‘Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies and media’ is perhaps the simplest umbrella definition for digital marketing. It is asking you to revamp the traditional marketing strategies and move beyond the websites and emails.
The essence of marketing remains the same; making the right offer to the right buyer at the right time. Social media is where your audience hangs out now, and in order to make the right offer to your buyer, you need to create brand awareness on social media platforms.
I’d like you to go back and think of the last 5 purchases you made (even if you bought a house or a hairband). Has our second nature not become to ‘google it’ first? We seek advice, information, and solutions from the net because it is readily available to us.
Social media keeps us busy for hours because it spoon-feeds us content, analyses our internet behaviour, and provides us with more options for what we’re already viewing.
To make complete use of the potential social media holds is a crucial part of digital marketing. For example, Instagram is currently promoting its latest ‘reels’ feature. Any digital marketer would pounce on this opportunity and start churning out reels to create brand awareness.
The target is not only to make the customer aware of your brand but also to give them easy access to your products. Planning, managing, and optimizing digital media, digital experience, and digital data is the hack to your online growth.
For example, if your brand is selling serums, even if your social media vanity metrics are high people won’t buy your product if you are not providing them with instant links to buy them.
No consumer (unless a rabid fan, hi mom!) would go out of the way to search your brand online, find the website, then find the product, and finally buy it. As a digital marketer, not only would you promote your serums by posting and advertising them, but also by placing a link to your website in the bio.
Not only would you increase customer engagement through stories, but also add the ‘swipe up’ option to give them easy access to your product. And last but not the least, you might also set up an Instagram shop so that your customer doesn’t get the time to rethink and is simply escorted to the ‘buy now’ option.
Learning Digital Marketing is not daunting as long as you are eager to devote time, have an eye for details, and like to get creative. Let me encapsulate the 5 fundamentals of digital marketing for you.
- Understand your product and determine the right audience for it. Only then can you make the right offer at the right time to the right buyer.
- Make sure you have an online presence on all leading platforms. Your customer should be able to find you easily.
- Know the ins and outs of social media.