One of the first questions that business owners ask me when they schedule meetings with me is: what is digital marketing?
This post is the first part in a series targeted at business owners that need a primer.
With this in mind, I write this post to direct you to it when necessary. We can move on to more challenging issues and not spend too much time at meetings covering the basics. Time is money, as they say.
Therefore, I’ll briefly cover the definition of digital marketing, what it entails, what it is not, what a digital marketing strategy is all about. Let’s get started.
Definition of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing, a.k.a an online marketing or internet marketing also called e-marketing. However, internet marketing differs from digital marketing.
Internet marketing is the advertising of your product and services solely on the Internet whereas digital marketing covers mobile phones (both SMS and MMS), smartphone apps, email, social media marketing, display advertising, search engine marketing, video games and so on.
Digital marketing is a broad term that encompasses various inbound and outbound online marketing tactics. It is the act of promoting and selling your products and services by leveraging online marketing tactics such as social media marketing, search marketing, and email marketing.
If the marketing of your product or service involves the use of electronic devices, that’s digital marketing!
Even though according to these stats, radio still reaches 85% of the US population every week. Listeners listen 2 hrs per day, on average 40% of all radio advertising expenses worldwide comes from the US.
The same article mentioned above observers that in a world where 9% of all drivers are on the phone one way or the other (texting or calling), during daylight hours, how can we think billboards have a future?
With digital marketing, the number of potential customers that are found online is a much larger group of people than you are likely to be able to attract locally.
Besides creating a website, you can also introduce search engine optimisation as a strategy to help you move ahead of your competitors because if your business is the first name that a prospect finds in a Google search with keywords that can lead them to your business.
It helps if you think of digital marketing as a way to make yourself accessible to the people your business is trying to reach in order to offer your products and services.
Your business is able to attract a much larger audience than you possibly could by just catering to local prospects.
As the number of Nigerians spending more time on their digital devices increases, so too will the need for online marketing increase.
These days, savvy business owners in Nigeria are moving away from traditional marketing tactics that involve billboards, posters, flyers, and so on to online marketing.
Although we can divide digital marketing into online and offline digital marketing, at Mauco Enterprises our focus is on online marketing.
Our online marketing includes:
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- Pay-per-click Advertising (PPC)
- Email/ SMS Marketing
- Content Marketing
What Digital Marketing is Not
When meeting with a business owner for the first time over a 15 minute call, it’s a familiar story, and it usually goes like this:
I’ve tried everything! Fliers, posters, handbills, brochures, newspaper adverts, magazines and so on but nothing seems to work.
I’ve been there. I know the feeling. However, online marketing is not about marketing through traditional means like fliers, brochures, television, newspaper or the radio.
Listen: this distinction is significant because you can run an ad on television, newspaper, radio or billboard. However, can you accurately quantify how many people watched, listened to or saw your ad?
With digital marketing, you have the data to prove the performance of your campaigns.
Some digital marketing activities such as display advertising, search engine marketing and social media marketing require payment.
Digital marketing does not mean that you should go and market through every digital and social media channel under the sun. Click To TweetOthers like content marketing and influencer marketing sometimes do not require payment depending on your strategy.
Digital marketing does not mean that you should market through every digital and social media channel under the sun.
On the contrary, it entails your being strategic about the digital and social media channels you use. It would help if you also were sure that you partner with an online marketing agency that is the right fit for your brand.
What can an online marketing agency? They can help you draw up an integrated online marketing strategy for your brand and also help you implement it too.
What Is a Digital Marketing Strategy?
Your digital marketing strategy is a roadmap to achieving your online marketing goals. It is a strategic series of actions you take to help you realise your company’s goals through your paid, earned and owned media channels.
Do You Have a Strategic Marketing Plan?
Some of you savvy business owners in Nigeria might already use SEO, PPC, email marketing, and so on and seeing some benefits.
However, ask yourself: are you strategically using them? Can you calculate your ROI on any of the above?
If your answer to the above questions is ‘No’; then, you’re leaving money on the table.
Do You Want to Learn More about Digital Marketing?
Mauco Enterprises can help you derive more joy from your online marketing efforts. Do you want to learn more?
Click the button below to schedule a consultation. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Schedule a meeting with me now to learn more. Trust me. It’ll all be worth it.
Related Article(s)
- How to Make Your Marketing Campaigns More Appealing
- Digital Marketing Questions and Answers
- What Is Digital Media, and How Can It Help My Business?
Did you like the article? Please pin it!
