The Ultimate Guide To Digital Marketing for Beginners

Long back In 1896, Guglielmo Marconi was the first person to demonstrate a “public transmission of wireless signal”. He had invented the radio. It took around 10 years for the radio to reach out to the public. And till then the creators didn’t know that it can be used to sell goods.

The first live broadcast was an opera performance. The big surprise was that the people bought the tickets for the opera performance broadcast! This was digital marketing. Without any smartphones, apps, laptops, blogs!  Because Digital marketing does not always require the internet.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is promoting any brand or product online or offline. Online promotion includes formats such as apps, videos, podcasts, and other digital media which requires internet. Offline promotion which does not require the internet, includes formats such as instant messaging (MMS and SMS) on mobile phones, on-hold mobile ringtones, call-backs, television, radio channels, and others.

Why Digital Marketing?

Because it is the most powerful form of marketing currently. In today’s generation, everyone is into online stuff. And that’s where you target your audience.

In a recent survey of Forbes,
82% of consumers conduct research online.
And 79% of people shop online.

So where are they? Online!
And where would you get your target audience? Online!
In that case, Digital Marketing is the way to go.

7 prime categories of Digital Marketing:

⦁    Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

⦁    Email Marketing

⦁    Content Marketing

⦁    Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

⦁    Affiliate Marketing

⦁    Social Media Marketing (SMM)

⦁    Pay-per-click Advertising (PPC)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO in digital marketing is like signage for a shop. The name, banner, and poster!

Search Engine Optimization is a method of making a web page easy to find, easy to crawl, and easy to categorize. This helps your customers to find out your business in the middle of thousands of companies.

SEO is simply used to create visibility for your webpage. More traffic is proportional to more sales. A proper SEO helps to rank in SERP. It’s needed because there are billions of businesses online in the world which compete with each other to get rank in SERP. 

In research, it has been found that:

Approximately 73% audience doesn’t go to the second page of the search result and

Approximately 43% audience stays on the first five results of the search.

Hence, the competition is huge!

So the main motive of people to use SEO is to stay in the first five and end up gaining the first position and be on that.

The main work of SEO is :
⦁ To generate a huge amount of traffic to your webpage. More traffic = More sales.
⦁ To increase the amount of visibility of your business.
⦁ To outrank your competitors.
⦁ To help your business to stay on the first page.
⦁ To help your business to attain the first rank.

And heading up to,

Email Marketing

Email marketing is the use of email to promote products or services in the market.

But a better way is the use of email to build relationships with potential customers.

Email marketing can be personalized such that it allows you to target particular groups of customers. One can even offer discounts on merchandise and services at any special event. This can help in building good relations with the customers and it can gradually increase sales and customer loyalty.

Email marketing has two big advantages which are price and ease. As compared to other marketing alternatives, email marketing is the least expensive way to advertise your company’s products and services. An email marketing campaign is easy to set and track as it makes it easier for small businesses to access it.

Email marketing is still relevant because in the age of social media it’s tempting to write off an email. But considering following research:
⦁ In Email marketing $42 is returned for every $1 spent which is actually great.
⦁ 91% of email users check their email at least once a day.
⦁ As compared to 1% for the social media, the conversion rate of email marketing is 2.3%.
⦁ 59% of survey respondents say email influences their purchase decision.

The main advantage of email over social media is that customers and prospects are more likely to see an email than social media. Posting something on social media doesn’t mean that everyone will see it. However, an email will stay in the inbox until it’s read or deleted.

Email marketing can substantially increase your income if you do it in the right way. It’s a better way to make people visit or revisit your blog or website, and more traffic generates more income.

And now coming to,

Content Marketing

Content marketing has cracked the market. 89% of B2B marketers are currently using content marketing. And the reason behind this is the Internet!

The switch to online media, and more recently, to mobile, means that audiences are gripping content in new and savvy ways. This has led big and small brands to develop comprehensive content strategies with allocated marketing budgets.

According to San Diego University, “Content Marketing refers to the process of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and build customer loyalty among a clearly defined audience with the goal of generating profitable actions among consumers”.

So now that you know the definition, you must know the benefits of content marketing which can grow your business:
⦁ It enables you to transmit your brand value.
⦁ It helps you to attract and retain your potential customers on social media.
⦁ It’s the best way to reach your target audience by offering relevant and quality content to them.
⦁ It’s the perfect technique for improving your content, website and commercial proposals’.

According to Forbes Magazine,
⦁ 88% of B2B businesses use content marketing as a part of their marketing strategy.
⦁ 92% of B2C use content marketing to build and promote their brand image.
⦁ 61% of the most successful content marketing specialists meet daily or monthly with their work team.
⦁ 94% of B2B marketing specialists keep their LinkedIn current as a part of their content strategy. And other popular platforms were Youtube 74%, Facebook 84%, Twitter 87% & Google+ 62%.

Types of Content Marketing:

⦁ Articles for your website or blog.
⦁ Email Marketing.
⦁ Videos.
⦁ Social Networks.
⦁ Graphic Pieces
⦁ Others.

That’s all for Content Marketing for now!

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

SEM known as Search Engine Marketing looks like a huge term but this has actually come to mean a very specific type of marketing on search engines. That’s paid search!
The most commonly known and used tool is Google ads.

But Yahoo and Bing may also be worthy of your time and money,

SEM grasps the power of search engines like Google to reach potential customers at the perfect time and place.

SEM is known by many other names which you probably know or have heard such as:

⦁ Paid Search ads
⦁ Paid Advertising
⦁ PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

You’ll also get to learn some terms that are often used while discussing SEM, by which you can easily understand how SEM works. Some of the important terms are:
⦁ Impressions: How many times your ad was viewed on the screen. It actually doesn’t mean the person.
⦁ CPC (cost-per-click): You have to pay when someone clicks your ad.
⦁ CPM (Cost per million impressions): This is one of the other ways for a paid search ad. Depending on your goals and how the ad tool is set up, you may want to pay just to be seen.
⦁ CTR (click-through-rate): The number of clicks you got on your website through the people who saw your ad, even if they didn’t click on the actual ad itself.

SEM mostly benefits small businesses:

⦁ It’s an instant brand awareness.
⦁ It reaches people in the right place & time.
⦁ It reinforces name recognition.
⦁ It reaches your prime target.
⦁ It gives you a competitive advantage.
⦁ It’s less expensive than traditional advertising.

Search Engine gets it right with the top 3 reasons why people use search engines:
⦁ For research.
⦁ For entertainment.
⦁ To buy something.

To these, we will add one more aspect that’s very important. Many people use search engines to find specific websites instead of typing in the address. They may use Google to pull Facebook or Chase banking or your competition. But with the right ad, you may be able to use this time to get your own brand onto the target’s radar. If the ad looks attractive, you’ll surely steal their click.

That’s how it’s done.

Next up,

Affiliate Marketing

The first thing that pops up in people’s mind when they approach this topic is,
what is affiliate marketing?

So, here is a simple definition. In affiliate marketing, you can earn money by selling or promoting a brand’s products. Generally, affiliate marketers receive payment when a consumer, whom they referred, buys a product or service or completes a specific task because you work for commission.

In other words, it’s a way by which businesses can expand their marketing to you in a way which is totally performance-based. This offers businesses a 100% ROI, this is why it is a unique online marketing method.

This also means that you have an opportunity to make a good deal by selling a product that isn’t yours. The more you sell, the more you earn.

Affiliate Marketing is about relationships, a relationship between three groups:

⦁ Advertiser
⦁ Publisher
⦁ Consumer

Advertiser: The first group, typically referred to as the advertiser or merchant, the one who is selling the actual product or service. This is the group with whom you, the affiliate, will be working with. They plan out the work and pass it on to you to sell their product on the web. The product or service can be like phones or laptops, or even items like insurance policies.

Affiliate: The second group which is publisher, more likely to be referred as an affiliate marketer. This is you, who is working with the merchant to sell in exchange for a commission. You’ll have a contract in place, and you’ll seek to push traffic in the form of ads, links, or in some cases unique phone numbers that you incorporate on your site.

Consumer: And at the last you have consumers or the group that will be buying your product. Thus, the relation between the consumer and the affiliate should be built on trust.

At last the consumer completes the circle by going through the marketing (like clicking a tracked URL or ad) and then moves further to the publisher’s sales feed. Once they’ve bought something or completed the action as given by the affiliate and merchant, everyone receives their share of the exchange.

All three groups centre on the relationship created by the affiliate and will receive their payment or product through you. Absolutely, you will get paid when a purchase happens.

Once you know how each group plays its role, you start to understand in a better way how the entire affiliate marketing process works.

Heading next to,

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a type of internet marketing that uses social networking websites as a marketing tool. The aim of Social Media Marketing is to give rise to the content that users share with their social network to help a company increase their brand exposure and broaden customer reach.

Social media marketing campaigns usually center around:
⦁ Presence of social media over major platforms
⦁ Creating splittable content and advertorials.
⦁ Pursuing customer feedback throughout the campaign through surveys and contests.

Types of social media campaigns and strategies:
⦁ Hashtag Campaigns
Devising a branded hashtag is one of the simplest ways for brands to increase their visibility to social media audiences.

⦁ Giveaway & Contest
Throwing a contest or distributing promotional codes can generate social buzz and encourage social media users to take a specific action.

⦁ Viral Videos
To shoot up exposure, many brands frame content designed to be shared by millions across social media channels.

⦁ Takeovers
Social media takeovers involve allowing a social media user to take control over a brand’s owned media channel for a set period of time. This social media marketing strategy can level up a brand’s content and channel by highlighting the company to new audiences.

Social Media Marketing is of 3 types :

Owned media

Owned media is just any type of content that you create and own yourself, that can be your website and any sort of asset or location that you own as a company.
Owned media includes:
⦁ Blog posts
⦁ Videos
⦁ Website
⦁ Images and infographics
⦁ Podcast
⦁ E-books, white papers and guides.
Essentially, if you’ve created it in-house and you own it, it’s considered as owned media.

Earned media

Often regarded as free media, earned media is any type of brand-related media that originates from social media users, not from the brand itself. Also commonly referred to as “word-of-mouth” marketing, earned media helps brands reach a greater audience by taking advantage of social media users’ influence and leveraging their social following to increase exposure.
Earned Media includes:
⦁ Backlinks
⦁ Press Coverage
⦁ Awards
⦁ Reviews
⦁ Being featured as listicles and roundups
“One of the most effective ways to get earned media is to do something consequential,”

Paid media

Paid media is marketing that you pay for.
Paid Media includes:
⦁ TV ads
⦁ Print ads
⦁ Search ads
⦁ Paid affiliate marketing programs
⦁ Sponsored content
⦁ Advertorials
A flaw of paid media is its lack of durability. Once you stop paying for it, its power decreases.

And finally, the last,

Pay-per-click Advertising (PPC)

PPC known as pay-per-click marketing is a form of online advertising in which advertisers accumulate costs when a user clicks their ads. Advertisers bid on the anticipated value of a click in relation to the keywords, platforms, and audience type in which it originates.

PPC is used for all types of campaign goals, includes:

⦁ Increasing sales
⦁ Generating leads
⦁ Promoting brand awareness

Some of the major PPC platforms are:
⦁ Google ads
⦁ Microsoft advertising
⦁ Amazon advertising

You can avail services of MakeAnyDesign Graphic Designing to make your PPC impressive and eye-catchy to make it more clickable. MakeAnyDesign creates professional & appealing ads, logos, posters, social media posts, etc.

PPC has four potential benefits which are:
⦁ Speed – Advertisers can quickly drive a significant amount of traffic to their website. PPC is one of the fastest digital marketing strategies to drive traffic and conversion growth.
⦁ Precision – Creating a highly-targeted audience to show your ads to is straightforward: especially on search and shopping networks.
⦁ Measurement – With effective conversion tracking, advertisers can see the ROI of their ads.
⦁ Agility – Performance data is available almost immediately, which makes it easier to quickly make adjustments to improve your chances for a successful campaign.

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General FAQ on Digital Marketing

What is digital marketing for beginners?

Digital marketing is promoting any brand or product online or offline.

What are the best beginners courses for digital marketing?

Here are some of Digital Marketing courses for beginners:
1. Mega Digital Marketing Course A-Z: Market The Product To The World
2. How Retargeting Works–The Complete Guide To Retargeting Ads!
3. The Complete Digital Marketing Course – 12 Courses in 1

How MakeAnyDesign helps digital marketers with designing services?

MakeAnyDesign helps digital marketers by providing them with Unlimited Graphic Designs with assured on-time delivery. The designs are impressive and eye-catchy to engage your potential customers & keep your current customers satisfied.