Digital marketing is an integral part of online marketing which makes use of modern digital technologies like mobile phones, computer applications and other digital media and channels to promote services and products. This form of online marketing helps businesses to reach their prospective market through a number of traditional marketing strategies like print, radio and TV advertisements, branded CDs and DVDs and website advertisements. Some other forms of digital marketing include affiliate marketing, display advertising, search engine optimization, video marketing, social media marketing, instant messaging and web 2.0 marketing
Digital marketing includes a wide range of elements like search engine optimization, pay per click management, content marketing, link building and viral marketing. SEO (Search Engine Optimization), otherwise known as SEO, is the process by which websites are optimized for specific keywords so that they are ranked higher on the popular search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Pay per click (PPC) involves the display of advertisements by the advertisers on popular websites and channels. Content marketing deals with distributing content on the Internet in the form of articles, blogs, press releases, podcasts, e-books etc.
The main objective of any form of marketing campaign is to generate leads or sales. In order to generate leads, digital marketers need to clearly defined the purpose of the campaigns. For instance, an e-mail marketing campaign may be started to inform customers about the latest products or services. On the other hand, search engine optimization (SEO) is aimed at obtaining higher ranking in search results for websites. Thus digital marketers need to clearly define the goals of their digital marketing campaigns. This allows them to make relevant changes to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns.
After defining the purpose of digital marketing campaigns, digital marketers need to plan and execute them. Digital marketing plans help in aligning the goals of the campaigns with the resources available and helps in avoiding overspending. Usually, digital marketing campaigns are planned and implemented by a single person who possesses specialized knowledge in the relevant fields. This also ensures that there is some kind of accountability in case the execution of the digital marketing strategy is not successful.
Digital marketing strategies need to be monitored and tracked to ensure effective results. For example, sales leads can be analyzed to know what works and what doesn’t by tracking the behavior of the visitors to the website. With the help of sophisticated analytical tools, a digital marketing strategy can be developed and implemented. Data provided during analytics tracking can help in creating relevant reports which in turn help in formulating the strategies.
Tracking the digital marketing analytics also provides valuable information on the visitors to the website. A website with a large amount of traffic is more likely to be visited by people searching for products or services provided by that particular company. However, this does not mean that a social media platform would not have any impact on conversion rates. Google Analytics, for example, helps track the activity of the Facebook audience as well as the Google+ audience. Such data can help in developing relevant campaigns which in turn lead to improved return of investment (ROI).