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Digital marketing is a general term that means online marketing. Businesses are making use of various digital channels like websites, email, social media and Google in reaching out to their target audiences.

Digital marketing is a term that implies online marketing activities. Most businesses do take advantage of platforms such as social media, websites, search engines and emails to target as many people as possible.

It has been discovered that people are spending much more time online as compared to the way that they used to. There is a major change in how people tend to buy and also shop online. This implies that the popularity of offline marketing seems to be waning.

Marketing majorly entails having to reach out to your target audience at the most ideal time and place. This simply means that in this present time, they need to be met where they spend most of their time which happens to be the internet. Digital marketing can also be said to mean any type of marketing that takes place or is carried out online.

According to Wikipedia®, inbound marketing provides information, an improved customer experience and builds trust by offering potential customers information they value via company sponsored newsletters, blogs and entries on social media platforms. This strategy can be very effective when it comes to closing, converting and attracting of customers on the internet. However, there are still lots of people who can’t seem to understand what digital marketing is all about. We’re here to help.

Although there are some inbound marketers that may want to agree that both inbound marketing as well as digital marketing tend to be similar, there are a few differences which separate them.

What Actually Is The Meaning of Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is everything about online marketing. These could be your websites, online brochure, email marketing and lots of others. The range of tactics as well as assets that come under the digital marketing umbrella seems to be very broad. Digital marketers that are skilled understand how each of these tactics or asset does support their marketing goals.

Below is a rundown of various tactic and assets

Assets

  • Branding assets [fonts, logos]
  • Flip books and online brochures
  • Earned online coverage [ reviews, social media, and PR]
  • Social media channels [Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook]
  • Interactive tools
  • Infographics
  • whitepapers and eBooks
  • Blog posts
  • Your website

The tactics are –

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

This involves having to get your website optimized for it rank very high amongst search engines on the internet. It is aimed at increasing the number of persons that will visit your website over a given period of time through organic or free means.

Content Marketing

This entails promoting your marketing campaigns through the provision of useful contents. It is usually aimed towards generating of customers, increased brand awareness, lead generation and traffic growth.

Inbound Marketing

This is all about making use of an approach (full – funnel) so as to convert, attract and even close the sale via the use of contents online.

Social Media Marketing

This involves having to promote your brand across the various social media platforms on the internet such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and lots of others. There are 2 major aims for using this platform which are driving of traffic and getting to generate lead.

PPC [Pay – Per – Click]

This method involves having to generate traffic to websites that you are running through paid ads. You are charged every time that someone clicks on your ad. Google Adwords seem to be the most common amongst them all.

Affiliate Marketing

This type of marketing is based on your performance. This is because you are being paid commissions based on products that you promote. You get paid commission any time the product is bought.

Native Advertising

This form of advertising is based on contents. It always goes together with contents that are non – paid. A great example for this is the sponsored posts for BuzzFeed. There those who see social media advertising as being under this category. For instance, these could be Instagram advertising and Facebook advertising.

Marketing Automation

These are softwares or applications that have been programmed to speed the processes of digital marketing. Lots of repetitive tasks are being automated like social media, emails, advertising and various website processes.

Email Marketing

This is a method that companies make use of in getting to communicate with their target audiences. There are lots of things that emails are used for such as promotion of contents, giving of discounts, and having to get people direct to a particular website through clicking of links.

Online PR

This has to do with the practice of having to secure an online coverage using content – based sites, publication, and blogs. It is similar to the normal PR. However, the difference is that it takes place online.

The Difference between Inbound Marketing and Digital Marketing

Both of them appear similar most especially on the surface. They take place on the online platform and tend to create contents that online surfers consume over a given period of time.

Digital marketing is a term which doesn’t differentiate between marketing tactics that are push and pull. This is what is usually referred to as outbound or inbound methods. Both of these however, are still under the digital marketing umbrella.

Digital outbound methods aim to ensure that a message is being presented to many people in the online community. There isn’t any concern about whether such a message is welcomed or not. An example of this are those banner ads that you see on websites that are trying to force people to buy something even when they aren’t needed.

Digital inbound methods are the opposite as they tend to be targeted. Marketers make use of them to provide useful content that will add value to the lives of their target audiences. Blogs have proven to be a very simple and power inbound method that can bring results. Through its use, you will be able to take advantage of those terms that are being made use of by your customers.

Inbound marketing seems to be making use of the tools of digital marketing to close, convert and attract customers. Digital marketing is a general term that embraces all the forms of online marketing. This doesn’t have to do with whether they could be outbound or inbound.

Can Any Business Be Successful Using Digital Marketing? B2C and B2B

Digital marketing is suitable and ideal for every business. It doesn’t really matter what your company seems to be selling, online marketing entails having buyers’ personas built so as to get the needs of your audience identified. It also involves getting to create contents that are of high value online. This doesn’t imply that every business have to adopt the same digital marketing strategy.

B2B

In case your companies seem to be B2B, online lead generation is what your online marketing will be focused on. The major aim is for someone to be talking to a sales person. Due to this reason, your marketing strategy’s role will be getting to bring in customers to your site. You want them to turn into customers without the need of talking to any sales person.

Apart from your website, there are other platforms that you can make use of such as LinkedIn where people tend to spend most of their time on the internet.

B2C

In case your company happens to be B2C, then you will need to focus on having to bring people to your websites and make them become customers. This will depend on your product’s price points. There will not be any need of having to interact with a salesperson.

Due to this, your focus is like to be on leads. You will also be building the journey through which the buyer will visit your website and finally make the order. What this implies is that your product is going to be featuring high up on your website content as compared to what you have with other B2B businesses. Also, your Call To Actions will need to be very strong.

For those B2C outfits, channels such as Pinterest and Instagram are going to become very useful than platforms that are business focused.

UNIFY marketing & technology solutions can help you develop an effective digital marketing strategy! Let’s have coffee and discuss how we can help build your sales! Schedule some time with us TODAY! 419.740.1010 | info@UNIFYmts.com