A 7-Step Introduction to Digital Marketing

So, let’s just make this clear: this is a seven-step introduction for someone who does not know what digital marketing is, what it involves, and how to go about it. Oh, so you know what digital marketing is, but just want more clarification on what it involves? Or you’re a digital marketing pro, but want to go back and read about the basics? It’s for you too. So, basically, it’s for everyone. We’re going to break down digital marketing into seven easy steps, so you don’t have to.

Digital marketing is the promotion of anything, whether it be a brand, product, or person and by using the electronic media to do so. By electronic media, we mean search engines, social media, email, any form of online promotion.

This isn’t the traditional form of marketing that you may think of from years ago – it’s not printing out business cards or flyers, it’s not a commercial you’d see on tv, or a radio ad. For some reason, whenever I think of a marketing or an advertising agency, I think of Chandler Bing from Friends, trying to come up with a concept to sell those super cool shoes with the skates on the bottom. Yeah, it’s not that.

Digital marketing is generally broken up into seven different areas, or seven steps in order to make sure that every avenue is covered. While any of these seven steps on their own are better than nothing, ideally you want to be combining all of these areas in order to make sure that you’re optimizing on your digital marketing efforts. Here are the seven steps you need to be focusing on when it comes to digital marketing:

When looking for a digital marketing agency, you will likely come across the term SEO optimization a lot (and if you don’t, you should probably be looking somewhere else). SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing the content of your webpage for the purpose of receiving more traffic. This doesn’t apply to traffic in general, but receiving the quality traffic that you actually want to be receiving. SEO optimization is also for the purpose of enhancing your ranking on the Search Engines Results Page or SERPS, so your webpage is one of the first that comes up when a potential customer is looking for a product or service that you have to offer.

There is definitely some general skepticism over whether email marketing is one of the most successful forms of digital marketing. After all, you may be thinking about the sheer amount of promotions you receive in your own inbox, that go into another folder and are checked once in a blue moon. Well, that certainly isn’t always the case.Did you know that email has an average ROI of $38 for every $1 spent? That’s pretty impressive. There is a lot to be said for running promotions through email marketing, especially when they are personalized to your customer. Need more proof? 99% of consumers check their email every day, while “more than 50 percent of U.S. respondents check their personal email account more than 10 times a day, and it is by far their preferred way to receive updates from brands.”

The importance of social media marketing can absolutely not be denied when it comes to digital marketing. Not only is social media marketing generally free, it is incredibly effective when it comes to quickly and visually getting your brand’s message out there. Whether you’re promoting a product or even a business service, social media combines text and visuals in order to effectively promote your brand. Let’s look at the statistics – 3.2 billion users are on social media – that is the equivalent to 42% of the entire population. Hiring social media influencers to promote your product or business is also an extremely effective method of digital marketing, as 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations alone.

While PPC may not be everyone’s cup of tea, there is no doubt that it can be effective. Pay Per Click is used when your ad is placed on another company’s website. When your ad is clicked, it pays that company for the click, and redirects them to your website. This method of digital marketing can be risky, as there is no guarantee that you are going to be paying for clicks that will benefit you in any way, shape or form. However, if strategically placed, this can be an effective way of bringing in quality traffic.

We at Content Refined are big believers in content marketing – so much so, that we offer it in nearly all of our packages. Content marketing uses creative content such as blogs and videos to draw in customers and boost engagement. When it comes to implementing blog posts, we offer four, eight, and twelve post packages, that go hand in hand with our SEO optimization and our keyword research.

Search engine marketing can be confused with SEO optimization, although there is one big difference – SEM focuses on paid search marketing, while SEO optimization focuses on organic, unpaid search engine results. This means that when you use SEM, you are paying Google to display your ad in their search engine results (odds are, you have seen these ads time and time again while searching on Google yourself).

Affiliate marketing is the act of paying another company to promote your products or services on their website, and vice versa. This can be a surprisingly profitable form of digital marketing. Did you know that affiliate programs generate 15%–30% of all sales for advertisers? Not too shabby!

Successful digital marketing is not focused on just one, quick fix answer – in order to be successful, you must consider a combination of the above steps, and have the realization that successful digital marketing can take time. Visit us at Content Refined to learn more about digital marketing, and how we can help you get there.