topics interest you.

It's Personalized

Digital marketing puts you in touch with your customers through social media posts, comment sections, direct messaging and groups, email, instant messaging; website content; and more.

You have more opportunities to interact with your target audience and establish relationships and loyalty using the channels they prefer at any stage of the customer journey.

You can also personalize the communications you don't initiate. Some examples include greeting chatbot users by their first name, personalizing email newsletters and series, and more.

Personalizing your messages using traditional marketing is next to impossible or, at the very least, extremely time-consuming. But, on the other hand, digital marketing makes personalization easy!

A Digital Marketing Plan is Critical to Success

Now that you understand the importance of digital marketing and the need to prioritize it, what should you do next?

Many businesses (and probably yours included) immediately jump into tactics. You probably already have social media pages, some SEO copy on your website, or maybe even a blog or e-newsletter.

As with all business endeavors or projects: a strategy is a must. You can't just jump in. You need to formulate a plan, implement it, and evaluate it.

Choose the Best Digital Marketing Tactics

No two businesses are the same, even if they are similar. Consider revisiting your overall marketing goals, ideal customer profile, and branding so that you can figure out which tactics will be most effective and start executing.

If you found this post helpful, Subscribe to the FREE GAME Newsletter, where I share helpful tips and tricks about entrepreneurship every week!

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