With the world becoming more reliant on the internet, the way people live has undergone a drastic change—communication, information consumption, buying, selling, and more. And this is true even for the art of marketing.
Businesses are now opting to conduct promotional activities online rather than offline. Many brands in the country have also foregone the use of traditional marketing techniques (like print, radio, TV, and more) for digital marketing, specifically social media marketing—considered to be one of its most popular forms.
They call upon social media management agencies in the Philippines to effectively market their products or services on popular social networks and their users.
But what is digital marketing exactly?
WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?
Digital marketing is a term used to describe the process of marketing products or services using digital channels. It often employs the same principles as traditional marketing but is considered a new way for companies to understand and reach consumers.
The key to successful digital marketing in the Philippines—or any other part of the world—is to find the right mix of channels that work for your business and your audience. Then, you need to create personalized messages that match the needs and interests of your target customers.
Benefits of Digital Marketing
There are a lot of reasons why you should invest in digital marketing, but here are a few of the most important ones:
- Reach a large audience: The internet is used by billions of people around the world, which means you have the potential to reach a very large audience with your digital marketing campaigns.
- Cost-effective: Digital marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies. With a well-planned campaign, you can reach your target audience without breaking the bank.
- Measurable results: Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing can be easily measured with tools like Google Analytics. This means you can track your campaign’s performance and make necessary changes to improve your results.
- Personalized messages: Digital marketing allows you to send highly personalized messages to your target audience. This is possible because you can segment your audience and target them with specific campaigns.
- Increased ROI: With the ability to track your results and make necessary changes, digital marketing typically has a higher ROI than traditional marketing methods.
HOW TO CREATE A DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
Your digital marketing strategy should be the foundation of your overall marketing efforts. It will help you define your goals, identify your target audience, and create a plan for how you can reach them with your marketing campaigns.
Here’s a basic outline of what your digital marketing strategy should include:
- Goal setting: What do you want to achieve with your digital marketing campaigns? Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or generate leads?
- Target audience: Who are you trying to reach with your digital marketing campaigns? Be as specific as possible when defining your target audience.
- Keywords: What keywords do you want to target with your digital marketing campaigns? These should be based on your research of what your target audience is searching for.
- Channels: What digital marketing channels will you use to reach your target audience? This could include search engine optimization, paid advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, and more.
- Budget: How much are you willing to spend on your digital marketing campaigns? You’ll need to set a budget for each of the channels you plan on using.
- Timeline: When do you want to launch your digital marketing campaigns? And when do you want to see results? Be realistic with your timeline and give yourself enough time to see results.
After learning how to create a digital marketing strategy, let’s take a look at the different types of digital marketing.
TYPES OF DIGITAL MARKETING
There are a lot of different digital marketing strategies out there, but here are a few of the most commonly employed or used:
- Search engine optimization (SEO): SEO is the process of optimizing your website and content to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). If you aren’t too knowledgeable about this, you can ask for help from SEO services in the Philippines.
- Pay-per-click advertising (PPC): PPC is a type of paid advertising where you pay for each click on your ad. This is a popular way to drive website traffic and generate leads.
- Social media marketing (SMM): SMM is the process of using social media platforms to promote and sell products or services.
- Content marketing: Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. A creative agency from the Philippines will come in handy for your business if you don’t know how to produce your content.
- Email marketing: Email marketing is the process of sending messages to potential and current customers via email. This is a great way to stay in touch with your audience and promote your products or services.
MEASURING YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING SUCCESS
Keeping tabs and tracking the metrics of your brand’s marketing strategy online is important in determining whether what you’re doing is paying off or not.
To effectively measure your digital marketing strategy’s success, you should focus on the following metrics:
- Website traffic: This is a good metric to track if your goal is to increase traffic or visits to your site. You can track website traffic with tools like Google Analytics. Website development in the Philippines is booming so you won’t have a problem finding an expert to help you out with this one.
- Leads: Keeping an eye on this metric is essential if your goal is to generate leads. You can track leads with a lead capture form on your website or with a CRM system.
- Sales: Tracking this will be ideal if your goal is to increase sales. You can track sales with a CRM system or by tracking the conversion rate of your website.
- Engagement: If your goal is to increase brand awareness or build relationships with your customers, this metric should always be on your radar. You can track engagement with social media platforms or by measuring the click-through rate of your email marketing campaigns.
Now that you know how to measure digital marketing success, you’re ready to get started. But before you launch your first campaign, there are a few more things you need to know. Namely, the different digital marketing channels you can use to reach your target audience.
Let’s take a look at them!
MOST POPULAR DIGITAL MARKETING CHANNELS
As we mentioned, there are a lot of different digital marketing channels you can use to reach your target audience. But not all channels are created equal—some might be more ideal for your business than others.
To decide which channels you should use, you need to consider three things:
- Your target audience: Where do they spend their time online?
- Your budget: How much are you willing to spend on your digital marketing campaigns?
- Your goals: What do you want to achieve with your digital marketing campaigns?
These three factors should be your basis in choosing the right digital marketing channel, which includes the following:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
SEO is the process of optimizing a website for Google search to earn higher web traffic levels and improve the visibility of the site. SEO techniques can be complex and time-consuming, however, they can be very effective in increasing the rank of your site in search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising:
PPC is a form of digital marketing in which businesses pay a fee every time their ad is clicked. PPC ads can be effective in driving traffic to a website, but they can also be expensive, and the results can vary greatly depending on the keywords used and the quality of the ad.
- Social Media Marketing:
Social media marketing is the process of using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn to promote a business or product. Social media marketing can be an effective way to reach a large audience, but it requires a good strategy and regular effort to be successful.
- Email Marketing:
Email marketing is a form of digital marketing that involves sending marketing messages via email. While email marketing can be effective in reaching customers and promoting a product or service, you should be careful because it tends to be spammy.
- Content Marketing:
Content marketing is a form of digital marketing that focuses on creating and distributing high-quality content to attract and retain customers. Content marketing is an effective way to build an audience and promote a product or service, but it requires a significant amount of time and effort to produce quality content.
- Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate marketing is a form of digital marketing in which businesses promote products or services on behalf of another company in exchange for a commission.
- Display Advertising:
Display advertising is a form of digital marketing that involves placing ads on websites, apps, or other online platforms. Though it can reach a large audience, it makes it difficult to track the effectiveness of a display advertising campaign.
- Influencer Marketing:
Building trust with your audience is critical for brands. However, consumers can be distrustful of ads on certain digital marketing channels, such as paid media. Influencer marketing can overcome this challenge by getting your product or service into the hands of an influencer who the target community already trusts. This builds valuable brand equity.
- Referral Marketing:
Referral marketing is an effective digital marketing strategy since people are more likely to trust recommendations from friends, family, and online peers. In fact, 93% of consumers say that online reviews impact their purchasing decisions.
Additionally, referral marketing typically generates 3-5 times higher conversion rates than other channels. Finally, consumers are 71% more likely to make a purchase when they first see a social media recommendation.
MOST POPULAR DIGITAL MARKETING TOOLS
Because digital marketing has become somewhat – if not already- a pillar of marketing in today’s world, many companies have developed tools that businesses can use to ease the implementation and handling of their various digital marketing tactics.
There are a lot of different digital marketing tools out there, but here are a few of the most trusted and potent ones out there:
- Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to track your website’s traffic and performance.
- Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a social media management platform that allows you to track all your social media channels in one place.
- MailChimp: MailChimp is a popular email marketing platform that allows you to easily create and send newsletters, email campaigns, and more.
- Canva: Canva is a free online design platform that makes it easy to create beautiful graphics for your website, social media, and more.
- Buffer: Buffer is a social media management platform that allows you to schedule and publish social media posts easily.
CONCLUSION
Digital marketing is a process of using online channels to promote and sell products or services. The goal is to reach a specific audience with personalized messages that convert them into customers or fans.
There are a lot of different digital marketing channels and tools you can use to reach your target audience. But before you launch your first campaign, you must create a digital marketing strategy.
Your digital marketing strategy should include your goals, target audience, budget, and the channels you plan on using. Once you have your strategy in place, you can start launching digital marketing campaigns.
And don’t forget to track your results! Measure the success of your digital marketing campaigns with metrics like website traffic, leads, sales, and engagement. This will help you make the necessary changes to improve your results.
Follow the tips in this guide and you’ll be well on your way to creating a successful digital marketing campaign.