What is Digital Marketing and let's talk about its advantages?

In broader terms, digital marketing is the online marketing which is delivered through various digital channels such as emails, websites, social media platforms, web applications, mobile applications etc. In simple terms, digital marketing is considered a process of marketing the services and products through the various electronic means. 

In the recent times, due to the entire technological advancements, there has been a substantial increase in the usage of the term ‘Digital Marketing’ and the usage of the services of digital marketing. Various reports and surveys which were conducted in the past, have all given a common analysis. It says, the majority of the Indians today have smart phones with decent internet connectivity. People today feel the need to stay connected with each other because it is possible to connect with anyone and everyone with just a click of a button. This leads to increase of the social media usage and internet usage as a whole. 

Marketers and advertisers are today are taking digital marketing very seriously. No one in this competitive world wants to not grab an opportunity. Making an online presence today for any business has become the need of the hour. To survive the cut throat competition, it has become essential and not optional to get your hands perfectly on digital marketing. 

The main categories of the online digital marketing are: 

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 

In broad terms, SEO which is the most used tool of digital marketing is considered to be the way of actually ranking super high on the system of search engine in the ‘Organic Listing’ or ‘Unpaid Section’. Converting the definition into layman term, SEO is considered to be a direct or an indirect process of actually making sure to curate and deliver a high-quality content. This content helps the search engines to list it amongst the top results of searches. 

Their key focus of SEO is to make use of the relevant keywords which matches the content topic. In the process of SEO, there are three main parties involved:

A: There is the writer

B: Search Engine

C: The searcher 

2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) 

In simple terms, Search Engine Marketing is considered a process of gaining traction and traffic, which could be through paid and unpaid efforts. Search Engine Marketing, is commonly known as ‘Search Marketing’ is considered as the umbrella term which consist of SEM & SEO. Currently, Google Ads are considered to be one of the most popular and used paid search platforms which is used by the marketers 

3. Content Marketing 

Generally, when we hear content marketing, our mind pops up about Facebook, Blogs, YouTube videos, Twitter. Content Marketing is all about ‘Storytelling’. As long as it has been, humans loved to tell stories. We generally tend to get attracted to stories which have a great meaning attached to them. Content Marketing is a strategy which primarily deals with ‘Maintaining Strong Relationships’ with the potential audience. The main focus of a content marketing strategy is to deliver very high-quality content. Content Marketing is a strong digital marketing tool, which helps in attracting the valuable resources through a planned approach. 

4. Social Media Marketing (SMM) 

Just similar to SEO, Social media marketing is free of cost and is organic in nature. Currently no doubt about the fact that social media is the need of the hour. There are various social media platforms today, such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. which has millions of users globally. There is no doubt about the fact that organically trying to market the social media accounts take added efforts and time. However, in the long run, building a detailed strategy does help to get organic likes and follows. Hence, for this reason it is always better to approach a professional to carry out the Social Media Marketing services. 

5. Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) 

PPC is considered to be one of the most effective tools of digital marketing today. PPC is a very simple digital marketing model where the advertisers are required to pay a fee for each of the time their ad gets a click. In simple term, this model involves buying of the views and visits to the website, instead of earning the views in an organic manner. Search engine advertising, no doubt one of the most know form of PPC today. It basically allows all of the advertisers out there to go and bid for the placement of their ads in a sponsored search engine. The core here is the ‘Keyword’ as optimum use of the keyword is extremely important. 

6. Affiliate Marketing 

As the name suggests, affiliate marketing is considered to be an indirect marketer. In this digital marketing tool, the original owner pays or outsources its promotions to an expert individual or a business to promote all the products and services mentioned in the website. Affiliate marketing is also known as performance-based marketing. In this model, the business is supposed to reward the affiliates in terms of payment for any visitor or customer viewing the website of the business. 

7. Email Marketing 

It is considered as one of the oldest tools of digital marketing. In simple terms, Email Marketing is the process of sending out regular email in terms of varied contents to the potential customers. This digital marketing tool focuses on playing on the masses. The content used here is served for the purpose to general traffic on the website, generate leads or get sign ups on the product. However, the content used in Email marketing should be unique and captivating. The content should also be mixed with graphics, images, GIF’s to make it look more attractive.