The percentage of adults who use the Internet “always” has increased by 5% in the last three years. (Pew Research, in English) Also, as it is often said, the way people do shopping and buying something really changes so much that offline marketing is not as effective as it used to be Yes.
Traditionally, marketing aims to “connect with the audience at the right place, at the right time.” Applying this to modern times means that you need to meet where the audience has already gathered, that is, online.
We introduce the world of all marketing and digital marketing performed online.
Hubspot has introduced “inbound marketing” in various places as a way to attract customers, develop relationships and satisfy them online. But still, questions about “digital marketing” are coming from all over the world.
Some people who have been in marketing for many years view that inbound marketing and digital marketing are virtually identical, but there is a slight difference between the two.
In addition, I heard from the marketers and business owners of the United States, the United Kingdom, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, and I was able to know how these small differences are manifested in various places. .
How to define Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is defined as leveraging various digital tactics and channels with the goal of connecting with customers online where they spend a lot of time.
There is a wide range of methods that fall into the digital marketing category, from websites themselves to online branding assets such as digital advertising, email marketing , and online catalogs.
Digital marketing techniques and examples
Ideal digital marketing is an activity in which individual digital marketing campaigns are clearly organized to achieve the overall goal. Depending on the goals and needs of your marketing strategy, it is possible to deploy large campaigns by combining free and paid channels.
For example,content marketersproduce a series of blog posts that help them capture prospects from their recent eBooks. In addition,social media marketersupload information promoting blog posts in the form of paid posts on SNS and natural posts in their own account.
And anemail marketer creates an email campaign that gives more information about the company to those who downloaded the eBook. A detailed description of each digital marketer is given below. Here’s an overview of the most common methods of digital marketing and the channels involved:
Search engine optimization (SEO)
A website optimization process that brings your website to the top of search engine results pages and improves organic search traffic (or free traffic). Some of the channels that benefit from SEO include:
- website
- blog
- Infographic
Content marketing
Produce and promote content aimed at improving brand awareness and traffic, lead generation, and customer acquisition. The following channels can be used for content marketing strategies:
- Blog article
- eBook and white paper
- Infographic
- Online Catalog and Lookbook
To learn about content marketing and apply it to your business, visit HubSpot Academy’s content marketing training resources.
Social media marketing
To promote brands and content on SNS for the purpose of improving brand awareness, traffic, and lead generation. Here are some of the channels you can leverage for social media marketing:
- Snapchat
PPC (click charge)
How to increase traffic to your website by paying media to pay for clicks on online ads. The most common PPC, Google AdWords, puts its links at the top of Google search results and pays for clicks. Other channels that PPC can utilize include:
- Facebook Paid Advertising
- Promoted Tweets on Twitter
- LinkedIn Sponsored Messages
Affiliate marketing
Performance-based advertising where you can receive referral fees by promoting another company’s products and services on your own website. Here are some affiliate marketing channels:
- Hosting video ads with the YouTube Partner Program
- Affiliate link posted on SNS
Native ad
Native advertising refers to content-centric advertising that is posted on the platform to blend in with regular content that does not have a sponsor.
A good example is BuzzFeed’s sponsored articles, but many people think that advertising on social networks (ads on Facebook and ads on Instagram) is also “native”.
Marketing automation
Software intended to automate simple tasks in marketing. The marketing department’s work involves many repetitive tasks that can be automated without human intervention, as in the following example.
- Email newsletter
- SNS Post Scheduling
- Update contact list
- Workflow of lead nursering (training to promising prospects)
- Campaign tracking and reporting
Email marketing
Email marketing is used as a means of communication with the audience. In addition to content, discounts, and event promotions, it is also used as a way to navigate your site. Types of email sent in email marketing campaigns include:
- Blog Subscriber Newsletter
- Follow-up email to visitors who performed the download on the website
- Welcome email to customer
- Year-end promotion to loyalty program members
- E-mail series aimed at customer nursing (introduction of useful knowledge, etc.)
Online PR
Online PR is an activity that aims to be a topic in Earned Media by utilizing content-based websites such as digital publications and blogs. Aside from being deployed online, it is almost the same as traditional PR. The following channels can be used to effectively deploy PR activities.
- Dissemination of information to reporters using SNS
- Engagement with online reviews about your company
- Engagement in comments on personal websites and blogs
Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing is an online content-based approach to attracting customers, fostering relationships, and satisfying clients throughout the marketing funnel. The inbound marketing strategy can leverage all of the digital marketing techniques described above.
To learn all the above techniques and other digital marketing basics, you can enroll in a free digital marketing basics training program.
Role of Digital Marketer
Digital marketers will promotebrand awarenessandlead generationthrough all digital channels, combining free and paid channels according to their policies . Channels used include SNS, company website, search results ranking, email, display ad, company blog, etc.
In general, we focus on various KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) so that we can accurately grasp the company’s performance by channel. For example, a digital marketer in charge of SEO measures the “organic traffic” of its website. This is the traffic of visitors who found pages of their website from the search results.
Digital marketing is currently used in a wide range of marketing operations. Some smaller companies have multiple digital marketers combined with one generalist. As a large company, multiple specialists are responsible for each job, and each one is responsible for one or two types of proprietary digital channels.
Below are some examples of such specialists.
SEO manager
Main KPI: Organic Traffic
To put the SEO manager’s role in a nutshell, make your company appear high on the search results. We use different approaches to search engine optimization and sometimes work with content producers to work to improve our search rankings. This is also true for content posted on SNS.
Content Marketing Specialist
Main KPIs: Page stay time, total number of blog accesses, number of YouTube subscriptions
Content marketing specialists are creators of digital content. Keep up-to-date with your company’s blog updates and develop a content strategy that includes videos.
We will often work with people from other departments to effectively support the launch of our new products and launch campaigns with their own digital channel promotion content.
Social media manager
Main KPIs: Number of followers, number of impressions, number of shares
The social media manager has a role as the name implies, but the target SNS network differs depending on the industry. The task common to all is to schedule the content (text, images and videos) that the company posts.
In addition, while collaborating with content marketing specialists, we may also work on developing a strategy to determine the SNS network that will be the posting destination for each content.
(Note: The “impressions” included in the KPI here means the number of times your post appears in the user’s news feed.)
Marketing Automation Coordinator
Key KPIs: Email open rate, campaign click-through rate, lead generation rate (conversion rate)
Assists in software selection and management to understand customer behavior and understand business growth trends across marketing teams . Since the marketing activities described so far are often conducted individually, it is important to organize various digital marketing activities into one campaign and to have a person who can confirm the results of each campaign.
Difference between digital marketing and inbound marketing
At first glance, the two are very similar in that both are mostly online and aim to create digital content and show it to people. So where is the difference between the two?
The term “digital marketing” does not distinguish between push and pull strategies (currently outbound and inbound) in marketing. Both are included in the digital marketing category.
The “outbound” digital strategy aims to have as many people as possible in the online space see the marketing message. At this time, it does not matter whether the content is interesting or welcome to the viewer.For example, the flashy banner ad that appears at the top of many websites is something that pushes (pushes) products or campaigns and may not be welcome.
The “inbound” digital strategy, on the other hand, attracts the website by delivering valuable assets to the target audience over online content.The simplest and most effective inbound digital marketing asset is a blog that allows you to create articles that make use of the search keywords of the target audience.
As such, inbound marketing is a way to use digital marketing assets to attract online customers, foster relationships, and satisfy them. On the other hand, digital marketing is a generic term that refers to all kinds of online marketing, whether inbound or outbound.
Is Digital Marketing Effective for All Businesses?
Digital marketing is effective for any business in any industry. Regardless of the type of product, establishing a buyer persona to identify the needs of the audience and creating valuable online content is the essence of digital marketing. However, not all businesses have similar digital marketing strategies.
B2B Digital Marketing
For B2B businesses, it is common to conduct marketing activities centered on online lead generation. The goal here is to increase the number of inquiries to the sales department. Therefore, there is a need for a marketing strategy that attracts the highest quality potential customers from websites and secondary digital channels and transforms them into promising leads.
Other than websites, there are many companies that target business channels like LinkedIn, which is used frequently by the target audience online.
B2C Digital Marketing
Depending on the price range of the product, in the case of B2C business, it is generally the goal of digital marketing to attract consumers to a website and to make purchases as they are without having a sales representative It is
Therefore, rather than lead generation in the B2B business, we will focus on building a customer journey in which the process from consumer access to the site to purchase is completed in a short time. In such cases, it is common to place content that showcases the product near the top of the marketing funnel.
In addition, CTA (Call-To-Action) more aggressive than B2B business is required. For B2C companies, channels like Instagram and Pinterest are often more useful tools than business-focused platforms like LinkedIn .
What are the benefits of digital marketing?
Unlike typical offline marketing activities, digital marketing allows you to see accurate performance in real time. If you’ve ever run an ad in a newspaper, you know how hard it is to actually open the page and estimate the number of readers that turned to the ad. We can not know for sure whether the ad is contributing to sales at all.
With digital marketing, on the other hand, you can calculate the ROI of almost all the elements that make up marketing.
Below are some examples.
Website traffic
Digital marketing uses analytics software built into marketing platforms such as HubSpot to provide accurate, real-time insights into the number of visitors to your website.
You can also check various analytics data, such as the number of pages viewed by visitors, the type of device used, and the site from which you visited.
Such information can help you determine which channels to focus on, based on the number of website visitors that each marketing channel is creating. For example, if the traffic from organic search is only 10% of the total, you can decide that it is better to strengthen SEO and raise this percentage.
With offline marketing, it’s hard to see how customers interact with their brand before it comes to inquiries and purchases. On the other hand, in digital marketing, because it is possible to grasp the behavior trends and patterns to reach the final stage of customer journey, it is necessary to set up a strategy to effectively encourage visits to your site at the entrance of the marketing funnel I can do it.
Content Performance and Lead Generation
Consider printing a product catalog and distributing it by mail. Although not online, this catalog is also a type of content. The problem is that there are many people who opened the catalog, and no one knows how many people dropped it into the trash can.
Now, let’s say that you put the catalog on a website, not in printed matter. In this case, the number of visitors who viewed the catalog hosted page can be measured accurately.
You can also use the form to collect contact information for the person who downloaded the catalog. Not only can you know how many people responded to the content posted, you can also get promising prospects through downloads.
Attribution analysis
An effective digital marketing strategy, combined with the right tools and technology, can trace all sales records back to the moment the customer first contacts the brand.
This process, called attribution analysis, enables people to look at the product of their brand and identify trends in the process of purchasing, so areas of focus on marketing strategies and improvements in the sales cycle It can be a useful source of information when deciding what you need.
It is very important to clarify the correlation between marketing and sales. According to the Aberdeen Group, companies that have strengthened marketing and sales linkages are reported to see a 20% decrease in revenue per year while companies with weak linkages show a 4% decline.
The ability to use digital technology to improve customer journeys through the sales cycle will ultimately improve your bottom line.
Types of digital content to produce
The type of content you create depends on what your audience needs at each stage of your customer journey. First, create a Buyer Persona ( try this free template ) and identify the audience goals and issues relevant to your business. Basically, we aim to be online content that can help you achieve these goals and overcome challenges.
Next, consider which stage of the customer journey the timing at which the content is supposed to be used falls. This is called content mapping.
Content mapping clarifies the following conditions as content targets:
- Characteristics of the person who uses it (where the buyer persona is useful).
- Road to the purchase of this person (Lifecycle stage).
There are many options for content formatting. The recommended format for each stage of customer journey is:
Recognition stage
- Blog post:Effective combination of SEO and keyword strategies can significantly contribute to the growth of organic traffic.
- Infographic: Aneasy-to-share infographic increases the opportunity for new audiences to see through the sharing of content on social networks. (If you are a beginner , please use this infographic template (free))
- Short videos: It’seasy to share, and posting to a platform such as YouTube will trigger a new audience to see.
Examination stage
- eBooks:More comprehensive than blog posts and infographics, eBooks make it easy to register contact information for download and are effective for lead generation.
- Research report:Important content that is also effective for lead generation. Industry-specific research reports and the latest data are often featured in media and trade journals, and are effective in the recognition stage.
- Webinars:Providing more interactive content, webinars can provide more comprehensive content than blog posts and short videos, making them ideal for the discussion stage.
Decision making stage
- Case studies:Detailedcase studieson the website provide effective content to support new lead adoption decisions.
- Customer Testimonials:Even if your business is not suitable for your case, it is effective to post a simple “Customer Testimonials”. In the case of the B2C brand, more diverse formats are conceivable. For example, in the case of apparel, it is possible to encourage people who have purchased it to post coordinated photos using their own branded hashtags and introduce them on the site.
How long does it take to get results?
While it is easy to evaluate the ROI in digital marketing because it is easy to evaluate the ROI, it is likely that results will be achieved in a shorter time than offline marketing. It is different.
Build a comprehensive Buyer persona to identify the needs of your audience, focus on producing high quality online content that can attract and turn into promising prospects, and you’ll get great results in half a year must.
If you’re using paid advertising as part of your digital strategy, you can see the benefits even faster. However, to achieve long-term, sustainable success, we recommend using content, SEO, and social networks to focus on increasing organic (free) traffic.
Do you need a large budget for digital marketing?
As with all things, the budget you need depends on what you want to use in your digital marketing strategy.
If you already have a website and want to focus on inbound techniques such as SEO, SNS, content production etc, then you don’t need much budget. The main focus of inbound marketing is on producing high-quality content that the audience wants to see. All you need to do is invest only in your time, except when outsourcing.
Initially, you can also host websites and create content using HubSpot’s CMS (Content Management System) . If you have a limited budget, you can use WordPress hosted by WP Engine using StudioPress’s simple theme .
It goes without saying that outbound marketing techniques such as online advertising and email address list purchases require a fair budget. The budget scale depends on how well you want the message to stand out.
For example, in the case of Google AdWords PPC, you have to compete with other companies in the same bid to be ranked high in the results of Google search using keywords related to your business.
Depending on the keyword’s competition, it can be relatively cheap or very expensive. That’s why we encourage you to focus on acquiring organic traffic.
Positioning of mobile marketing in digital marketing strategy
Another important factor in digital marketing is mobile marketing. In fact, in the United States, where mobile popularity is not so high compared to other countries, smartphone usage accounts for 69% of digital media usage time, and there are survey data that desktop-based digital media usage is less than half .
In other words, it is essential to optimize digital assets such as digital advertisements, web pages and SNS images for mobile devices. If you have a mobile app that supports communication and shopping with your brand and your users, this is also part of digital marketing.
It is important that the online experience your company offers be as comfortable as it is from your mobile device or desktop. Make your website mobile-friendly or responsive and make it easy to browse from mobile devices.
It may be necessary to make the input form shorter so that content can be downloaded smoothly from mobile. For images on social networks, text may be cut off due to the small display area on mobile devices. Always take into consideration how mobile users see it.
There are many ways to optimize digital marketing assets for mobile users. When driving a digital marketing strategy , it is very important to consider the user experience on mobile devices. Keeping this point in mind at all times will lead to creating an audience-oriented digital experience and, ultimately, the desired outcome.
How about working on digital marketing from now on?
If you’re already doing digital marketing, I think you’ve already caught the eye of some of the audience who are online. Still, there may be some points where there is room for improvement.