They talk to you about digital marketing, online marketing, digital marketing and you don’t understand anything?
Don’t worry, here you will find everything you need to know about digital marketing and how you can implement it in your company to choose the strategies that work best to sell online.
Maybe you are thinking that digital marketing is full of many terms and technicalities that are difficult to understand, and you feel a bit overwhelmed or overwhelmed and you prefer to procrastinate and leave the subject for later, right?
Do not worry! That is why we have written this complete guide to digital marketing where you will learn all the different strategies about:
- The different types of digital marketing strategies that exist.
- The most common terms of online marketing.
- All about digital advertising.
- Types of social networks.
- Social media strategies.
- Search engine optimization or SEO.
- Even how to make a digital marketing plan.
- Digital marketing trends.
- And much more.
What is the digital marketing?
Digital marketing, also known as online marketing or digital marketing, is basically the use of online strategies to give visibility and promote a business through different digital platforms on the internet . That is, put yourself in front of your potential buyers.
Marketing 2.0 includes all the strategies of promotion, attraction and generation of sales through the internet. In this way, by having a great reach, you will reach potential clients to whom you can sell your products or services. Isn’t that cool?
Origin of digital marketing or digital marketing
At first, web 1.0 emerged, where Internet users could only limit themselves to looking for information and storing it. Therefore, those who had control were the owners of websites and pages. However, there the foundations of digital marketing were laid , since you could promote your business on the internet.
Although, it wasn’t until 1993 and 2000 that digital marketing got its official recognition. Well, at this point, the advances of the most popular companies allowed interaction and communication between users and businesses.
In this way, web 2.0, a digital environment for two-way communication (Internet users and companies create and share information) is opening up. However, some consider that today there is a web 3.0 and 4.0.
Types of Digital Marketing
To get the most out of your digital marketing strategies you must know the different types of online marketing that exist.
Below we will explain each one, classified according to its focus and purpose. Without further ado, we will talk about 5 types of digital marketing that cannot be missed to achieve your business objectives.
Content marketing
It focuses on creating and disseminating valuable content for an audience and thus gaining authority and trust from them.
Therefore, your goal with content marketing is to provide valuable information in the investigative process that people carry out before making a purchase.
Inbound Marketing
It’s a philosophy for marketing, some call it the evolution of digital marketing . This methodology puts the customer at the center and is responsible for understanding the way in which consumers buy.
Then strategies are implemented to attract and accompany them throughout their purchase process and turn them into clients and promoters of your company.
Relational marketing
This type of marketing is intended to create and strengthen a relationship with your customers . So, in addition to having a quality product or service, you have to provide an unforgettable experience to each client.
Conversational marketing
Focused on fostering conversations between the brand and the user to boost sales and deliver an effective message to customers. At the same time, it aims to automate communication to facilitate interaction.
Permission marketing
It is based on asking your prospect or client for permission to send information from the company. That way you are not intrusive and avoid SPAM. On the other hand, when a customer agrees to receive content, they show interest and are more likely to read it.
In this article we go deeper into the different types of digital marketing that exist and how you can get the most out of your strategies.
Main strategies of digital marketing
The digital marketing strategies are a set of digital tactics that will help the company achieve its business objectives through internet.
As a marketing professional, you must know the main online marketing strategies to implement the ones that will give the company the best results.
Next, we tell you the main strategies that are applied in digital marketing.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound is a type of marketing but also a strategy. It is based on creating a pleasant experience for each person who approaches your brand to add value in each interaction and turn them into a customer.
Attraction marketing is characterized by developing in 4 stages throughout its process:
Attract strangers with relevant information.
Convert visitors to your content into leads.
Close new sales and obtain clients for the company.
Delight your customers and build loyalty to the brand.
Content Marketing
It is a strategy focused on creating and distributing valuable content to attract an audience. It should be clarified that by referring to valuable content, it is about sharing information that helps to solve or solve any problem that our target audience has.
Thanks to platforms like Google, YouTube and others, people can find your content and thus discover the brand . This means that if you want to apply this online marketing strategy, you must focus mainly on the consumer.
In a good content strategy, you must identify which are the topics that have the most searches on the internet by the people you want to reach.
As you can see, content marketing aims to deliver high-value content to an audience. Well, the purpose of this is to generate trust and establish a relationship with the user who finds your content on the internet.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
The search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your website for search engines crawl your site. In this way, Google, Bing or Yahoo index the information on your pages and show it to the public.
The objective of SEO is to position your pages in the first positions of the search results and thus receive a large number of visits from a target audience.
The main tasks of the SEO specialist are aimed at improving two aspects of your website: authority and relevance. In addition, the actions for search engine optimization are divided into two:
- SEO On-Page (within your site)
- SEO Off page (off your site)
Online advertising
The digital advertising is one in which used platforms on internet advertising to fulfill its advocacy role. However, unlike traditional advertising, it is characterized by:
- Be easy to create and implement, as you only need a network connection to access the platforms.
- You can see precise data about the performance of your ads (impressions, clicks, etc.).
- It is flexible and adapts to the needs of your business.
In digital marketing you will find different ways in which you can promote your company . Choosing between one and the other will depend on; the budget, the content you want to share and the goals you want to achieve.
Let’s see below some types of digital advertising with which you can promote your business:
SEM
SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing or Search Engine Marketing. When we talk about SEM, we refer to the ad campaigns that are carried out in search engines . The same search engines provide us with their platforms to carry out these paid campaigns .
Native advertising
It is a form of online advertising that is integrated with the content of the web. Therefore, it is not intrusive and does not interfere with navigation.
Social media advertising
You can also advertise on social media where the ads are mixed with the content that users see. However, it depends on the platform you choose to create one or another type of message.
Social media marketing
When we talk about marketing in social networks we refer to all the activities and strategies that are carried out through social media platforms such as: facebook, instagram, twitter, LinkedIn, among others, in order to publicize your brand to a target audience.
Your business can use social media to sell more, but beware! These social channels are basically a medium where people seek to socialize, entertain themselves and interact with other people, they are not looking for someone to buy from.
However, the main focus of social media marketing is to build communities around your brand , and spread your message to be shared and viralized in order to amplify your reach.
Let’s see below which are the social networks where you should have a digital presence:
Facebook:
It is the number one network in the world, and its options allow you to have a company page. In addition, its functions allow you to distribute and promote content. Being on Facebook is essential to increase the visibility of your brand.
Youtube:
In its beginnings it was not considered a social network, rather it was treated as a “Google of videos”.
However, its current features allow creators and people to interact. One of its advantages is that you can position your videos and receive visits over time.
Instagram:
Instagram belongs to Facebook and has grown rapidly compared to the others. It is a platform designed to generate impact with visual content. In it you can share fleeting moments and use the hashtags to generate a great reach.
Linked in:
A social network for professionals, aimed at the corporate world and business. It is a great option for networking and establishing business relationships.
Highly recommended if you are an executive and looking for strategic alliances with other organizations.
Or if in any case your target audience is B2B (Business to Business) you can connect with decision makers.
Twitter:
The quintessential medium for spreading news and updates. On Twitter the content is very short, but you can develop targeted strategies for customer service.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a mobile messaging application for smartphones. Considered a social network for sending and disseminating images and messages for a specified time. That is, the messages disappear.
Snapchat is a social network that has been very well received by the public. Therefore, at the company level it is an opportunity to offer exclusive content to users.
Email Marketing
It is a communication strategy that uses email to establish direct communication with each prospect or client in a database.
We can consider email marketing as an integral strategy for your brand , because through it you not only acquire customers.
You can also automate support team functions, and develop loyalty programs. Of course, to implement it you will need an email marketing tool that allows the sending of automated emails.
Types of email for your campaigns
There are different types of emails that you can send in your email marketing campaigns . Each type of email will depend on the objectives you have set and the intention you have with your contact base. Let’s look at some types of email marketing that you can use in your strategies.
- Newsletter.
- Informational emails.
- Nutrition emails.
- Promotional emails.
- Transactional emails.
As you can see, email marketing goes beyond sending emails without any context to a contact base. You must plan your strategy and measure the results to assess what you can improve.
Advantages of Digital Marketing or Online Marketing
Deciding to implement digital marketing in your company is an opportunity to expand your business.
However, there are other advantages that make online marketing a means of achieving business goals.
Measure your strategies in real time
Have you ever wondered how you can measure the results of a campaign on radio, TV, magazines or billboards? Well, it is almost impossible, in addition, when you already have the results report, everything passes and there is no time to adjust any action.
In digital marketing everything can be measured thanks to the sophisticated tools that are used. You can measure from the click of a publication, visits to the website, to the sale of a product in a virtual store.
Measuring the performance of your online marketing actions will allow you to make decisions in real time and adjust your strategies so that they have better results.
Cheaper than other media
Implementing and developing digital marketing strategies is cheaper than advertising on television, radio or print media. Of course, as your company grows and your campaigns are more complex, the investment will be greater. This means that you can adapt each strategy to the situation and budget of your brand.
Better segment your audience
The digital marketing tools will allow increased exposure towards people who need to reach. The platforms collect data on the activity and behavior of users on the internet.
This information called “data” must be analyzed and thus, develop a more assertive communication . For example, with online advertising you can choose which cities or people to show your ads to. Then you can create a message that suits their needs and problems.
Have a community around your brand
When people interact with your content and identify with the company, a community is created. These online communities help spread the company’s image and its information to reach other people.
In addition, a community transmits trust and support to those who are meeting your brand for the first time.
Customization of strategies
Each strategy and tactic can be adapted to the situation of your clients. This means that digital marketing can be applied to deliver the right message, to the right person at the right time.
Digital Marketing Glossary
Do you think that digital marketing is full of concepts and technicalities? Well, you are not wrong! And you can become overwhelmed with all the terminology that exists in the world of digital marketing.
But you need to know this terminology to understand how digital marketing works . Let’s see some concepts below:
Website
In Spanish, “website”, y es no más is a virtual place on the internet that stores content about your company, products and services. That simple
When you start with digital marketing and want to increase the reach of your company to reach new customers, the first thing you have to invest in is the design and development of a website.
Lead
A lead represents someone who has gone from being an unknown user on your website to being a contact in your database. That is, you acquire their contact details because they have been left in a registration form in exchange for information about your products and services.
Lead magnet
It is the material and the promise of value that you advertise in order to attract leads. The lead magnet is what you give in exchange for their data (ebooks, technical guides, reports, etc.).
CTA (Call to Action)
It is a button, image, text or hyperlink that invites whoever reads it to take a specific action. Therefore, it is an essential element to take the client through the different stages of the buyer’s journey.
Landing Page
Also called a capture page, it is a page designed to convert visitors into leads. It is the website that contains the form and the value proposition (lead magnet).
Conversion
In digital marketing, it refers to getting a user to perform a certain action. For example, that a visitor becomes a lead or that a follower becomes a customer.
Sales funnel
It is the process designed to convert your website visitors into customers. The funnel is used to refer to the number of people in each stage. Well, as progress is made, users decrease.
Lead nurturing
Lead nurturing or cultivation of leads is a technique used for the maturation and nurturing of cold leads in a business. In addition, it is responsible for retaining the loyalty of those who are already customers and encouraging them to buy back.
Lead scoring
Lead scoring is a marketing automation technique that is responsible for classifying your contacts according to their profile and the level of interest in your products or services. The purpose of lead scoring is to help you prioritize those leads that are already ready for a purchase.
How to implement a Digital Marketing strategy?
Implementing a digital marketing strategy in your company requires skills and knowledge. Therefore, having the support of a team of professionals in digital marketing is essential. Some of the professional profiles you need to develop a digital marketing project are:
Digital strategist.
Web designer and developer.
Expert in means of payments.
Content manager.
There are other profiles with different specialties, but this will depend on the size of the project and the budget.
Now, to have this team of professionals, you have two alternatives:
1. Hire an in-house team (within the company). However, you must have a high budget to pay their payroll. In addition, it is important to know that you must wait for the team to adapt and start generating the expected results.
2. Hire an agency specialized in digital marketing . Many companies choose this option, as hiring a digital strategy service is more favorable for their budget versus having a payroll. The agency has the experience and professionals for the development of digital marketing projects . Thus, the delivery of results is faster than the first option.
Now that you know the type of professionals and specialists you need, let’s start with the steps necessary to implement a digital marketing strategy in your company:
1. Define the Buyer Persona
The first step in your digital marketing strategy is to define your buyer persona, for this you must interview your current or potential clients.
But, you ask yourself , what is the ideal buyer person or client? It is a semi-real representation, so you must include all its characteristics. To consolidate it, consider the following:
- Name
- Location
- Age
- What did you study or what was your preparation?
- What is your job role?
- What are your goals?
- What are your problems?
2. Identify and define communication channels
In which media is your ideal buyer? Where can you get their attention? It is vital to have a website with a blog where you publish educational content.
Also, create the necessary social profiles, that is, where you can really interact with your buyer persona. On the other hand, establish which channels you will communicate through: e-mail, text message, etc.
3. Create a content offer or lead magnet
Now, you must awaken the interest of users with a value proposition. This material is usually free and can be an ebook, video, guide or mini-course.
The main characteristic of your lead magnet is that it must help solve a problem that your clients have.
4. Design a landing page or capture page
Create the capture page, define the questions that the form will have where users will leave their data. Add visual and textual elements that explain and persuade the user to get the lead magnet.
5. Create a strategy to drive traffic to the website
When we talk about traffic, we mean the number of visits your website receives. The mere fact of creating it does not mean that users immediately attend.
Therefore, you need to design a strategy that attracts people and discover your content offering.
6. Design an email marketing strategy
When users deposit their data, the sending of your material must be immediate.
But you can’t stop communication, you need to design and create messages to reinforce the relationship with your contact base.
That way, you will get your prospect to advance at each stage of the sales funnel and you can finally convert them into a customer.
In this post we show you how to make a digital marketing strategy step by step so that you have excellent results.
How to make a Digital Marketing plan?
Many companies launch into digital marketing by creating profiles on social networks, investing in digital guidelines, creating content on a blog without a clear purpose. All of this is going to end in a waste of time and money.
Before starting all the actions, you need a digital marketing plan . That is why we list below what this document should contain.
1. You must have a defined business model
A business model is a tool prior to the business plan. It consists of clearly defining what you are going to offer your customers, how you are going to do it, who you are going to sell it to, how you are going to sell it and how you are going to generate income. If you don’t have a business model defined, you can rely on the Model Business Canvas tool.
2. Make a preliminary analysis of your business
Does your business already have a website? Have you created the social networks of your company? It is necessary to know what elements you have to start in digital marketing. Here you can do a SWOT analysis to evaluate the current situation of the business and the business environment.
3. Identify your Buyer Persona
Take into account your buyer persona and all the features that characterize it. Remember that from this representation, you will be able to design highly personalized strategies to attract your ideal buyer.
4. Define your marketing goals
You need to know where you want to go and to achieve it, the best way is to set smart goals. Spend enough time to create specific, relevant, realistic, and measurable goals.
5. KPI’s to measure your objectives
KPI’s are the key performance indicators to know if our strategy is working. You can interpret it as each data or figure that allows you to show the result of the actions carried out.
For example, Website visits, number of leads, number of prospects, number of sales, among others.
6. Define your strategies
Choose the most appropriate strategy to increase web traffic, capture leads and establish communication with them to convert them into customers.
7. Assign a marketing budget
How much money do you plan to allocate to achieve these goals? To define a digital marketing budget , you must analyze the complexity of the strategy and the needs of the project (personnel, platforms, advertising).
One recommendation is that the marketing budget should be defined based on the expected growth of the company.
8. Choose the social networks in which you will have a presence
Investigate what information your audience prefers and in which social networks this information triumphs.
9. Select the marketing tools you will use
There are different platforms on the market, your choice will depend on your strategy. Some are paid and will represent a cost, however, you should see it as an investment, remember that they will save you time.
10. Analysis plan
All digital marketing actions must be measured to know if you are really meeting your objectives. For this, use the data provided by each platform and analyze it. It also defines how often you will evaluate the performance of the campaigns.
Digital marketing tools
There are different digital marketing tools for different purposes. The choice of one or the other will depend on the complexity of your project. Here are the most popular and functional ones for your online marketing strategy.
SEO tools
These tools provide you with information to optimize your website and achieve greater visibility on search engine results pages. Some SEO tools are:
Keyword search tools
Keywords are those terms that people use to search the internet. If your website contains them, they are more likely to find you in search results.
Therefore, researching and including these keywords or keywords on your website is vital to guarantee organic traffic. Some of the tools that you can use in this task are:
Tools for technical SEO
It is the area of SEO that is mostly done by a web developer. It focuses on modifying aspects such as the source code, configuration and server options. Here we find:
Tools for backlink analysis
Backlinks are the hyperlinks that other sites create to yours, usually for reference. When a high authority website creates one, Google recognizes it as a vote of confidence. However, when the opposite occurs, these links can affect positioning. These tools help you monitor backlinks:
Analysis tools
These platforms allow you to evaluate the data and verify the performance of your digital marketing strategy.
Metric analysis
They are focused on informing about the interaction of users with your website.
Google Analytics Collect the behavior of users on your website. For example, number of visits, where they come from, most viewed pages, among others.
Search Console Its purpose is to inform you about the performance of your site on the results pages.
Competitor analysis
Monitoring what your competition is doing is important in digital marketing. Thus finding new opportunities in the market. You can even learn some tactic and adapt it to your business.
Tools to manage social networks
They are platforms that allow you to manage social networks from one place . It should be noted that they all fulfill similar automation tasks. These are the most popular and highest rated tools.
Automation tools
With these tools, you will be able to automate tasks, connect and coordinate applications, carry out tests on your website, create landing pages, carry out email marketing campaigns, manage social networks, in addition to automating the execution of your online marketing strategies from a single place.
Some of the most popular marketing automation software are:
Design tools
These tools allow you to carry out the graphic design part, edit the images that we publish on social networks and your website. Some more popular tools are:
Email Marketing Tools
They are intended for mass mailing of emails. We can find some like:
Digital Marketing Trends for 2021
Follow these trends in digital marketing closely , this way you can focus your efforts on strategies that will give results. Consider the ones you consider necessary in your online marketing plan for 2021 .
- Chatbots : automating communication with your customers reduces expenses in the support area. In addition, your client is happy to receive an agile and effective response.
- Video marketing : multimedia content favors interaction with the user. The video complements your message and generates interaction with users.
- Voice Search : More and more people are using voice commands to query search engines. Understanding how to adapt your keywords will be essential to improve your organic positioning.
- Mobile first : 52% of the world’s traffic comes from mobile devices . Therefore, all the content and design has to be thought of so that it is displayed without problems on these devices.
- Influencer marketing : the objective of companies is to generate engagement with influencer campaigns. You can no longer be guided by vanity metrics like “followers or likes.” You should focus on analyzing the impact you can achieve.
Digital Marketing Agencies
The digital marketing agencies are companies that specialize in providing solutions to other companies to boost growth and profitability. So the first step in the process of working with an agency is that they first understand your needs.
The better you can describe the needs of your business in terms of website, advertising, social networks, graphic design, among others, the more successful will be the proposals that a digital marketing agency can offer you.
You must also understand your budget and what you are willing to invest, understanding that the return on investment (ROI) is the best way to measure the effectiveness of the money invested in each of the strategies.
With traditional marketing, companies made large investments in advertising without having a clue of its effectiveness.
Current tools allow agencies to monitor and obtain data in real time in order to provide detailed and accurate information to make decisions.
In itself, a successful digital marketing agency should offer you:
- Personalized attention, conversations and meetings before hiring.
- Constant advice throughout the process.
- Proposal of a concrete and solid strategy.
- Generation of effective actions and campaigns.
- Information monitoring and presentation of results.
In short, a good agency will be able to offer you multiple solutions, which both individually and integrated, will begin to generate positive results.
Mainly in the marketing area, but this success will spread to the rest of the departments, especially influencing sales.
Conclusions
If your company’s goal is to grow and expand into other markets, seriously consider digital marketing as part of your strategies to generate a competitive advantage .
Keep in mind that if you do not have the time and resources to structure an exclusive department for digital marketing in the company , you have the option of working with a digital marketing agency who will be in charge of developing the digital strategies that your company needs.
Now that you know everything about digital marketing and how to implement it in your company, we invite you to take the next step, and start developing your digital marketing plan to make your company more competitive.
