As the times progress, this term continues to develop into more specific small parts. To understand in its entirety, you need to know in advance how the digital trend is happening.
After that, later you will understand why digital marketing has emerged and has a big influence, especially for business developments that still survive today.
Before going further, let’s go into the first discussion, which is about the definition of marketing and digital marketing.
What is Digital Marketing?
We first understand what the meaning of the word “Marketing”.
Marketing or Marketing is a series of activities in business to introduce products, services, or services to the wider community starting from promotional activities, distribution, sales, to the product development stage.
The term marketing is developing quite broadly along with technological developments in modern times, one of which is also known as the term “Digital Marketing” which means Digital Marketing.
Digital Marketing is a marketing activity carried out by brands to reach potential audiences on the internet using digital channels such as websites, email, social media, and so on.
Many think that Digital Marketing is exactly the same as Online Marketing or Internet Marketing with the reason that they both use the internet. This is not wrong.
However, the slight difference is that digital marketing has a wider scope because it utilizes various digital channels or channels.
The main goal of digital marketing itself is to reach an audience who is active in the digital world not only in one direction, but in two directions quickly, precisely, effectively, and efficiently.
Types of Digital Marketing: Owned, Earned, and Paid
Digital marketing that we usually learn has quite a lot of strategies such as SEO, SEM, Email Marketing, Social Media, and others.
However, we need to know that all of these strategies are summarized into 3 types of digital marketing, namely Owned Digital Marketing, Earned Digital Marketing, and Paid Digital Marketing.
a. Owned Digital Marketing
Owned Digital Marketing is a type of digital marketing where all media is owned, managed and controlled by you as the business owner.
Examples of owned digital marketing are websites, social media accounts, blogs, applications, emails, social pages, and so on.
b. Earned Digital Marketing
Earned Digital Marketing is a type of digital marketing where content that is produced either for promotional purposes or just information is obtained without your business approval and usually does not cost anything.
Examples of this type of earned digital marketing are reviews from customers, media coverage of our business, mentions on social media, content shared (Social Shares), or recommendations made by others for free.
c. Paid Digital Marketing
Paid Digital Marketing is the last type of digital marketing that includes all forms of digital advertising in various media such as Facebook/Instagram Ads, Twitter Ads, Google Ads, PPC advertising, retargeting/remarketing, and so on.
What are the Digital Platforms for Digital Marketing?
In carrying out a marketing strategy, you must first understand what platforms will be used. Before that, we first understand what a digital platform is.
Platforms Digital is a place where interaction and information exchange occurs between users in the digital world.
The intended interaction and exchange of information can be in various contexts, for example in the business world.
In doing business, you can use digital platforms to sell, promote products, or introduce services and services to the wider community.
There are 2 popular marketing platforms used in carrying out digital marketing strategies, namely:
a. Web-based Marketing
Web-based Marketing is a combination of marketing techniques with web technology that can be accessed through various devices such as laptops, computers, smartphones, tablets, and others.
b. App-based Marketing
App-based Marketing or also called Mobile Marketing is a marketing technique by utilizing applications that are downloaded by users on their mobile devices.
Next, let’s talk about examples of strategies used in digital marketing!
Advantages of Digital Marketing
The main advantage of digital marketing is that you can target a wider market for much less cost and in much more scalable ways.
• More Cost Effective and Efficient
You can reach the whole world (If you can meet the demand) at a much lower cost using the website. Keep in mind that your competitors, along with other business owners, can benefit from this convenience as well.
To outperform competitor websites, you still need to do better promotions than your competitors. There are 2 types of “Promotions” that are commonly carried out, namely Organic promotions and Paid.
Actually, both ways both require resources, whether it’s cost or time. Similar to the era before digital marketing, it is an effective strategy that will win the competition.
• Building Communication Relationships with Target Markets
Retaining customers can be more difficult and expensive than acquiring new customers. But the results are well worth the effort.
Digital marketing allows your team to stay in touch with customers in a smooth, familiar and cost-effective way. Customers who feel cared for will more easily remember your product or service brand than competitors.
A customer who is loyal to your product or service is also more likely to make repeated transactions to buy other products or services that you offer and even suggest people around them to use your product or service.
• Can Choose and Target Specific Targets
Before someone decides to buy something, they go through several buying stages. The people who pass through this are also divided into several segments.
In the digital marketing era, you will meet more market segments that are available and can be used as marketing targets.
In conventional marketing, if you sell cars and put up billboards, then you don’t get to choose who can see your billboards. Digital marketing allows you to do exactly the above!
Nowadays, it is much easier to divide the market into specific segments because many digital marketing platforms allow you to choose a specific target market.
You can even direct your digital ads or promotions to be shown to people who have certain interests, are of a certain age, married or not, even with a certain income range.
• Data is Easy to Evaluate & Measure Its Effectiveness
Unlike conventional marketing methods which are more expensive and difficult to measure their effectiveness, online and organic advertising platforms are much more affordable and their effectiveness is highly measurable.
In addition, you can regularly monitor the performance of your ads and organic content and find out how many people are viewing your ads or content and the profiles of these people.
Depending on what analytics platform you use, you’ll be able to see their age and gender, interests, where they live, what language they use to view your content and various other components.
• Broad, Fast, and Customizable Reach The
advantages of digital marketing don’t stop there. You can also make necessary changes to improve ad performance even while the ad is running. These 2 things are impossible to do in conventional advertising media.
Here are some useful metrics for measuring the performance of an ad:
- Cost per Click (CPC)
- Return on Investment (ROI)
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
You can also tailor website content to specific visitors. For example, if the visitor is a new visitor, the website displays promotions, but if it is an old customer, the website will display other products that he has never bought.
The more customer data you have connected to your website, the more adjustments and modifications you can make.
• Branding Businesses, Products, and Services Is Much Easier
Second, creating a recognizable brand is much simpler with digital marketing (Branding).
Different from conventional techniques where your business has to look “Striking” to get attention, in digital media you only need to optimize a few things in order to provide valuable information to the audience. Later they will be about the brand because of the information you provide.
• Easy to Analyze Market & Competitors (Competitors)
With the availability of a lot of information on the internet, you can easily analyze how current market trends & conditions are and predict them for the future.
In addition, you can also see what strategies are applied by competitors that are useful in determining Brand Positioning in the market.
• No need for a lot of human resources
Is digital marketing completely done by machines? The answer is of course no. With the presence of digital technology, you only need to place a few skilled marketers in the strategic department, and only a few people will carry out the technical functions.
Due to the reduced role of humans in some areas, this will certainly save operational costs so that they can be shifted to more crucial things in business.
• Significant Business Growth Potential
With all the advantages mentioned above, the most important thing especially in business is about growth.
If you can make the best use of digital marketing, of course the rate of business growth will be significant, even beating businesses that still survive in the conventional way.
Concepts & Steps to Start Digital Marketing
When running any digital marketing strategy, you should not forget to always conceptualize it into a campaign called the Digital Marketing Campaign.
A digital marketing campaign is a set of planned marketing activities for the purpose of promoting a brand, product or service using digital media.
By using a conceptualized campaign, you can create an overview of what the overall marketing activity will look like. You will also be able to measure the level of success of digital marketing strategies against the targets to be achieved.
Important Digital Marketing Assets
When it comes to digital marketing, this spectrum is actually very broad. Therefore, it is important for a business person to know the resources that businesses and companies can maximize so that digital marketing can run optimally.
One important element in digital marketing is assets. Identify what digital assets you have, and start to focus on just a few assets as mentioned in the article on how to start a business on social media.
If you already have some of the assets above , what you need to do is optimize those assets to build brand .
For example, for websites and blogs, regularly write articles that will attract your potential customers. Or through social media such as Instagram, then make short photos and videos that are interesting and worth sharing.
Another thing that is quite important is your activeness in online forums. Make sure your business profile has rating and impression from customers.image brand is good or not in cyberspace.
If you are already starting to understand digital marketing, it’s a good idea to also understand the components of digital marketing as a basic reference.
Digital Marketing Job Desk
In carrying out such diverse digital marketing strategies, a digital marketer must understand what their main (Job Desk) tasks are.
Reasons & Challenges in Running Digital Marketing
The advantages and conveniences of digital marketing mentioned above do not make it without challenges. As with conventional marketing, these challenges must be overcome so that you can get the maximum benefits of digital marketing.
Is Using Digital Marketing Services the Right Choice?
In practice, you may be confused and find it difficult to manage such diverse digital marketing strategies and channels. Especially with your team who may not be proficient in handling various things in digital marketing.
As a result, some of us think that using digital marketing services by agencies or freelancers (Freelancers) is the right solution. However, in reality this does not always go well because it is influenced by various factors.
In using digital marketing services, you must consider the things below because they will have an impact on the results and also the business budget spent. By understanding some of the things above, you will be able to consider various digital marketing service offers that come and you are looking for yourself, so that the results you expect can be realized immediately.
Learning Digital Marketing
At first glance, learning digital marketing does look easy. Maybe some of us think,
“What is so difficult about managing social media, writing website articles, or placing Google ads according to the guidelines on YouTube? It’s easy, really!”
However, the reality will be very much different when you really study it. There are many terms and new things that will confuse you, especially if you don’t know anything beforehand.
Various topics regarding digital marketing materials can be followed by anyone who is interested in mastering it through:
a. Digital Marketing Online
Course An online course is the right choice for those of you who want to understand the topic of digital marketing independently and put it into practice first.
In addition to the comprehensive material, you can also access the class at any time at an affordable price.
b. Digital Marketing Training
For you business owners and marketing teams in the company, training sessions can be an option in increasing capabilities in the digital marketing field.
Not just a mere theory that you can easily find on the internet. You will also learn various recommendations and best practices in this digital marketing training.
c. Digital Marketing
Consulting As a Digital Marketing Consultant also offers solutions that specifically address sales & marketing problems in your business.
Through digital marketing audits and consulting sessions, you can easily identify future opportunities and threats.
d. Digital Media Tools
Apart from learning and consulting about Digital Marketing, it can also help you build branding and digital assets through its service, Design Studio.
Digital Marketing Learning Materials Learning
- Videos (Online Courses/E-courses)
- Ebook Digital Marketing
- Discussion and Consultation Forum
- On-site Training
- Practices Running Digital Marketing
Conclusion
Digital marketing trends are now starting to be known among the public, especially for business people . The main advantage of digital marketing is that you can target a wider market using a much lower cost and scalable strategy.
But of course, of the many strategies that can be used, you must really be able to allocate the resources you have so that later you can avoid the risk of loss because you are too focused on many things at once.
The next step, however, may leave you feeling overwhelmed. Either you have to learn first, use the services of a 3rd party, or directly practice it yourself.
