Ray L. Perry Consulting

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing tools, processes, content, and techniques are used to increase an organization’s or company’s profits, traffic, or any other goal that involves the digital world. There are multiple kinds of digital marketing, including:

There are many different aspects of online marketing, including fields such as SEO, social media, and email marketing. Every organization will have different goals and needs when it comes to digital marketing. Other skills are needed in addition to digital marketing skills to be successful in the industry.

The results of digital marketing efforts can be seen every day. The following can be seen as pop-ups on websites, sponsored results on search engines, mobile game ads that offer rewards, emails with discounts, and notifications from food delivery services that offer free shipping. businesses need to find innovative ways to reach their audience.

Why is Digital Marketing Important Today More Than Ever?

Approximately 3.5 billion people, or half of the world’s population, uses the internet. This is compared to the approximately 80% of internet users in the United States. As more and more people are spending time online, organizations need to use digital marketing techniques if they want to continue to grow and be successful. The increase in businesses that only operate online has also led to more companies using digital marketing as their primary form of promotion.

If digital marketing best practices are used, organizations and companies can reach a very large audience. Online marketing is usually less expensive and results in more leads. A company that wants to promote a new product would have more success if they did a targeted online marketing campaign rather than a more expensive billboard campaign that only reaches a limited audience.

Digital marketing techniques allow organizations to reach a larger audience, increase profits, and build a better relationship with past and future customers. Small businesses that use digital marketing can improve their organizations and expand using fewer resources. If these smaller companies used the same amount of resources for marketing in other local areas, they might not find the same success.

Taking a Look at How Digital Marketing Works

The digital marketing industry is vast and encompasses many different platforms, advertising campaigns, and areas of expertise. Specialists who work in the industry will have to become skilled at many different subjects to be successful, some of which include:

Digital marketing skills can help organizations complete digital campaigns and achieve their marketing goals. A Digital Marketing Specialist can use social media to increase audience numbers, utilize search engine optimization to increase website traffic, and create content new readers will want to share.

There are many different aspects of digital marketing, so it can be beneficial to get a digital marketing degree, an online certificate in digital marketing, or some other form of education in this area.

Digital Marketing Education

There are several ways people can get a digital marketing education. This includes both formal and informal educational paths.

There is a range of universities that offer digital marketing either as an online degree or a course. Formal education can set some applicants apart from the rest, which is why it is important to consider. Having a formal education in digital marketing can give you an edge when applying for positions at marketing firms.

Another option is getting a digital marketing certificate. There are a number of companies that offer digital marketing programs for those that want a more flexible and affordable educational route. Some of these companies include Hootsuite, Google, and HubSpot. Digital marketing courses may not be as esteemed as a university degree, but when combined with experience, they can be highly beneficial.

Other less-known companies sometimes offer digital marketing bootcamp classes. The purpose of these courses is to provide students with a general understanding of online marketing techniques and skills, not to be confused with more formal education.

No matter what kind of digital marketing classes you take, it’s important to get lots of real-world experience to go along with it. Most companies will want to see that you have experience running successful advertising campaigns, so try to get as much practice as you can.

Does Digital Marketing Work?

A digital marketing strategy is a great way for businesses to take advantage of the internet and succeed in today’s digital age. We’ve used Disruptive to help businesses of all sizes grow, from local mom and pop shops to large, internationally recognized universities. That’s the beauty of advertising online. If you know the types of people you want to target, you can reach them using digital methods no matter where they are.

There are different types of digital advertising that can be beneficial to different types of businesses. As a quick overview, let’s take a look at which strategies tend to work best for business-to-consumer (B2C) companies and business-to-business (B2B) companies:

B2C COMPANIES

In general, B2C companies charge much less than B2B companies. Although it may be difficult, it is possible to sell a $150,000 drill bit to a busy mom. But an inexpensive pair of kid’s pants? That’s a reasonably straightforward sell.

Because B2C companies are not selling expensive products or services, they do not need a large sales team or a complicated marketing funnel. To be successful, all they need to do is ensure their products or services are seen by the right people with the appropriate messaging. If they can do that, the rest will follow.

The main objective for most B2C businesses is to direct their customers’ journey through their sales funnel. To increase the chances that a visitor to your website will make a purchase, try to find out what would appeal to them and offer a deal accordingly. For example, if you know that the visitor is a mother, you could direct them to your kids’ clothing website and offer a special deal. You can close a sale without needing to build a lot of brand awareness or trust first.

Companies that focus on selling to consumers, known as B2C companies, often find that digital channels that are further up the marketing funnel, such as social media marketing and paid social advertising, are more effective. These channels are great for exposing your business to potential customers who might not be aware of your company’s existence.

Other digital marketing strategies like paid search or SEO can always be good supplements. Paid social advertising or social media marketing are both great options to consider if you are looking to invest in digital channels for B2C.

B2B COMPANIES

Paid search is a great option for B2B digital media marketing campaigns, while free search is not as effective. It can be difficult to target specific, niche audiences using social media. You will want to be the first result they see if someone searches for a “diamond-tipped oil drilling bit manufacturer” if you sell $150,000 drill bits. Even though you might have to spend more money per click, it is worth it because it is a very expensive product.

In general, B2B companies take longer to make a sale than B2C companies. If someone is selling a $150,000 drill bit, most people are not going to go to the website, call the seller, and say that they want to buy it. This means that content marketing or email marketing are often necessary in order to close a deal.

The digital marketing tactics that are right for one industry might not be as effective for another industry. Simply comparing B2C (business-to-consumer) businesses to B2B (business-to-business) businesses can help you understand which strategies are better for certain businesses. Different strategies work for different businesses, so you’ll need to experiment to figure out which one is most profitable for your company.

How Do I Get Started?

You can start promoting your business using digital media with little effort. Most online advertising platforms make it simple to sign up, create your first campaign, and access data and analytics resources for successful management.

It’s a strategy. At the heart of every successful digital marketing campaign is a strategy, not a guide. Regardless of which strategies you choose to use, here are a couple of questions you need to answer before getting started with digital marketing campaigns:

1. HOW MUCH DO YOU NEED TO MAKE?

You will need to spend money on digital marketing in order to achieve your desired goals. How you approach digital marketing can vary depending on what your goal is.

The goal of marketing efforts should be to earn a profit. If digital marketing isn’t making your business money, then your online marketing strategies aren’t connecting with customers. If you find yourself in that situation, it’s a good idea to try a different approach.

Even though clicks and conversions are important, they don’t directly result in profit for your company. Sales drive revenue.

What you need to determine before settling on a digital marketing budget is how much revenue you are looking to generate. The amount of money you spend on ads will determine how much revenue you earn.

2. TO WHOM ARE YOU MARKETING?

Who are you marketing to through digital channels? This is important because using the wrong marketing approach for a particular type of customer can lead to poor results. It is important to note that different buyer personas can result in different types of buyers.

If your organization has a dedicated sales team, you can get input from them to develop a clear buyer persona quickly. Collecting data to develop your digital marketing strategy will be easier with input from the sales team. Sales teams are the team members who typically talk to customers the most.

Even though speaking to your sales team and investigating a bit can give you some details you require to make a successful digital marketing strategy, it is not enough to give you the level of detail you need. You need to get on the phone and call your customers to do that. Even if customers only say that your company came up on Google, this is still useful information. It shows that your digital marketing is working to some extent.

What made them decide to convert to being a paying customer? This information will give you a lot of valuable insights into your marketing and sales process. You can improve your advertising performance and choose your marketing budget by learning from that.

How Is Digital Marketing Different on Mobile?

The approach to digital marketing on mobile devices is quite different from the approach taken for desktop computers. The significance of these differences lies in the fact that smartphones have become the go-to device for people interacting with the internet.

As more and more internet activity happens on mobile devices, digital marketing is increasingly shifting from desktop to mobile.

Google Ads removed sidebar ads from their results pages to create a consistent experience between mobile and desktop. Facebook Ads no longer shows sidebar ads on desktop or mobile, only showing in-stream ads. Facebook Ads is changing its in-app marketing approaches and placement to allow businesses to advertise in different ways. This section used to read that on desktop, Facebook still showed sidebar ads; however, this is no longer the case. This is an excellent example of how digital marketing methods and strategies can be continually adapted to maximize ROI.

It’s not enough to just optimize your ads for mobile devices, you also need to consider the website and landing page experience. If your website is difficult to navigate on a mobile device, you will lose a significant amount of web traffic.

At a minimum, you should have a mobile-responsive website. The ideal mobile user experience would be one that allows users to access all of the features on a desktop site.

Nowadays, digital marketing is mainly experienced on mobile devices, though many advertisers are unaware of this. This means that you don’t have to start from scratch when creating a digital marketing plan. You can use existing resources and knowledge to create a successful plan. You can create effective mobile ads and then adjust them for desktop as necessary.

THE PROBLEM: YOUR BUSINESS ISN’T GROWING AS FAST AS IT SHOULD!

Your sales have stagnated or decreased, and you cannot figure out why. Discover what is holding you back from achieving predictable sales growth in your business.

If you want to grow your business, you need a proven plan and framework. That is what you get with the 2X Your Sales Discovery Session.

Want to learn about a formula for Predictable Growth that will put your business on a 90-day path to 2X Your Sales?

Join our 90-minute one-on-one virtual workshop.