What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is very much the ‘it’ word in the business world right now. As our day-to-day lives revolve more around our online presence than ever before, as do the daily marketing efforts of those trying to sell to us. Digital marketing is the buzz word for all the online marketing efforts and digital presence of a company. From the posts they make on social media to Google Adwords and everything in-between.

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Those adverts that follow you around the internet after you’ve visited a website, that’s not magic, not Harry Potter-style magic at least, that’s digital marketing magic. That shirt you bought after seeing your favourite influencer style it, once again, digital marketing. The top results your last google search produced, you guessed it, digital marketing.

The truth is it has become increasingly challenging to be heard online due to the saturation of every single company around you. To stand out from the crowd takes a digital marketer who just ‘gets’ what you’re trying to achieve and has the knowledge and skill to build your online approach to achieving that goal.

Breaking it down a little further, website traffic is directly correlated with sales or brand recognition. Therefore the more people you drive to your website, the more likely you are to make conversions. To drive traffic you could use, social media posts, SEO pages or information, specific sector content, PPC campaigns and lots more. All of these things fall into the definition of digital marketing.

The Conversion Funnel

One of the favourite terms amongst marketers is ‘the conversion funnel’, as this best describes the process of digital marketing from start to finish. The top of the funnel and the widest section is, being seen online by potential customers; this section is also referred to as brand recognition. However, once the funnel narrows, the following section is filled with those who remember your name and choose to visit your website to see what products you sell or services you offer.

Finally, the narrow end of the funnel is those who go on to purchase from your website therefore completing the ‘conversion funnel’ and putting that hard-earned cash back into your pocket. Trust us; there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing your conversion funnel working.

Breaking down the different styles of digital marketing

Social Media

As we all continue to spend most of our spare time on social media, it’s the most obvious place for all of our favourite businesses to keep on popping round to say ‘Hi’. Social media marketing is constructed of two different elements, ‘Paid Social’ and ‘Organic Social’.

Paid Social accounts for all the work done by businesses on the ad interface of a social media platform. For example, the adverts that pop up at the side of your screen as you scroll through posts. For those spots of prime marketing space, businesses pay the platform.

Organic social is the polar opposite, and in our opinion is the difficult one to get right. Organic socials are the posts businesses make on a page that aren’t sponsored or endorsed. They are simply posts, nothing more, nothing less, but done correctly those are the little snippets of personality that you allow your customers to see. Having a popular feed creates traffic and discussion and makes people want to buy from you is a fantastic trait for any company.

SEO

How many times have you heard the term ‘SEO’? Probably hundreds. Here is the breakdown: SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and relates directly to the efforts of a business to get itself ranked in the top search engine results for specific search terms. SEO is wholly related to the ‘Organic’ traffic, and therefore PPC has a section of its own below. To best leverage SEO, a company may build specific landing pages littered with their chosen search terms, make sure their site is running at optimum speed and include link building within their website itself.

PPC

Opposite SEO is PPC or pay-per-click marketing. It involves a company paying a fee for specific advertising space, which would usually be the top search terms on a search engine’s results. Google Adwords is the most popular platform for PPC marketing. It’s the go-to for any business looking to drive paid traffic to their website and potentially complete the conversion funnel.

Content Marketing

Creating brand affinity is crucial online. There are probably quite a lot of people doing something similar to what you do. Being remembered or positioning yourself as an expert becomes tricky but important business. Content marketing includes all the digital marketing content you produce across any number of outlets. It could be blogs on your website or videos on youtube, members of your staff dancing on TikTok or an aesthetically brilliant photograph posted on Instagram. The sky’s the limit with the content you can produce, simply make yours original or better and you’ll be remembered.