DIGITAL MARKETING DEFINITION

Digital marketing is a system or technology which allows you to market your products or services using digital technology. Humans try to make things easy for themselves, so they thought about how to digitize marketing so as to make it easier, interactive, effective and efficient.

Traditional way and Digital Marketing

Before digital marketing came into limelight, there has always been a way marketing was done, which is the traditional way, which includes medium like:

• TV’s
• Radio
• Newspaper
• Billboards
• Flyers
• Magazines etc.

These methods are still being used today in the world of marketing, but it is losing its influence and efficiency in the present world because of its limitations, like:

1. It’s more expensive than digital marketing
2. It’s almost impossible to measure the results/success of your marketing strategy
3. Interaction and relationships between brands and its audience are very minimal.

Digital marketing leveraged on the limitations of the traditional way to make marketing more effective and efficient.

Some of the benefits of Digital Marketing over the Traditional way are:

1. Digital marketing allows for more interaction and relationship between brands and its audience
2. It’s much easier to measure the results/success of your marketing strategy
3. Digital campaigns have the ability to reach far more audience
4. It’s also possible to suit a digital campaign to reach a local audience

Digital marketing is a fast-growing area in the IT world, there are a lot of possibilities in the space due to the growth of the internet over the years.

Growth of the Internet

The number of internet users has escalated over the years. The table below shows the incredibly fast evolution/growth of the internet from 1995 to 2017:

Date	Number of Users	% of world population	Information source
December 1995	16 million	0.4%	Internet world stat
August 2001	513 million	8.6%	Internet world stat
December 2005	1,018 million	15.7%	Internet world stat
March 2011	2,095 million	30.2%	Internet world stat
December 2017	4,156 million	54.4%	Internet world stat

The table above shows that as at 2017, we have 54.4% of the world population on the internet, which is massive and huge, so imagine having products or services which is opened to half of the world population. An adage in my dialects says

“the sky is enough for all birds to fly”

So no matter your products or services you offer, in as much you building a positive brand, and your contents are top notch and you getting a fantastic feedback on your products and services, then the sky is not just your limit but the beginning in the internet world.

With the current emerging trending technology like AI (Artificial Intelligence) and blockchain technology, which are both powerful technologies that will change a lot in the world of internet, soon digital marketing will evolve with the new trends, which may reduce the influence of the current trends in digital marketing.

“there is also a new technology called the blockchain, check out our take on all the buzz around blockchain and what it is all about”

Possibilities in Digital Marketing

My goal is to make sure you understand the various possibilities in digital marketing. Let’s start by getting you up to speed with the components of digital marketing which would allow you to understand the various ways in digital marketing when learning it.

The one I consider the most important among the components is:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization):

SEO is simply bringing your site to the top of search engines organically. It sounds simple right?

It’s all about your site being in front of the right people, who are actively searching for your products or services online.

It’s also about driving traffic to your website organically, meaning you don’t pay to take your website to the top of search engines.

“I will be posting an article on SEO soon, where we would go deep on how important SEO is in digital marketing, the role it plays and the various techniques necessary to rank first on Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines”.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing):

Is one of the most efficient and effective way to grow your business on the internet in a very competitive marketplace.

SEM is the process of running ad. campaigns on search engines, so as to drive traffic to your website to enhance the process of marketing your products or service.

The only major difference between SEO and SEM is that SEO ranks on top of search engines organically while SEM requires you to pay to rank on top of search engines.

Social Media Marketing

Is the art of using social networking sites to attract/engage audience? Social media is like a town hall where people come to check on the families, catch up with friends, to make new friends, to share stories, even to discuss or educate themselves.

Social media allows businesses, individuals and organizations to connect and interact more with their audience and build a relationship with them.

It’s not just to attract or engage but also to drive business to the various ad campaigns that you convert on the social networking sites like:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Instagram
• LinkedIn e.t.c

Most social media platforms have a built in data analytic tool, that will allow businesses to keep track of their progress, success and engagement of ad campaigns.

Content Marketing

Am a huge fan of content marketing, I love and believe in it because I consider it, the body of digital marketing and without a body, there cannot be a head or foot.

Content marketing is centered around the creation, publishing and distribution of valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and ultimately to drive profitable customer action.

I believe that content marketing rules the digital marketing world, with a great, unique content marketing strategy you would be valuable and relevant in your niche, which will take you to the top of search engines.

With content marketing you can build a permanent source of traffic, leads and sales.

Inbound Marketing

“Inbound marketing is about creating valuable experiences that have a positive impact on people and your business. You attract prospects and customers to your website and blog through relevant and helpful content. Once they arrive you engage with them using conversational tools”

By creating content designed to address the problems and needs of your customers, you attract qualified prospects and build trust and credibility for your business.

Affiliate Marketing

Is the process of earning money as a result of promoting other people’s products or services. It’s always advisable and better to find products or services that connects or relates to your brand and earn commission from promoting them.

Email Marketing

Is one of the best ways to promote business online. Email marketing helps you connect with your audience to improve and promote your brand and increase sales. It is the use of emails to build and develop relationships with customers and potential customers.

Email marketing helps a business develop and maintain a relationship with a customer over time that results in sales and customer loyalty.

A lot can be done with emails:

• To share newsletter
• To sell products or services

There are a lot more components of digital marketing like:

• Mobile Marketing
• Display and video advertising
• Conversion Optimization

But these are some of the important components of digital marketing, it’s a wide subject, you can either specialize in one or specialize in all. But you can start by picking one and building yourself on it.

Conclusion

There are a lot of creative, amazing, beautiful and elegant contents that’s been on the internet lately that’s because of digital marketing, more solutions are been developed in the digital marketing space so as to make marketing easier effective and efficient.

Digital marketing is evolving every day, so that tells you it’s not late to hop the train, there are loads of opportunities in the space of digital marketing, many are making a career of it and many quit their jobs to pursue a career in the space.

Are you a student tired of waiting for allowance from your parent, a graduate seeking employment, an employee tired of working 12hrs in a day because of low income or because you are not passionate about what you are doing, or an employee who needs a side hustle then you are at the right place, here at indepthorb we would help you get started.

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