DEFINING DIGITAL MARKETING
What is digital marketing? You may have heard it called “online marketing” or “internet marketing” as well. Whatever name you use, digital marketing is simply a method used to reach an audience via the internet. It can involve social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc.), or blogs like this one. The appeal and purpose of digital marketing is that it allows your marketing message to reach more people because you can engage with a variety of audiences, all on various digital platforms (blogs, websites, social media sites, and email); and it’s very inexpensive — even free in many cases!
ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL MARKETING
Besides the most attractive advantage of digital marketing (it’s free or close to it on some platforms), there’s the “easy access” factor. You can do your marketing from home, any time or day of the week, and you no longer have to depend on pre-Internet marketing methods — methods controlled and determined by an agency or media source, or limited by time, access, and cost.
The pre-internet way to reach a massive number of people was through mail, commonly referred to now as “snail mail” in today’s world because it’s so much slower than Internet mail. Ah, the Internet! The internet has made it possible for anyone to reach a wider audience than ever before. Before the Internet, you could go door-to-door if you wanted to avoid the media, but your reach was limited to how many flyers you could carry and how far, and how easily you could transport yourself. Now, with a click of a button you can do what would have taken hours and days to do and without any limitation on the reach you have. Email is certainly now the preferred mode of transport. The whole marketing game has changed. Rather than buy a list of home mailing addresses, it’s now about acquiring someone’s email address.
PRE-INTERNET
Before the internet, your marketing options were limited. The primary advertising and marketing mediums were newspapers, television, and radio. They all had massive audiences because there were only three mediums. The audiences were massive, but so were the costs to advertisers and marketers! It was very costly to reach an audience on those mediums. Even a display on a billboard was costly. You could always post a flyer on a telephone post for free, but your audience was limited to who was walking by the post.
I almost forgot about the phone. Yes, nowadays everyone carries a phone with them. Pre-Internet you had to be home or in your office to answer the phone. The phone is still a free method for reaching an audience, but good luck with cold calling and getting someone to listen to what you have to say. Yep, pre-Internet the phone and snail mail were the direct channels to get someone’s attention, while TV, radio, and newspapers were indirect channels. Now, we have inexpensive and more consumer accessible ways to reach mass audiences on platforms such as Youtube, Vimeo, Patreon, iTunes, and Google. You can reach a target audience on these digital platforms at a fraction of the cost of doing so on the pre-internet channels. Some channels can be monetized with other ad content, and many video producers not only get their message out, but they also get paid to do so!
Distribution of your content via these video channels is much easier. In many cases, you can even get people to subscribe and pay you monthly for your content. We haven’t even mentioned some of the social media platforms that offer mega reach such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Linkedin, Reddit, and Instagram.
Of course, the internet also allows anyone to target and amass an audience of their own. Prior to the Internet, you had to build an audience through traditional media like ABC, CBS, NBC, the NY Times, or NPR to gain a mass following. Now a simple website, blog, or podcast can do the trick. This is where good marketing comes into play. How good are you at attracting consumers to your platform? Do you have content they’re willing to pay for or subscribe to? What will it take for them to give you their email address? Most importantly, what will it take to make them return to consume more information on a regular basis?
Obviously, first and foremost, there has to be compelling content. No one comes back to watch paint dry once they’ve seen how it’s done. You need ongoing, and compelling content to engage with your audience so they will keep returning to your site. Secondly, you need to get the attention of the consumer so they see you have awesome content. This means getting noticed on the channels that have an audience of the type of people you want to attract. There are two ways to accomplish this: You can get organic traffic from those sites, or you can pay them to send you traffic. Getting organic traffic from the likes of Facebook or Google is getting tougher to do these days because they would rather you pay them to send folks your way. However, if you do seek organic (non-paid) traffic it’s all about your engagement on their platforms. How well do you give the consumer a great experience? That kind of great performance is the same thing you want to do to make consumers stay and come back to your platform.
TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL DIGITAL MARKETING
The key things to remember to be a successful digital marketer is to engage, add value, and provide a great user experience on whatever platform or platforms you use. This way you will attract, retain, and build your own audience. It takes time to get noticed. The better your content, the more you engage with your audience, and the more you consistently show up to do so, the more success you’ll have. Keep it up, even when things aren’t moving as fast as you’d like, and you’ll soon be well on your way to building a recognizable brand. With that popular brand in place and traffic growth, you’ll soon find other businesses may want to pay you for access to your audience.